Tom Jones International

We’re revisiting a December 8, 2002 interview from The Times Online in which Tom and his son/manager Mark Woodward discuss their “Relative Values.” It is long, 1,700+ words, but interesting. The photo from this page was, obviously taken for this story. See anything familiar about Mark’s facial hair? If you read the entire piece, there are two more of Tom and his son when the latter was a young child and a young man. Thanks to the UK fan (UKF) who sent them.

Relative values: Tom Jones and Mark Woodward

The singer Tom Jones and Mark Woodward, his son and manager. By Bridget Freer

TOM: Mark was weaned on rock’n'roll. You could put him on the couch with a cushion and a bottle, and as long as music was playing he’d lie there happily. But as soon as that record stopped: ‘Waaaaaa!’ I’d run to change it, and he’d start sucking the bottle again. He loves music.

Mark has a lovely voice, but he couldn’t get up and sing. He’s like my father: he got the voice but not the showmanship. I got them both. I’d have liked that for Mark, if he wanted. I don’t see anything wrong in show business — I’ve enjoyed it so much.

It’s worked well, him being my manager. He’s always thrown his two-penn’orth in, and nine times out of 10 he’s right. He knows how to deal with me. We’re not parent and child, we’re friends. But we can go at it. It’s a Welsh thing. When we were on the road together we argued. He’d go on about something in music, and I’d go: ‘Wait a minute, what do you know?’ Then I’d say: ‘F this. I’m going back to Wales.’ I don’t know why I’d say that. I must’ve been drunk. But Wales was like a security blanket.

Mark’s had a life most kids haven’t had with their fathers. We became closer as men than we did when I was a teenager and he was a little boy, and that was through working together. We got older together.

Mark was born in April 1957 and I turned 17 that June. I never worried about having a wife and child young. It was like becoming a man - fast! I was working in a paper mill on the night shift. The foreman would every so often go to call the hospital. He’d come back and say: ‘It’s triplets!’ He was pulling my leg. Then he’d say: ‘No word yet.’ I went home, slept, got up at noon and went to the telephone box — which I’ve since bought and have in LA. When they said, ‘You have a son,’ I felt taller. All men, I think, want sons, but I didn’t mind as long as my wife was all right. She was 16. Once you’ve had a son… I mean, a daughter would have been nice. But my wife couldn’t have more, for some unknown reason. In those days we were considered teddy boys. You wouldn’t go to Cardiff by yourself because there were gangs of city boys there. But I thought: ‘Who could touch me? I have a son!’ I went in and there he was. He was fantastic.

When I was born, my father registered my name without my mother knowing. When he came back from the register office she said, ‘Keith would be a nice name,’ and he said: ‘Too late, his name’s Tom, same as mine.’ My mother played hell about it. I’d have liked to call my son Tom, but I didn’t, because my mother said: ‘For goodness’ sake don’t put that on him.’ So I said to Linda, ‘It’s up to you,’ and she picked Mark Stephen Woodward. My family name is Woodward; Jones is my mother’s maiden name.

I started singing in clubs about the time he was born, so I wasn’t around him much. I went to London in 1964, and my wife would come to see me, but I didn’t see my son unless I went back to Pontypridd. I wanted to, but I was very preoccupied. From 1965 I started going to America a lot - the records were as big there as here. I didn’t have time to be in Wales, but I thought as long as I was sending money home it was okay.

When the money started rolling in from It’s Not Unusual, I bought a house in Shepperton and said: ‘Now we can have Mark with us.’ That was 1966. I enjoyed going to pick him up from school.

The mothers would be: ‘Ooooh, there’s Tom Jones!’


He was a shy child. He spent a lot of time in his room listening to music. Later, there’d be six-month tours; it affected him more than I realised. He came out for school holidays wherever I was, and always seemed fine. But one night, when he was 15, we went to a restaurant and he was very quiet. Linda said: ‘He’s missing you a lot now.’ We talked it over and she said: ‘Do you think he could travel with you?’ I said: ‘Yeah, as long as it’s okay with his school.’

