Tom Jones International

Tonight PRINCE is having a small press party to unveil his new show at his new club – 3121 – at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino. He’s doing it in our town, Las Vegas. For those of you who don’t know, PRINCE shares the same birthday with our favorite singer. Both are June 7th babies, born under the sign of Gemini with favorable aspects and leanings towards entertainment.

But, we digress.

You see, what makes us happy for PRINCE’s fans is the same thing that makes us ineffably sad in relation to TJ. The new showroom that PRINCE is occupying seats about 800 people, a few more than the Hollywood Theater at the MGM where Tom plays. Since he’s only invited a smattering of press types, PRINCE is filling the showroom with people who are special to him — people who he invited to this very special events as his guests. For free.

These are the same people who are allowed to buy the first few rows of any concert he performs and who can buy their tickets 24 hours in advance of sale to the general public. These are people he cherishes.

These are his fans.

That’s right, kids — you heard us correctly. His fans. Free. His fans. Invited to a special opening because they have supported him throughout his career. His fans. Who can buy tickets — up-front tickets — 24 hours ahead of general sale. His fans.

When we heard about this we were thrilled for people we know who are PRINCE’s fans. But, of course, we felt bad for all of us devoted TJ fans. These are the times we wonder why any of us continue to care; how Tom keeps such devoted fans.

Yes, we love Tom’s music and seeing him when we can. But, having just added Prince to the growing list of entertainers who recognize their fans in a tangible way — a list that includes entertainers as diverse as Barry Manilow, U2, Bob Dylan and Julio Iglesias among others — we are feeling disheartened.

—Ellen & Ursula

PS: For an update, please see comment #36 below.

A brief notice was just posted on tomjones.com about Tom being named “The Best Singer in Las Vegas.” Because it’s worth repeating (and because we think the editorial staff of the paper is probably more in tune with what’s happening than the general public), here’s the story as it appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal on March 26 and our post about it on the 31st. We love what they wrote about Tom.

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There is probably more live, top-notch entertainment in Las Vegas year-round than in any other US city except, perhaps, New York. Thus, for the public’s entertainment dollar and their loyalty, Las Vegas is one of — if not the — most competitive venues anywhere. It takes a lot for an entertainer to get noticed and to consistently win critical raves.

Each year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the city’s daily paper, polls its readers to find out who and what are “The Best of Las Vegas.” The 2006 picks were in the Sunday, March 26 edition.

The readers usually make the obvious choices so, in an effort to get a more balanced view, the staff — if they don’t agree with the public’s votes — notes their own pick. And, usually, their choices are more discriminating.

Case in point:

Best Singer — Reader’s Pick

Céline Dion Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South Las Vegas , NV

This is the third year readers have put the power of love behind the Canadian singer with one foot on the bow of the Titanic and one foot in [suburban] Henderson. Clint Holmes is the second-place choice for all three of those years, this year coming within 15 votes of a singer who has sold a lot more records.

Best Singer — Staff Pick
Tom Jones MGM Grand, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South Las Vegas , NV

Yeah, baby! The Tomcat turned 65 last summer. But you can take that AARP card and shove it — in your wallet, then head to the record store and try to get a seniors discount on Reloaded. Put on the greatest hits CD and let Jones blow the doors off your Oldsmobile with the opening notes of If I Only Knew. Or you can just go down to the MGM Grand every so often to watch him do it live.

From an interview Rolling Stone did in September with Jerry Lee Lewis, “He did say he was bummed he didn’t get to work with Tom Jones and Bob Dylan. (You listening, fellas?)”

Les Reed (see our Back In the Day section) says on his website, “A Production Company are considering making a dramatic film version of the life of Tom Jones, which will feature Les’ contribution to Tom’s career. As we all know, Les was an important factor from the very beginning of the Tom Jones phenomenon.”

We’ll see what we can find out about this and let you know.

Without going to YouTube, we found some video links for you….So, without further ado, here is some Tom to tide you over until you see the real thing. Enjoy!

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With Alfonso Ribeiro on Fresh Prince (left)

In 1992 Tom sang U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For on The Right Time. This is Tom Jones at his very best and if only one of his TV series makes it, this is the one series that should be out on DVD.

Kiss.

Here is the link to videos of Move Closer, If I Only Knew, Sexbomb and Mama Told Me Not To Come on vh1. (These only work on PCs, not Macs.) Maybe someone can tell us what’s up with the dogs in the If I Only Knew video.

Take a look at a very vintage Tom singing It’s Not Unusual. Judging from the hair and the set, this looks as if it’s from the Sullivan show. Oddly, on the site where it’s posted, the name is “Senators.”

