Tom Jones International

Please don’t forget to review the This Is Tom Jones DVD set (in the post below), but we just had to post this and comment on it.

The ad at right, measuring 5 inches by 4 inches (12.7×10.2 cm) appeared in today’s New York Times Magazine, a prestigious nationally circulated publication with more than 1.6 million readers. Although we haven’t seen it elsewhere, we’d bet it will appear in lots more places. And — look! — by sharing the cost of the ad, Borders (whose online partner is amazon.com) is making it a featured selection when it’s released Tuesday. And it is now available on iTunes in the US.

Now, we don’t love the duet with Tom on this CD but of course you’ve noticed that Tom (old photo and all) gets top billing here after Morrison. And their photo together is the largest one — aside from the picture of Morrison alone — on the cover. Obviously, Van Morrison’s people think Tom Jones is a name to reckon with here in the US.

Now, if only Tom’s new CD were to get this kind of push in North America…….What would happen?

We wrote our reviews of This Is Tom Jones on DVD and, now, with the first wave of DVDs ordered from Time Life arriving in your mailbox, we’d like to hear what you have to say.

What did: you like? not like? you think was the best? the worst (if anything)? Etc.?

And, since amazon.com isn’t sending them out for two weeks, you can still get one sooner if you order from Time Life. But, in two weeks or so we’ll be posting a spot for more feedback for those who get them from amazon (and we’ll do the same for the PAL release, too).

Can’t wait to hear what y’all think!

We found Cry For Home available for download at a Van Morrison blog.

Sounds very funereal to us. Much prefer Tom’s solo version. As we said, Morrison seems very unhappy — a long way from Brown-Eyed Girl. We know an artist should grow and he has; he’s got well-deserved tremendous stature (no pun intended) but…….

Please take a listen and tell us what you think. And feel free to argue with our opinion.

Note:The song is available for download on iTunes UK to residents of the UK and Ireland. Should be available in the US when the album is released here. If you do choose to buy from iTunes, and plan to share it with anyone else, it’s probably worth it to do the iTunes Plus for a bit of extra money.

In a nutshell, we loved this set. It’s a tremendous testament to a man who has for 50 years loved performing, loved his fellow performers and loved his audience. We are lucky to have him.

In part 1 of our review, we dealt with the packaging. Now it’s time to talk about the content:

First, in interviews done this year for the DVD, Tom recalls the circumstances surrounding each of the shows (there’s that great memory again). NOTE!: If you give into the temptation to play just Tom’s songs, you miss the interviews. He seems pleased as punch to be doing this (”Hi, everybody, This Is Tom Jones. On DVD.”) You will notice a line that some people find annoying on the left side of the screen. For some reason, Tom’s interviews were taped in front of a mirrored closet and that line is actually the space between the two sliding doors. That shouldn’t have happened.

Also — and very important — you can use the angle button on your remote to switch between the US and UK versions for some of the material. As Tom explains, the shows were done twice — on the first day for the UK, the second for the US. The US censor was very free with the cutting and, often, the UK version is looser. Ours then was a very puritanical country and our TV entertainment suffered for it.

The good stuff is — well, almost every bit of it. As we said before, we could have done without the comedy of Ace Trucking Company, The Committee and Pat Paulson. It’s dated. And we don’t know why they included the show with The Who, when did not have a color print and had to use it in black and white. Surely they could have found another show to use.

But, then, there’s the music. Choosing favorites is very subjective. Aretha Franklin (Disc 3) is, as always, breathtaking. They are the only singers who seem to be able to stand up to each other’s voices and her performance is wonderful. Her bluesy, jazzy version of It’s Not Unusual is memorable.

On the second disc, the pairing with Little Richard is great fun. When Tom sings with the great R&B singers and the early rock and rollers, his voice takes on a new tone; a different sound. You’d swear (as many did when they first heard him) that he’s black. Little Richard is dressed waaay to warmly — sweating more than Tom or Springsteen, for example, ever did while sitting still, but he and Tom had a ball.
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This is a review in two parts. This first part is about what makes any DVD tower above a video — the extras, the packaging and format. Tomorrow we’ll write about the content — the remastering, the quality and the selection of the material.
—Ellen & Ursula

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It’s here! And, like “Heaven” in Tom’s song, it’s been a long time coming. You open it and see the now-familiar late-60s/early 70s design with a black and white photo of young Tom holding a mic and singing, tie hanging untied around his neck. In the yellow bubble next to him you see the some of the singers who were on his show. You tear off the shrink wrap and slide the actual DVD package out of its case.

