Tom Jones International

The PBS series Great Performances is going to do a program on Jerry Lee Lewis in December and Tom will be on it along with other greats, including Don Henley, Ron Wood, Nils Lofgren and Solomon Burke.

The show was taped September 28 and 29 in New York City.

They did duets of Green, Green Grass of Home, Jerry Lee’s End of the Road and, once again, as they did on This Is Tom Jones, sang Funny How Time Slips Away. From reports of people who were there, Tom was just thrilled to be doing this.

There’s a fan report on the tj.com forum and a comprehensive one on a Jerry Lee fansite.

PBS hasn’t announced air dates yet. We’ll let you know when they do.

The show was to celebrate Lewis’ 71st birthday and the release of a new album, Last Man Standing. The title comes from the fact that Lewis is, in fact, the last of the Sun Records so-called “Million Dollar Quartet,” made up of Sun artists Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Lewis and Elvis (who had left Sun and was then with RCA). They happened to be in the studio together one day and the recordings that came from that casual session — a mix of rhythm and blues, rock ‘n roll and gospel — were preserved and ultimately released as, of course Million Dollar Quartet

Lewis’ new album has duets with Bruce, BB, Mick Jagger and Ron Wood, Jimmy Page, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson, John Fogerty, Ringo, Merle Haggard, Kid Rock, Rod Stewart, George Jones, Wilie Nelson, Toby Keith, Don Henley, Buddy Guy and Kris Kristofferson.

It’s a great recording. But you know our question: Where’s Tom? He’s got to be Lewis’ biggest fan and there’s no better voice around. He knows the material. He should have been there.

On slow Tom-news days, it’s sometimes fun to revisit old stories, such as this review from the time when Tom toured Australia last year with John Farnham. The focus was on Farnham, returning to the stage after an announced retirement and his fans were thrilled. (Except the Aussie we know who laughed at the news and said, “Little Johnny Farnahm? Is he still around?”) Nonetheless, it was a wonderful event for Farnham loyalists and Tom was the icing on the cake. You can get a live concert CDand a DVD. (Note: The DVD is only in NTSC format.)

This review of the show is fun to read, as it is written from a Farnham fan’s perspective. (Given that fact, it’s kind of odd that Tom gets the lion’s share of praise, though we re not complaining.) The photo below, captioned, “Two voices … Farnsy and Jonesy on Saturday” is by Steve Lunam of the Sydney Morning Herald.

And, here’s a link to an interview with “Farnsy and Jonesy” from the time their Australian tour opened. Enjoy!

By George Palathingal/Sydney Morning Herald/February 14, 2005

The woman in the summery dress stands on her seat, turns to face the audience and bends forward. As the cameras from the photographer pit flash in her direction, she flashes right back at them, shimmying out of her underwear so she can throw it at a 64-year-old Welshman. Fellow fans of live music, take note: this is not what you might call a regular audience, or a regular gig.

Both are, in fact, a lot more fun than many. It’s to be an evening of shameless nostalgia, Vegas-cheesy entertainment and sometimes terribly dated music, yes. But it will also be a refreshingly unpretentious, enjoyable one.

“Let’s get ready to rumble!” cries the backing tape, and the two stars stride onto the stage: from the left, Australia’s own soft-rock heavyweight, John Farnham; and from the right, the more svelte knicker-magnet, Tom Jones. They sing a couple of songs together that reveal Jones to be the more comfortable mover of the two but then his skin appears to be orange under his playboy beard, so maybe Farnsy doesn’t look so silly after all.

Either way, both voices are clearly in tremendous nick, and Farnham leaves so Jones can show his off first.

The charismatic Welshman favours bluesy rock’n'roll these days, but that’s not going to stop him bellowing operatically through his biggest hits, too, as the panty-chuckers move into position. Delilah is more camp than Mardi Gras; Green, Green Grass of Home is a heart-wrenching, country-twanging delight; and It’s Not Unusual puts a salacious fire in his swivelling hips. He’s so hot that by the end I need a pair of undies to wipe the sweat from my brow.

If you thought Jones was popular, the security people who successfully kept his fans from dancing in the aisles don’t stand a chance when Farnham comes on. Even though his higher voice is impressive, I prefer Farnham’s larrikin banter to his songs, especially the Whispering Jack “classics,” which emphatically prove the 1980s is the decade that has dated most badly.