After that, he was with me on the road. He enjoyed it, but he drank too much. I wasn’t a saint, so I’d say ‘Be careful’ rather than ‘Don’t.’

He’s looking after me now, but that’s not a manager thing; it’s natural.

I don’t feel 62, nowhere near it. Mark keeps me in check, which I appreciate. He says: ‘Look, Dad, you’re making excuses.’ I can’t argue, especially since he’s stopped drinking and he’s squeaky clean. I’ll definitely slow down - I can’t get away with it any more. Mark getting on at me works. It works. That’s the main thing.

MARK: I remember the day It’s Not Unusual flew into the charts: March 1, 1965. I was dressed up for St David’s Day and all of a sudden photographers from the local paper came into the school and started taking pictures. Everybody around me was happy — but it was very confusing to me.

About a year later, when I was eight, we moved to Shepperton. It was a big upheaval. My first house had been a small terraced house in Pontypridd, with an outside toilet, no hot water and a shilling for the meter. All of a sudden we had a fridge, a toilet inside and hot water. It was really nice, but I’d been surrounded by family; I missed my grandparents a lot.

My dad would pick me up at school and other kids would say: ‘Oh, that’s that singer, isn’t it?’ Some idiot used it as a press opportunity and took pictures of his Rolls at school. I was shy about that. Then he became a hit around the world and started to travel. Me and my mother were alone a lot. She felt the strain, but she couldn’t go with him because I was in school. I missed him. It came to a head when I was an adolescent. I got depressed, and my parents didn’t know what to do. It was only the three of us — three young people. It was a big decision, but I left school and went on tour with him.

All my working life has been in my father’s business. I never wanted to do anything else. I was a roadie first, and whenever somebody got fired I learnt their job. Tom let me have a lot of input. I never call him Tom to his face — that would feel weird. I call him Tom to a third person. I couldn’t say: ‘Would you book my daddy?’

He never gave me a father-son talk. I had to learn from experience. I was with grown-ups 24 hours a day from when I was 16 — touring people who were full of life. In retrospect it was a bit intimidating — the other guys were all very comfortable with their sexuality. I was being boastful with the lads before I should have been.

Dad never gave me a hard time. I probably drank too much when I was young. He didn’t bawl me out about those things. He wasn’t a 55-year-old guy in a suit coming home from his nine-to-five, laying down the law: he was in his thirties, with a very unusual lifestyle. My mother too — we all had an unusual lifestyle. That made them more sympathetic to me. So I didn’t go off and be a f—-up like some kids. I missed the silly wild stage and went straight to the grown-up wild stage.

Soon after Gordon Mills, Tom’s manager, died, Tom said: ‘Are you willing to take the reins?’ I hesitated, because it’s all very well having an opinion, but as manager, if a business decision went sideways it would fall on my shoulders. But it made sense: I was a 29-year-old, road-hardened kind of a fellow, and as soon as I had my own family, I decided I couldn’t carry on travelling.

I felt more qualified than ever to be his manager. By that point he’d been around for 20 years, but his fame in England was bad. He never dropped out of sight, but it was like he’d had his day. He made so much money in America, but I thought: ‘Why isn’t it like that in Britain?’ I think in his heart Tom also wanted to move back to Britain. He just hangs his hat in LA, really. Tom isn’t fabricated. He was born like that. He’ll carry on working as long as he can, and he does what he does because he loves it. And he’s very much an old-fashioned Welshman. When I got married he was rubbing his hands together, asking when he was going to be a grandfather. He didn’t care that he was only 41.

Lately I’ve been concerned about his diet. I’m 45 and had to give up drinking five years ago because I couldn’t handle it. Tom is fit, but he still tries to do things that might not be good for him at his age. He tries to laugh it off but he knows it’s for real. I’m always on about his drinking. He knows I mean well, and I know what it means to him. So he can do it, but I say: ‘Don’t kill yourself doing it.’

I’m very persistent — that’s the one way in which we are very similar; it’s very Welsh. We’re like nanny goats. We have real strong opinions with each other, but we know one another’s limits. He knows when to leave me alone or to look out for me. And I know when to be strong with him and when to back off. That’s the secret.