And there it is.

The packaging is, indeed, elegant (the photo at right is a sample). It’s a gatefold that opens to reveal the three discs, each bearing in the center one of the letters in “T-O-M.” It’s a terrific job. But let’s get to the content.

If you go to the DVD link to Time Life (the production company) we’ve posted on the right, you can scroll down and see the accurate content list. The set, executive produced by Sir Tom Jones, is what you’ve been reading about. But there are some terrific additions to the promo copies that you might have seen reviewed. In fact, even though we got promotional copies and were happy to review them, in this case they didn’t begin to do justice to what’s on the finished product. To us, that’s a wonderful surprise.

First, the menus: If you just want Tom singing (alone and with other people), you can get it, as there’s a menu option for that. If you want the entire shows, you can do that, too. You can just view the extras or each entire disc in sequence.

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It’s June 7, Sir Tom Jones’ 67th birthday! We wish him a year of health, peace, prosperity, love, laughter and lots of great music!

We also hope that this year brings sky-high sales of the This Is Tom Jones DVD and platinum sales of your forthcoming CD.

For fans, (in addition to our wish that both CD and DVD be released in both North America and Europe) we have two “gifts.”

The first is the recording that Tom often cites as his very first favorite. It’s [Ghost] Riders In the Sky by Vaughn Monroe. Released in 1949, the cowboy song (subtitled A Cowboy Legend) appealed to then nine year-old Tom for, most likely, its strong rhythm and equally strong vocal. (Frankie Laine, another of Tom’s early favorites, recorded it a few years later.) Tom recorded it in his 1967 album The Green Green Grass of Home and sang it again on the DVD An Audience With Tom Jones.

Our next gift for fans is a website from Getty Images. Put the words “Tom Jones” in the search box and it will take you to approximately 110 proprietary photos of Sir Tom dating from last December back to 1965 (the site says 121, but some of those are of composer Tom Jones and others are of Tom Cruise).

Happy birthday, Tom! May you continue to make the music you love to sing and your fans love to hear!

For the record, among those with whom Tom shares his birthday are Prince (49 today) and Ken Osmond (”Eddie Haskell” in Leave It To Beaver, who’s 64).

Photo above © Agence France Presse; thanks to our wonderful Canadian friend for the website.

Today’s the day! To some fans it’s been an eternity and, now, at last the DVD set of This Is Tom Jones is being released. Time Life will begin mailing it out today and, if you want it sooner rather than next month, it might be a good idea to order from them. Otherwise, amazon.com will send it out on Tuesday, June 26, the street release date.

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Time Life’s ads for the This Is Tom Jones will begin airing today (Monday, June 4). These are “short-form” ads, not the half-hour infomercials you often see on stations like CNBC for Time Life products. As you may have noted, the ad shows three separate DVDs in three separate covers but as far as we know, it’s actually three DVDs in one cover.

For this reason, there is not a set schedule of airings. But, if you want to try to catch an ad, tune into one of the following: American Live TV; PAX Network; FOX News Channel; SI TV (LA-based Latino-themed station that broadcasts in English); Biography Channel; Hallmark Movie Channel; Oxygen; Court TV and/or Lifetime Real Women.
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……what would you like to see?

We are toying with the idea of producing some kind of TJI.com merchandise — by no means official products — and would like to know what would interest you.

Would you like t-shirts, key chains, coffee mugs, mouse pads, a calendar? Something else?

If they should carry a slogan, what would you like that to be?

Please share your ideas and, remember, your answers are not a commitment to buy anything.

Time Lfe has redone the This Is Tom Jones DVD TV commercial.

Now, it’s fun and lively, a vast improvement on the original — a redo necesitated by the removal of Crosby, Stills & Nash from the DVD. This ad captures the spirit of the original show. Download it and take a look for yourself.