Tom Jones International

Prince Charles (left) will be 60 years old on November 14 and a big bash, as we reported below, is planned. Among the entertainers it was reported he’d requested at the event, to be broadcast by ITV, is Sir Tom Jones (right, at age 60 in 2000 on the red carpet for Men Strike Back).

Apparently, Sir Tom has accepted the invitation.

Of course, nothing is official until confirmed by tomjones.com.

Meanwhile, Tom plays tonight at the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, CA. The Fair has a great musical roster, starting with the incomparable BB King who played opening night. In addition to Tom, before the Fair ends on August 3, Fergie, Emmylou Harris and Chris Isaak will be among the musicians to play there. Looking forward to hearing from those of you who are there tonight (and at other shows throughout the week)..

Please do not forget to add your review (or comment) to the San Diego review below. Thanks!

According to Wales Online, “Speaking in Los Angeles at the Grammy Foundation’s Starry Night Gala, Tom revealed who his dream duet at the moment would be: “’Duffy, you know because she’s Welsh. And she can sing, not just because she’s Welsh. I’d like to do something with her.’”

And the much-in-demand star is on Prince Charles’ short list to entertain at his 60th birthday bash on November 14 in London. The Spice Girls have allegedly been invited and he’d also, according to a news report also like to ask Kylie Minogue, Tom Jones and Status Quo. ITV will telecast the event. Tom is at the MGM from October 30 through November 14.

A trip to the UK would please UK fans, we know (and we’re pleased for them) but we hear — Rumor or Reality? — that at the end of November he has a couple of dates on the East Coast of the US.

We happily left Las Vegas for a quick trip to San Diego — comparatively cool weather, humidity, frizz and — oh, yes — Sir Tom Jones. If you were there, please let us know what you thought of the show and, please, if you see him this week in California or Reno, do so, too.

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You can easily see from the photo at left that Tom Jones was hot in San Diego — not just the unusually prodigious amount of sweat you can see in the photo and that was after he removed his red jacket, which was also soaked through. We felt really bad for him when he came out for his encore in the same shirt — it just looked so uncomfortable. Back in the day when he would sweat like that there was always a fresh shirt or (remember?) a fresh black t-shirt. We don’t think he should be Rod Stewart or Cher changing with every song but even Barry Manilow changes throughout he show and he doesn’t break a sweat.

No matter what, the crowd of 1,000+ was clearly — and vociferously — happy to be there. We found it a refreshing change from the shows we usually see in a casino because every single one of those people in the audience was there because they wanted to be. No casino comps to high rollers who were there because it was a free show. Here, women, men — all were standing, cheering, smiling, singing, dancing. And Sir Tom lapped it up, responding to the crowd with one of the most enthusiastic and joyous performances we’ve ever seen.

Then there was the venue. Humphrey’s By The Sea is, obviously, right next to the water. In fact. people who chose to dock their boats there got to see and hear the show for free from their boats. Performing outdoors on a beautiful night, Tom looked skyward, gestured and commented on the “beautiful moon.” And it was.

Unfortunately, the band and singers were level on the stage with Tom, rather than standing on the risers usually in place. That made them difficult to see for people sitting further back. And, because they’re so terrific, a good part of the audience missed out on a good part of the show.

We arrived early and got to meet some loyal and lovely fans who are regular visitors to this site and several who were new to Tom. For that we are very grateful. And, as we said, this is a beautiful venue and a lot of fun. Except….
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Saturday night in Los Angeles, as we discussed below, Tom joined in as one of the performers at the Starry Night Benefit honoring Sir George Martin, producer of the Beatles, who holds the Guiness Book of World Records title as the most successful music producer ever, with more than 50 #1 hits in the US and UK and more than 50 billion units sold. Here, obviously, is Sir Tom on the red carpet. Here’s a brief story about the event. We’re sure there’ll be more soon.

