Jack White’s Third Man Records is doing a great project to help students born after the age of vinyl, learn about analog recording and about the full vinyl record experience. I was fortunate to be asked to write about it and you can find my column in the Huffington Post. Please check it out.
Tom was one of three co-hosts of the American Music Awards, January 30, 1995. The big winners that night were — are you ready? — Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Babyface, Toni Braxton, Boyz II Men, Reba, Garth, Alabama, Tim McGraw, Snoop Dogg, Nirvana, Counting Crows, Prince and Led Zeppelin. And, I don’t think Tom owns the house in Wales any more. How do you think the family would feel about the grandchildren being called “American?”
(Although they are entitled to dual citizenship.)
It’s Not Unusual: Jones’ role as awards host is only natural
Bob Thomas, Associated Press, January 25, 1995
Queen Latifah, Tom Jones and Lorrie Morgan hosted the 1995 American Music Awards.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — One of the hosts of Monday’s American Music Awards broadcast was playing to screaming crowds before most of the nominees were born.
That’s Welshman Tom Jones, an entertainer who refuses to join the Over-the-Hill Gang.
Jones teams up with country music’s Lorry Morgan and rapper Queen Latifah to emcee the three-hour ABC broadcast of the 22nd annual awards, which cover the full gamut of popular music — country, soul, heavy metal, hard rock, rhythm and blues, rap, hip hop, you name it.
Jones has been there, done much of it. He has refused to become a museum piece, stuck in the nostalgia of the ’60s. Oh, he’ll still sing the oldies for the grandmothers who once threw their panties onstage. But he also updates hepertoire.
His re-emergence began in 1988 when he recorded the Prince tune Kiss with the British avant-pop group, the Art of Noise. It restored Jones to the charts and his video won an MTV award.
“Since I made Kiss and got records back in the top 40 again, the general public is rediscovering me,” he said.
Based in Los Angeles since 1976, Jones plays 200 dates a year, averaging 10 months on the road. Doesn’t that get a bit tired for a 54 year-old?
“No,” he said emphatically. “Being on stage is physical, but it’s not as physical as being an athlete. I can still do what I’ve always done.”
“I have a guy here in the house in Los Angeles, a gym in my house in Wales. I’m in there most days, trying to keep it together.”
Doesn’t he get tired of singing It’s Not Unusual and other chestnuts after 30 years?
“No, I don’t, because the audience keeps them alive,” he insisted. “I don’t sing them in the shower anymore. If I was in a club and they asked me to get up, I would prefer to do stuff that I wouldn’t ordinarily do — a blues song or a country song.”
“But if I go to see somebody like Jerry Le Lewis, whom I’ve always liked, and he didn’t do Great Balls of Fire, I’d say, ‘What’s up?’ I feel the same way. The big hits I always keep in. Delilah is always there, Unusual is always there, The Green Green Grass of Home, What’s New Pussycat? the big ones are always there.
“It’s funny, because I have a new album out. I do most of the album onstage, plus the old songs, and they all seem to work. I slip the old songs in amongst the new ones. The old songs are still powerful; they don’t seem dated to me.”
He never tired of travel, he claims, “except if I get physically tired. I’m just getting over a cold now. I had a bit of bronchitis when I got back from a British tour…I never take long periods of time off. After about two weeks, I want to get back.”
Thomas Jones [sic] Woodward has been on the move ever since he left his hometown of Pontypridd in 1963. Songwriter Gordon Mills convinced the young singer to try his luck in London with the name Tom Jones, cashing in on the popular Albert Finney movie. Mills and Les Reed wrote It’s Not unusual for him, and that’s all it took.
He received a Grammy as Best Newcomer in 1965, and tours of Europe and America consolidated his fame. His tight pants, gyrating hips and adoring fans launched a thousands quips by TV comedians.
This is Tom Jones became a TV hit in Britain, and an ABC show ran from 1969 to 1971. Jones became a fixture in the Nevada sin spots and in concerts around the world.
And the beat goes on.
“In the ’70s, I was doing a lot of shows in the States, things like Madison Square Garden and the L.A. Forum, 20,000-seaters,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Labour government got in and the taxes went nuts. So I thought, ‘I’m making my living basically in America and then taking the money back to Britain for no reason, just for staying there a couple of months.’
“So I settled here, my son married an American girl, and I’ve got two American grandchildren.”
Five and a half years ago, Jones and wife Linda were staying in a Cardiff hotel during a British tour. “It seems strange staying in a hotel when we come back to where we lived,” she remarked.
So they bought a house and periodically return to his roots in the hills of Wales.
If you haven’t answered, please don’t forget the TJI Question of the Month in the post below. Thanks to those who have already answered. We will have a good video, I bet.
