Tom Jones International

This is a preview of Saturday night’s (July 19) show at the Silver Legacy in Reno, NV. Even though the interview is a couple of years old, it reads like it’s new. Ignore the list of recordings at the end, as it’s not quite complete and we think some of the singles listed were only released in the UK. But no matter. It’s a fun read. The photo is from Tom’s publicity kit.

Please remember to send a review of the show in Contra Costa Tuesday night.

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Tom Jones knew he was destined to be a star

July 16, 2008/Go To Reno Tahoe Who:

Tom Jones • When: 8 p.m. July 19 • Where: Reno Ballroom, Fourth and Center streets• Cost: $45, $70, $80 and $95 • Details: 888-288-1833 • Web: downtownreno.com

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Picture this, pussycat. It’s the late ’50s in Wales, and it’s a Friday night at the local YMCA.

Onstage is a popular area band, Tommy Scott and the Senators, singing the hits of the day of artists such as Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry.

You might have been impressed by the strong vocals and good looks of Tommy Scott, a Welsh lad whose real name was Tom Woodward. But it’s unlikely you would have turned to your friend and said, “Wow, in a couple of years, that kid up there in the black leather is going to have a huge hit, win a Grammy and become one of the top sex symbols of an era.”

But that’s just what happened to Woodward, renamed Tom Jones in the mid-’60s by London manager Gordon Mills to link his new client to the good-looking, lowborn character of a popular movie of the day, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. (It was Mills who turned plain-sounding Arnold George Dorsey into Engelbert Humperdinck.)

Jones said he wasn’t surprised by his success. He had been expecting it since he was a youngster.

“When I was a child singing at parties, people always told me that I had something different,” he said in a 2006 interview.

“So, I believed as a child that I was going to become a star. … I thought if I can make a living at singing and not have to do a job of work that I didn’t like, that would be it.”

Jones has done more than just make a living in the four decades since his hit in 1965, It’s Not Unusual.

In that same year, Jones sang the theme song to the James Bond film Thunderball, and he won a Grammy for Best New Artist for 1965.

Jones remembers those days well.

“After Ot’s Not Unusual, the only place you could play in London were rhythm & blues clubs and some big dances,” he said.

“The Rolling Stones and the Beatles, they’d play theaters, that was the order of the day.”

Jones shared a bill with the two bands at a concert at what is now Wembley Arena in England.

“”That was a great afternoon. Everybody was there, but the only problem was there was a lot of work to be done,” he said.

“I’d sung the night before, then we had to get to London to do the concert in the afternoon and then I had to do ‘Live at the London Palladium’ that night, so it was a bit hair-raising.

“But I was young then, and I just charged through it.”

His energy level might not be as high now that he’s almost 70, but Jones said his voice is better than ever.

“Thank God, it’s great . . . it’s as strong now as it ever was, and I think my range is bigger now — especially my lower register, which is much stronger,” he said.

“When I first started, I was more of a tenor. Now I’m between tenor and baritone. I think it gives me more depth when I sing,” said Jones, adding now he only smokes in moderation.

“ I like to have a cigar after dinner, with a cognac and a coffee, but I don’t smoke in the daytime, unless there’s a coffee with it — there doesn’t have to be a cognac.”

Of course, it’s not all coffee, cigars and cognac.

“I make sure that I get eight hours sleep a night. Vocal chords need to shut up and not be used,” he said.

“I work out, too. I need to pump up and get the blood flowing a couple of hours before I get onstage, and I also drink a lot of water.

“Humidity levels are incredibly important,” said Jones, who lost his voice in Berlin once and couldn’t understand why. “I’d never experienced dry air before, and a doctor told me that singers need 60-percent humidity, so I take humidifiers with me and have a guage that sits by the bed and if the humidity drops, then on they go.”

As with any performer with a string of hits, Jones tries to balance his shows with a variety of songs.

“What I try to do is put the hits in certain places in the show because they do go well with a lot of later stuff that I’ve recorded,” he said.

“Delilah is strong, and when that thing starts off, people recognize it immediately; It’s Not Unusual is like that too; and Green Green Grass Of Home.

“After Green Green Grass Of Home, I kick into What’s New Pussycat (and although) it’s completely different, somehow it fits,” said Jones, who thinks the pacing of the show is important.

“I think you need to mix them up, but I always do a load of newer songs as well, which keeps me on my toes.”

Despite his best efforts to please everyone, it doesn’t always work.

“Whoopi Goldberg came to see me once, and she loved I (Who Have Nothing), which I had a big hit with in the States, but I didn’t do it the night she came to see me,” he said.

“She thought that maybe I didn’t like the song anymore, but I can’t do all the hits I’ve had. Thank God, I’ve had a lot. I can’t grumble about that, and I still love singing them, but it’s a test as well,” he said.

“You can’t just sit on a stool and sing Delilah, you have to really get into it. Those songs are ‘testy’ songs.”

Jones doesn’t see retirement anywhere on the immediate horizon.

“That will only happen when I can’t sing anymore, but I don’t think the desire will ever leave me, because I love getting up in front of people,” he said.

“When I’m on tour in the States, if I have a night off and I go into a blues club, nine times out of 10, I’ll get up on the stage and the people with me will say, ‘Tom, please, we’ve got shows to do, don’t leave your best performance onstage in a small blues club.’ But I really have to hold myself back to not sing.”

SINGLES •1965 It’s Not Unusual • 1965 What’s New Pussycat? • 1965 Thunderball • 1966 Green Green Grass of Home • 1967 I’ll Never Fall in Love Again • 1968 Delilah • 1968 Help Yourself • 1969 I (Who Have Nothing) • 1971 She’s a Lady • 1988 Kiss with the Art of Noise • 1990 Unbelievable • 1995 I Wanna Get Back With You with Tori Amos • 1999 Burning Down the House with The Cardigans • 1999 Baby, It’s Cold Outside with Cerys Matthews of Catatonia • 1999 Lust for Life, with The Pretenders • 1999 Sex Bomb with Mousse T • 2000 Mama Told Me Not To Come with Stereophonics • 2000 You Need Love Like I Do with Heather Small of M People