Tonight, Tom begins several dates in California with a show at Humphrey’s By The Bay in San Diego (where audience members must be 21 to go). Tuesday, it’s the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA. (We’ve seen some fan consternation about Sheila E. being on the bill with Tom at this venue. As far as we know, she’s opening and you’ll still get undiluted TJ doing a full show. Others — including Etta James at Ravania outside Chicago two years ago and TOP, too — have opened for Tom. It may be unusual for this to happen today, but it’s still possible.) Thursday he plays The Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA (that’s owned by Steve Wozniak, co-inventor and founder of Apple Computer). Friday he’s at Marin Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael, CA and Saturday he’s at the Silver Legacy in Reno, NV.

Then, it’s back home until August 1 and 2 when Tom and the gang play the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and, the following Thursday, August 7, they open for two weeks at the MGM Grand.

We’ll be posting more about the shows beginning after tonight’s in San Diego and hope those of you lucky enough to see him send in your reviews.

You know how we feel about Sir Tom and if we haven’t told you before, we’ll tell you how we feel about Love. Truthfully, Sir Tom, and other Sirs who will be at the event tonight have traveled A Long And Winding Road together and it’s fun to retell the stories. We know this is probably our longest post, but we packed it with information (and a Love video at the end), so we hope you find it interesting.

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Sir Tom Jones won a Grammy® Award for Best New Artist at the 8th Annual Awards in 1965 for his recording of It’s Not Unusual. Between 1967 and 2007, Sir George Martin won six Grammy® Awards for producing and arranging work by The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Wings and The Who’s Tommy. In 2007 he won two awards as producer of the extraordinary soundtrack for Love, the Cirque du Soleil interpretation of the music of The Beatles. The photo at right shows Sir George (in the blue sweater), his son Giles (to his left in the brown jacket) and some of the cast members from Love. The photo on the left is Tom singing in Sunrise, FL, last summer. (We had to post his photo, right?)

Tonight in Los Angeles, the Grammy Foundation is hosting its “Starry Night Benefit” Honoring Sir George Martin. According to the Foundation press release, among the scheduled entertainers are “David Foster [who] will serve as the evening’s musical director. An array of musical luminaries will perform including acclaimed pianist and singer/songwriter A Fine Frenzy (aka Alison Sudol), GRAMMY-winning group America, multi-GRAMMY-winning artist Burt Bacharach, multi-GRAMMY-winning musician Jeff Beck, two-time GRAMMY nominee Chris Botti, multi-GRAMMY-winning vocalist Natalie Cole, multi-GRAMMY nominee Kurt Elling, multi-GRAMMY-winning arranger/composer Dave Grusin, GRAMMY-winning artist Tom Jones, multi-GRAMMY-winning artist Michael McDonald, singer/songwriter Naomi Sommers and multi-GRAMMY-winning artist Jimmy Webb.”

Sirs Tom and George go back a long way. They have known each other for years and, according to a couple of TJ bios, when Peter Sullivan left the record production unit that had such success with Tom from the beginning through Daughter of Darkness, he went into partnership with George Martin. The story is that Tom wanted to work with Martin and Sullivan, but the price was too high and Decca and Gordon Mills passed on it.

And, of course, many of Tom’s fans know the story of the Paul McCartney song meant for Tom. If not, it is that:
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To end a work week that was full of TJ non-news nonsense — from idiots thinking that every Welsh singer must be related to another singer, to a faded, very minor, celebrity using Tom’s name to get some publicity (which is the only way she seems to have gotten any publicity at all in at least 20 or so years) — we thought we’d have some fun and games. Well, “games,” at least. Not sure how much “fun.”

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To the left is a word scramble. Underneath the box with the letters are the answers. Find them among the letters, circle them — thus eliminating them — and you are left with letters that spell out the name of the National Velvet star. The thing is, we understand that, but don’t understand why the puzzle at right is there, except to provide us with was certainly a nice photo of Tom before it got all faded. It just doesn’t make sense to us. These appeared together in a 1976 newspaper. If you know all the answers, you’re either older than you might care to admit or a real trivia buff. Or both. Have fun! Thanks, AF, once again.

An auction of demo tapes by Tommy Scott and the Senators recorded in 1962 in the toilet of the Pontypridd YMCA today was auctioned at Christies in London.

Lot 109 in the “POPULAR CULTURE: ROCK & POP MEMORABILIA” auction was described as, “A rare ¼ inch reel-to-reel master-tape recording of Tom Jones, 1962, on one reel of Emitape, featuring four un-released tracks, tracks comprise:
1.Don’t Pretend
2.Time Alone
3.What About Me
4.That’s What Love Can Do
the box inscribed with track details in an unknown hand.”