But it doesn’t really matter. His set flies by, before Jones rejoins him for a typically dramatic You’re the Voice and an encore of crowd-pleasing covers. They have such a contagiously good time, even a late downpour can’t dampen the mood.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle reprinted Geoff Boucher’s article about Tom that was originally in the Los Angeles Times (see post below).

This photo, not one of our favorites, ran with the article and we’re just happy they ran any photo.

Also coming across our desktop today is an oldie-but-goodie article. It’s by rock critic Robert Christgau, formerly of Newsday (the huge daily paper on Long Island, NY) and most recently of The Village Voice in Greenwich village (which he just left). The article consists of two reviews of performances at Westbury Music Fair (a wonderful theater-in-the-round that is also on Long Island and now rechristened “The North Fork Theater at Westbury.” It is still today supposedly one of Tom’s favorite venues and he’s been playing there for at least 35 years).

Here Christgau compares performances by Tom and Engelbert in 1972. The review of Tom might not be as favorable as us most loyal fans like, but he did say lots of nice things about the guy. We only wish that today’s serious rock critics would see Tom in this light. Looking back from today’s vantage point, we can see how much Tom has grown as a performer so that, today, he towers over so many others. As for Christgau’s opinion of Enge, well, we think it’s pretty much on the mark. But we’re prejudiced.

We are posting this for curiosity only. But, please note, that there were complaints about security guards more than 30 years ago. And, honestly, who among us remembers Enzo Stuarti? But, whatever, this review is just, to us, an interesting museum piece from one of the top popular music critics of the late 20th century. And he sure did know talent.

Two Nights at the Westbury Music Fair

1. Tom Jones

There were seven women in Section A, Row F, behind us, and the woman with the aisle seat, right next to where his burly helpers would hustle him on and off the round stage, had earned her prize appropriately, with middle-class virtues. The very night she had received her Inner Circle bulletin, in January, she had ordered her tickets for Tom Jones’s opening night at the Westbury Music Fair. I had my seat by press privilege, and my mother, who accompanied me, had done nothing more strenuous than skip her church group to do so. She was acting very cool about it. (NOTE: Inner Circle was the premium club that Westbury ticket buyers could join. Their membership fee — $10 in 1971 when tickets for a show there were no more than $17 — bought them early notice of shows and early ticket sales, too. Every TJ fan at Westbury either belonged to Inner Circle or had a friend who did.)

My mother is a sane, intelligent, demure woman with little interest in popular music, but as we eavesdropped on the women behind us, reminiscing about Elvis Presley and complaining about the plethora of uniformed guards, she got worried.

“I know this guy is going to get to me. I’m putting up a big front, but I know. I saw Enzo Stuarti and before it was over I was falling all over him, and you know what he is. It’s the ambience.”

(more…)

As we noted in the comments on the post below, Geoff Boucher responded to our email about posting his article by saying, ““I can tell you it was a very memorable interview for me and I thought highly of Tom’s show, as well.”

Some of you have also emailed him and gotten the following responses:

“Thanks for the wonderful note. I’ve gotten a great response to the story, which speaks very highly of Mr. Jones.”

“Thanks very much for the kind note, we’re getting a great response …Tom has some very loyal fans and they seemed to have been hungry to read something on him that had some ambition…”

Note: The Los Angeles Times, like so many papers, is part of a very large and influential syndicate that owns a dozen newspapers across the United States and more than two dozen TV, radio and cable stations (not to mention the Chicago Cubs). Because of the reach of the paper’s ownership, this article is quite likely to be reprinted in many markets.

Finally! An article in a US publication that is appropriate for Tom’s stature. It’s honest and insightful and the newspaper itself carries a lot of weight. It’s a good thing that’s long overdue. Tom’s absolute and total delight at his knighthood (in the comment his knighthood medal) is really refreshing. And that photo on the left is amazing, inn’t it? This is from the September 17 edition of the Los Angeles Times’ calendarlive.com. It’s a great story. You can thank the writer by clicking here.

Photo left of Tom was taken during this interview by Damon Winter/LA Times. Photo right of Tom singing at the AFI tribute to Sean Connery by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for the American Film Institute.

POP MUSIC

It can’t be any more unusual

From sickly kid to scandalous stage dynamo to self-aware revivalist, old swivel hips is Sir Thomas Jones now — but you can still call him Tom.

By Geoff Boucher, Times Staff Writer

The boy seemed destined to work in the dark. The son of a miner, he grew up in the 1940s under the bleak umbrella skies of South Wales in the village of Treforest, where local life was as hard as the coal and iron that sustained it. Thomas Jones Woodward was expected to join the other men in the mines, but tuberculosis changed that. He was bedridden for two years and then sent off to church with the girls to learn to sing.

