Tom Jones International

The Prince’s Trust, a charity for children, has announced that Tom will be doing a special benefit concert at Hampton Court on Monday, June 18. This is in addition to his two dates there June 19 and 20.

Prices vary, but the “Full Hospitality Package in State Apartments” — where you can visit, not stay — may be had for £345, or just $679.31.

You can also bid for front row seats at the June 19 and 20 concerts via ticketmaster. The minimum bid is £190 ($374). Winning bidders also get champagne and canapés. It doesn’t say if the auction is for charity.

This time, it’s Tom Sings the Beatles

The product description on amazon.com says, “Tom Jones’ career as the king of crooners has spanned over four decades. Like Sinatra, Elvis, or the Beatles, you can not define Tom by comparing him to anyone else, he is simply Tom Jones. So perhaps it is fitting that throughout his career he has always been drawn to the music of the Beatles, and his cover versions of the Fab Four have become classics in their own right.” [We must interject here: "Crooner?" He's not and no one "croons" the Beatles.]

Research shows us that this off-brand label, Lilith, is out of Holland (although one source says they’re from Russia). They seem to release out-of-print albums (yes! vinyl!) and CDs. This is the latter. Seems that diehard fans of certain performers see Lilith releases as “gifts,” “surprises,” etc.

If this CD is, as we suspect, from the Canadian TV show, it is neither “gift” nor “surprise.” If it were a DVD, we’d say it’s probably eye candy. But, a CD from that show? Not ear candy. If you get it, let us know what you think.

In case you haven’t seen this yet, here is the first trailer for the This Is Tom Jones DVD. It’s not exactly accurate, as all of the acts highlighted here will not be on the final cut so this promo will probably be changed, but you get the idea. It is posted online. NOTE: THE ORIGINAL TRAILER WAS TAKEN OFF YOUTUBE WHEN THE NEW ONE (SEE OUR HOMEPAGE) WAS POSTED.

Click to view the “This Is Tom Jones” DVD Trailer.

You can click the Time Life or Amazon links at right to order it. The DVD ships in 18 days from Time Life, in 40 days from Amazon.

As has been noted earlier here and elsewhere, a TJ-Van Morrison collaboration is due out shortly and we’re noticing a pattern here: Van cries, records with Tom and — hopefully — there’s a hit. First was Sometimes We Cry on the Reload album. Even though the scatting came out of the blue, we liked it.

Now comes another from sad Van. This time it’s Cry For Home, a song Tom’s been singing solo onstage for several months in anticipation of this release.

You can listen to their latest collaboration here.

Hopefully, Morrison’s crying jag is over and he’s happy. Meanwhile, pass the guy a hankie.

Dre tells us the song is about 1:10 into the broadcast.

TJ fan Laura called to request that we post a notice that Leila Ali, daughter of Muhammed Ali and herself a boxer, tonight danced to She’s A Lady on Dancing With the Stars.

We’ll see the results next week.

UPDATE: We just watched the show — no changes, same trashy “experts” (Chris Hutchens and Robin Eggar) and sloppy research. For example, they allegedly show the Ponty concert in 2005 but in this version Tom is clean-shaven…..and the narration, which is easily changed, didn’t mention Tom’s knighthood. Someone didn’t do his or her homework. Hopefully, the next TJ bio will be accurate. He deserves no less.

The somewhat lame biography of Tom will be rerun May 16 at 8 p.m. and May 17 at midnight (Eastern and Pacific time) on The Biography Channel.

The program was first aired when it was new in December 2005, so they’ve likely — hopefully — updated it to include Tom’s knighthood. But as the opening shot is of Engelbert and others interviewed include such TJ “friends” as Chris Hutchens (his former PR guy who trashed Tom in print after he was fired) and author/gossipmonger Robin Eggar, there’s not much to recommend this. There are some nice photos, though, including Lois Gooding’s copyrighted shots of Tom — used without permission — when his shirt tore while he was onstage at Long Island’s Westbury Music Fair in April 1980. (You can check them out in our flickr set, “The Many Faces of Tom”)

The show’s promo copy also says Tom rose from “the slums of Wales.” A Welsh fan who knows Pontypridd tells us that it was, like so many other towns in coal country, a working class environment, absolutely not a “slum.”

It will also will be shown at 10 p.m. Mountain time and 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Central time.

The photo of Tom The Biography Channel is using to promote the show (above) looks to us like they took his picture as he was watching it.

We know many of you have heard this, but we think that laugh is so heartfelt and infectious, and the whole thing so funny, we thought it worth a revisit. And, since Tom’s again doing a large charity concert, we thought this was even more appropriate to post. The perfect excuse (as if we need one).

On May 29, 2001 Tom joined Luciano Pavarotti (as well as Catherine Zeta Jones, Anastacia, George Benson, Celia Cruz, Barry White and lots of others) in the annual Pavarotti and Friends concert in Modena, Italy to raise funds for children, that year for Afghani children in Pakistan. (photo right).

As part of the concert, Tom and Pavarotti performed a duet of Delilah. Footage of that duet is floating around and it is — in a word — priceless. And, in another word, wonderful.

Before the show a CNN reporter (left) asked Tom about the potential for another duet.

And that is why Tom is laughing.

You can listen to that part of the interview here.

Virgin Media has anounced the following: Tom and P Diddy join Diana gig line-up

Tom Jones and P Diddy have joined the line-up for the Concert For Diana, it was announced today.

Nelly Furtado, Will Young and Supertramp singer Roger Hodgson will also perform at the gig, to be held at Wembley Stadium on July 1.

The event has been organised by Princes William and Harry to celebrate the life of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Supertramp are said to have been a favourite of the late princess.

Their 1979 album Breakfast In America was in her record collection and was one of the items butler Paul Burrell was accused, and later cleared, of stealing five years ago.

The acts will join a line-up of stars which includes Sir Elton John, Joss Stone, Lily Allen, Kanye West, Duran Duran, Status Quo and Take That.

There will also be a performance by the English National Ballet and an Andrew Lloyd Webber medley.

The concert marks what would have been Diana’s 46th birthday.
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A Tom Jones concert is, primarily, about the music. But it’s also about having fun, being with friends who understand how you feel about Tom and his music and, sometimes, it’s about face time with the man himself.

The latter was the case on May 3, when some friends — one from California two from Canada along with one of this site’s moderators had a drink (or two) after the show. After awhile, the fact that Tom was in the room was noticed and the Californian and the Canadians ambled over to say “hi.”

A great time was had by all. As you can see. (That’s Laura on the left; Lori is kissing Tom and Anna is on the right in the photo.)

You can also see, once and for all, the answer to our first May Question of the Month and the debate about eye color: Tom Jones’ eyes are blue. (At least they clearly look that way these days.)

There is a poll going on to find “The Greatest Living Briton” and Tom is one of the candidates. You can find it at The Sun Online. People on discussion boards and forums are encouraging fans to vote for him.

So, our second question of the month is this: Should non-Brits vote? Is that fair? And, while we’re at it, should we give online hits to The Sun, a deeply nasty newspaper that is almost always nasty when it comes to Tom?

What do you think?