This is Tom with the Pussycat Dolls at the 2004 Divas Show in Las Vegas doing You Can Leave Your Hat On. (This is a poor quality video on the Google video site. We were hoping that Google’s purchase of YouTube meant the quality of that site’s videos would improve. But, judging from this, it probably won’t.)

For something a bit different, check out what Las Vegas’ Fremont Street Experience (a major sound and light show) did with It’s Not Unusual in 2000. The Fremot Street Experience downtown in old Vegas goes on every night and is worth the trip because there’s nothing like it anywhere else. (Although there is a sound and light show at the pyramids in Giza. But this is closer for many of us.)

Finally, here’s Jim Carrey’s take on Tom singing Delilah.

Since there’s been so much controversy lately over reviews of Tom’s shows, our “Question of the Month” for November is:

If you were the critic — a professional, honest and objective critic — how would you review Tom’s show?

TOM JONES SINGS THE DUCK DODGERS THEME!

Duck Dodgers was broadcast on the Cartoon Network from August 2003 to November 2005. Much to our surprise, lots of fans have never heard of the show or heard the theme.

So, we’ll rectify that situation forthwith:

Set in the “24th-and-one-half century” the promo for the show tells us, “It’s 351 years in the future. Earth needs a hero. Until then, Duck Dodgers will do.”

“Duck Dodgers is a hapless soul who was frozen inside a spaceship in the 21st century and came out 351 years later. Through his scheming and lies, Duck has convinced the Earth’s Defensive Protectorate that he is a hero from the 21st century and has been given a spaceship and a crew. Together they form a ‘galactic force’ that must team up against Earth’s major enemy, Mars, and its Martian Commander X-2. The series comes from Looney Tunes cartoons and features Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian and Porky Pig.”

The one episode in which Tom was featured was called Talent Show A Go-Go. The story was that, in order to win an intergalactic talent contest, Dodgers borrows the greatest singing voice of all time: the velvet pipes of Mr. Tom Jones!

There is nothing quite as funny as Tom’s voice singing It’s Not Unusual coming out of Daffy Duck and, conversely, Daffy’s voice coming from Tom. If you have a copy of this show, please let us know.

On the SciFi Channel website one person wrote: “The opening for Duck Dodgers is just terrific. The theme song, written by Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd, is performed by Tom Jones and The Flaming Lips….The real find here is that, not only is Tom Jones alive, he can still sing. Catch the first few minutes for the theme song alone.”

Here is Tom singing a bit of the Duck Dodgers Theme

Meanwhile, you can see an original, vintage 1950s Duck Dodgers cartoon at the Looney Tunes website.

OK: We apologize, but there was a good review by a woman named Deborah Anderson that was published November 1 in the Evening Times of Glasgow. We made a note of it and meant to post it, but time got away from us. It is on tomjones.com (uncredited to the writer) and is only available now on the paper’s site to those who wish to pay.

Ms. Anderson —as her short, but sweet review makes clear — somehow did not see the same show as Mr. Gordon (below). Guess she was more fortunate than he. (posted November 5)

Jeez! This review of Tom in Glasgow from The Scotsman defies description. “Turkish pimp?” “Freeze-dried band?” Jeez again! We’re just posting it in the interest of honest and full disclosure. Just skip it. If you cannot resist reading it and if you want to respond, you can comment on the “review” where it might do some good — with this link.

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TOM JONES

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CLYDE AUDITORIUM, GLASGOW/ BY BARRY GORDON/PUBLISHED FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

BACK in the days when wearing Brut aftershave was considered perfectly acceptable, a Tom Jones concert consisted of black leathers, gold medallions and several hundred pairs of Marks & Spencer’s frilly knickers.

These days, the tight breeches, billowing shirts and women’s underwear are a thing of the past, but something else was also oddly amiss from the first night of Jones’s two-night stint at the Armadillo — his sense of humour.

Sporting a purple suit, spirit-level-trimmed goatee and a Tango-orange complexion, Jones looked like a Turkish pimp. New jokes surrounding old songs were decidedly thin on the ground, the 66-year-old operating on cruise control for his entire 100 minutes on stage.

Following a rather pedestrian Delilah, it wasn’t long before zealous grannies in the front row began to thrust their wares at him. If Jones didn’t rebuff them with casual indifference, he was certainly too lazy in attempting to catch their handkerchiefs tossed from the lip of the stage.

Whistle-stop tours around blues (Howlin’ Wolf), folk (Van Morrison) and boogie-woogie (Jerry Lee Lewis) finally cajoled some soulful emotion from Jones’s freeze-dried band, and then he tugged at the heartstrings with Green Green Grass of Home, but the whole was unattractive and outdated. Overall? Unfashionable and a bit smelly. A bit like Brut aftershave, really.