Tom Jones International

This is the kind of review Tom Jones deserves. Not so much because it’s a rave — but it is — but because it’s thoughtful and this guy has done his homework. Why, he even points out that Green Green Grass of Home is not about Wales — a first in any review we’ve seen and long overdue. A few misspellings aside (so, OK, he’s not a country music fan, but we’ve done the same and one of us even edited a country music magazine), he understands Tom Jones’ place in the music firmament. Of course, he doesn’t understand Tom’s fans aren’t all cougars, don’t all throw panties and that many of the fans regardless of age deeply appreciate the guy’s way with a song. We know we do and we appreciate reviews like this. They’re too few and far between. And so are photos like this one — love the buttoned jacket. If you were there, please add your 2¢.

There are more great photos on the THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER website. Just click on “more photos” under the picture that’s next to the review. Our favorite is the one of the “slingshot” and the ones of Sir Tom ain’t bad, either.

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Tom Jones proves he’s still got it at Pacific

Review: Today’s pop hunks are no match for the pipes and versatility of the enduring sex symbol, the last of an endangered species of entertainer.

By BEN WENER/THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER/July 16, 2008

“Before we go any further,” Tom Jones told Tuesday night’s expectedly excitable crowd at Pacific Amphitheatre, “I have to explain something. I didn’t write that song.”

He was referring to 300 Pounds of Heavenly Joy, a Howlin’ Wolf classic he had slimmed down by a 100 to suit the hirsute Welshman’s barrel-chested physique. But it wouldn’t have mattered which song from his enjoyable 90-minute set he said it about. He didn’t write any of ‘em.

It’s not as if he has zero copyrights to his credit, but his biggest hits (and most of the smaller obscurities too) aren’t any of them. She’s a Lady? That’s Paul Anka’s ditty. What’s New Pussycat? – Bacharach & David, of course. Kiss – hopefully you know the funky little royal who penned that one. And Green Green Grass of Home, which so many fans tend to think is a paean to lush life just outside of Cardiff? That was actually put down by one Curly Putnam about the good ol’ U.S. of A., recorded by the late Porter Wagoner and then by Bobby Bare before young Tom got anywhere near it.

This isn’t some major revelation, you realize. Jones has been applying his booming baritone to other people’s songs for more than 40 years, whether covering everything from Hard to Handle to Hey Jude on his 1969-71 weekly variety hour This Is Tom Jones or, more recently, placing his swaggering stamp upon, among others, Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life, Talking Heads’ Burning Down the House and Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way. (As if to prove some point that he can credibly remake anything, his next disc is said to include a version of Arctic Monkeys’ frenetic I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.)

What’s always been impressive about Jones – that is, to those of us who haven’t been issued passports from Cougar Country, and thus aren’t required by law to fling panties (thong or granny, take your pick) and the occasional double-D brassiere at said sex symbol – is that Sir Tom can somehow tackle a song from just about any genre (OK, not metal or punk) and fit it into his kinda cheesy, kinda cool aesthetic.

It seems absurd, really, to think that in one performance he should be able to recast selections from George Jones (He Stopped Loving Her Today), Jerry Lee Lewis (End of the Road), Van Morrison (Cry for Home), Bill Withers (a very Bonnie Raitt-ish Grandma’s Hands), Randy Newman (a brassy You Can Leave Your Hat On in Joe Cocker fashion) and Prince (bonus points for knowing who authored Kiss) – not to mention Great American Songbook standards like Here’s That Rainy Day and That Old Black Magic and a bossa-nova-fied Fly Me to the Moon – and make them all seem like cornerstones of his repertoire.

He’s one of the last of an endangered species: the interpretive entertainer. Sure, Vegas will always cough up new cabaret stars to replace Wayne Newton and embrace American Idol rejects when they reach their 40s. But no matter how much Jones continues to indulge his fans’ squealing joy of his hip shakes and sweaty chest hair – now a robust 68, it’s beyond obvious he’ll never lose whatever X factor he was born with – the guy should be considered some kind of legend, an artifact from a sadly bygone era that has mysteriously endured.

They don’t make ‘em like him anymore. Pop hunks these days may have all their hits auto-tuned for them, but they would never build a career around reinventing already well-established hits in addition to their own durables. Yet there’s Jones, affable as ever, backed by a first-rate 11-piece band, effortlessly showing off pipes and versatility most singers will never acquire, whoa-ooh-whoa-ooh-whoa-ing through What’s New Pussycat? once more, carrying this torch virtually alone.

He’s in tip-top shape, too, so I don’t suspect he’ll stop anytime soon. But, really, is it too crazy to wish that some enterprising young stud with stars and sluts in his eyes could use Jones as a role model? I dig Jamie Cullum, too, and that Michael Bublé kid’s a comer – but macho they ain’t.

Could it really be that Jones will take his peculiar art form to the grave?

Regardless, here’s hoping Sheila E. gives her warm-up act a swift burial soon.

Ms. Escovedo, last seen filling the Paula Abdul role on the hilariously titled and justifiably short-lived game show The Next Great American Band, is undeniably a highly skilled drummer and percussionist, and not a bad vocalist. Her live show, however, though featuring several equally adept musicians and a singer bearing a striking resemblance to Donny Osmond, is nonetheless aggressively bland – generic when it should be smokin’, tiresome when it should be lively.

The crowd responded kindly, even enthusiastically – which reminds that there’s no accounting for taste. But, really, Ms. E: Funk should never be so polite.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2248 or bwener@ocregister.com