He not only learned about singing, he learned about girls.

It was an unusual beginning for the boy who would grow up to be singer Tom Jones, a man more interesting on closer inspection than his cartoonish popular image as some singing gigolo in tight pants. He’s gotten more respect from peers and younger artists than from critics (note his close friendship with the late Elvis Presley and, in recent years, his collaborations with Wyclef Jean, Tori Amos, Portishead and Trevor Horn). And while he is a regular on the Las Vegas circuit, he’s shown a willingness to take risks that set him apart from Wayne Newton, Robert Goulet and other frozen-in-time fixtures on the Strip.

(more…)

What can we say? (Well, you know we’ll say something.) Tom was great but, otherwise, Dancing With the Stars is, well, indescribable…..execrable. But, then, there’s Sir Tom.

He looked amazing……we got calls from friends across the country who said they watched because they know we “like” him and now want to see more of him.

Like many others who commented on the post below, we could have done with some new material. It’s Not Unusual is his best known song (Well, maybe Green Green Grass is, but who would dance to it?) But, She’s A Lady? It’s as if whomever planned the show doesn’t give the audience any credit; doesn’t think the audience can accept anything new or slightly different so they’ve got to give the audience the same old stuff. And that’s too bad, because Tom is so much more than just the guy who was popular in the early 70s. But you’d never know it from this show. He was treated like a legacy act who hasn’t had a hit in years. Pity.

(Note: We hate to seem like we always nitpick but we all know how much more Tom has to offer and we just wish the producers and critics would see it, too.)

On the up side — it was great seeing Darelle, Sharon and Tony there with him. Great, too, that Tom acknowledged them. It was so nice to see them applaud Tom at the end of She’s A Lady. And we like Tony’s new stage look. On the subject of new looks, we hope the stylist used for the show stays on Tom’s staff. This is someone who knows how to dress the guy. And, that wink (pictured above) that captured so many hearts was difficult to capture as a stand-alone moment, but we hope you’ll get the idea.

But, whatever our quibbles, it was so tremendous seeing Tom on TV here in North America. His appearances are waaay too few and far between and we’re happy to report that 17 million people tuned in to see him last night..

For more photos, go check out our Screen Shots flickr set. There are 12 photos from the show. Hope you enjoy ‘em.

For what it’s worth (and it’s not worth much) someone posted a clip from the show on youtube.com titled by the poster “Tom Jones Looking Nervous On Dancing With The Stars.” For the record, he doesn’t look nervous so much as if he’s saying, “Wait a minute! They didn’t give me this camera cuel I didn’t know I’d have a live camera pointed at my face.” In the photo above, also just before a commercial break, they obviously told him. But, this sure makes the quality of the show evident. If you find more, better clips, let us know. Thanks

On Monday’s edition of The Insider, Tom was interviewed recalling a fight he and his wife had. Certainly not a new interview topic for Tom, but there was news along with the story:

Tom will be singing on the first results show of Dancing With the Stars Wednesday night, September 13, 8 p.m. EDT, PDT, on ABC. We wonder: Will Tom be singing Stoned In Love? Will that CD be released here in North America? If so, it’s as good a place to debut it as any.

(If you want, let us people on the West Coast know what you thought, as tonight’s Insider was pre-empted by a presidential speech.)

Apologies for the confusion about when Tom will be on Dancing With the Stars.

BBC Wales is giving away a pair of tickets to Tom’s show at Cardiff Arena on October 22.

To win, you must answer the following question: “What was the title of Tom Jones’ debut single?”

Use the entry form provided. The entry deadline is September 29. Good luck.

Tom is, according to local officials, to be at the 2007 “Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar” in Chile. As internet translations aren’t too accurate, perhaps if you are fluent en Español, you can check out the original article and translate for us.

In the Netherlands it is also being reported that Tom will do a number on the new Jools Holland album, Moving Out to the Country. Also on the album are Lulu, Brian Eno, Richard Hawley, Bob Geldof, Marc Almond, India.Arie, Paul Carrack, David McAlmont, Ruby Turner, Sam Brown, Dr. John, Solomon Burke, Allen Toussaint and Mark Knopfler.

Finally, when Tom plays the Oshawa Arena just outside Toronto, Canada, on November 13, he will be the first to play there.

Thanks to Andre, ever-vigilant for Tom news.