Fan Fare, What's New, Pussycat?
Here’s where you’ll find TJ photos and stories that don’t fit into any other categories. It is, as its name says, just for fans — and, hopefully, for fun.
Jon Langford? “Tom Jones Levitation?” An Oddity for the TJ Fan
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006OK, we admit it, we’re waaaay behind the times when it comes to certain music and musicians. Example? Here goes:
In 1998, Chicago-based Welsh-born musician Jon Langford (who played with the Mekons and Waco Brothers) did an album called Skull Orchard for which he did the cover art (shown here; see explanation below).
One of the songs on the CD is Tom Jones Levitation, an homage to his fellow Welshman in which Tom is not knighted but, rather, crowned King of Wales.
Talking about the song in 2001, The Village Voice described, “…the reverent, ethereal waltz-time of Tom Jones Levitation (’Where we come from,’ said [Langford], the Chicago transplant [from Wales] ‘Tom Jones always wins the popular vote. He doesn’t need a junta.’) Langford has also recorded a version of Delilah that is available on iTunes. He sings Delilah in his shows, he’s been quoted as saying he does so “because it’s the Welsh national anthem.”
Called a “Renaissance Man” by a newspaper there, Langford has a solo art show featuring his album covers at the Rogue Buddha Gallery in Minneapolis running through March 18.
The paper, Pulse of the Twin Cities, notes, “Tom Jones Levitation depicts the beloved Welsh entertainer hovering above a cruise ship in the form of a gigantic mindless balloon.”
Whatever…it’s still interesting, we think. Sort of.
February 15th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
A free sample of the Delilah cover is here:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3906557
Byeeeee!
February 15th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
There’s two versions of Green, Green Grass of Home on the same page as well, mharding. You’re such an unobservant boy sometimes.
February 15th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Sorry Betty. I’m going to try harder.
February 15th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Link to clips from almost the whole strange album:
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/langford_jon/124217/album.jhtml
February 15th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
There’s another version of Delilah that might be of interest as it has the virtue of at least being lively and did chart in the UK. It’s by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
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Alex Harvey was born in 1935 in Glasgow and for years tried to make it in the music business. He finally assembled The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (TSAHB) and, in 1974 charted with The Impossible Dream both in the UK and, briefly, in the US. In the spring of 1975 his cover of Delilah was a hit. The SAHB broke up (the others briefly recording as “TSAHB Without Alex) and came back together but they never found the success of the mid-70s. Alex Harvey died of a heart attack while on tour in Belgium in 1982