It was estimated to go for £2,000 to £3,000 and came with no copyright, permissions, etc.

The recordings actually sold for £2,500 (($4,930).

You can check out all the auction results hereand a BBC news article about the auction here. Even though the article says maybe the person who bought it — and, who knows, it could be Sir Tom or his management — might want to release the material, Christies clearly stated that it comes with no rights do do anything with the material on the tapes.

The lot that fetched the most in the auction was the lyrics to Give Peace A Chance handwritten by John Lennon in in Suite 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, Canada, during John and Yoko’s historic Bed-In for Peace, May 26 to June 2, 1969. It brought £421,250 ($830,706).

(We reposted this circa-1965 photo of Tom because, for some reason, we really like it. It’s one of the best from that time. Perhaps because he’s performing and his sheer joy at doing that comes through whenever he’s photographed “at work?”)

When Tom first started out, Gordon Mills’ wife Jo ran his fan club in England.

In those days, fan clubs for every star were scrupulous about answering fan mail, sending photos and newsletters to members. After all, with no internet and long-distance phone calls prohibitively priced, that was the only way of communicating with fans.

The TOJOs — the TOm JOnes fans — were treated to regular updates through the club. When, later on, smaller regional or local clubs were formed, Tom’s management office kept the club presidents in the loop. They, in turn, passed on the word to their members, usually through newsletters. To a loyal, devoted fan the arrival of the latest newsletter was a day to cherish.

These newsletters made fans feel important, as if they were in the know about the star to whose club they belonged. (We have many of these from the UK and across the US and we’ll post them from time to time.) This story, about behind-the-scenes club activity and Tom’s family, is a perfect example.

This is a July, 1967, newsletter from the UK. It was written by Vicki Shepard, a club secretary. That club, by the way, closed in 1977 after, one member told us, “Tom moved to your side of the pond” and there was less news of him.

Thanks to the TOJO who sent this. We have newsletters from the UK and the US and, from time to time, we’ll post articles. We appreciate anything you send us that you think other fans may like, so please scan and send along. And, also, please share your fan club memories with us in the comments sections for these posts. The photo of Tom, taken in 1967, is posted for AF — thanks.

Many newer fans may not know that in July, 1976, Tom began filming in Los Angeles for Yockowold, a movie that was chosen — after several scripts had been rejected for a variety of reasons — as a fitting debut vehicle. There were great hopes for the project and, with Actors Studio founder and teacher Lee Strasberg as part of the cast, there was probably expert drama coaching, too. But, three weeks into filming, financing collapsed and the project was never completed. Since that time, Tom has only played himself in films.

Below: some articles on the film from a now long-gone tabloid, MIDNIGHT (yes, that’s how they wrote it — all caps). By the time these appeared, the filming had been over for weeks. One cannot help wondering what might have been.But it is fun to look back and speculate, isn’t it?

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New Phase Of Tom Jones’ Career Starts With 200-Pound Girlfriend

Singer Tom Jones a hired gun?

That’s his role in his first feature film, Yockowald. He packs a gun, chases spies — he’s a sort of bad guy himself — and has a 200-pound girlfriend. But he doesn’t sing.

”It’s the beginning of a whole new phase of my career,” the British entertainer told MIDNIGHT. “It’s exciting, it’s demanding and it’s a little frightening, too.

”But at this point I really have to take risks.

“I play a hired assassin — hired by the CIA — to smoke out a foreign agent in the Los Angeles community.

“I’m excited about the role because it’s different from anything I have ever done before.

“I’ve wanted to do a film for some time but either the role was too close to my own personality or it didn’t challenge me in other ways..

“This film is going to be a real challenge.”

Jones’ fame is making problems for producers Clarence Green and Russell Rouse. They’ve had to put on extra security men to keep the singer’s young fans from mobbing him on location shooting around Los Angeles.

“We haven’t had anything like this in a long time,” one staff member told MIDNIGHT.

“They shot The Fortune here with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty but you didn’t find women waiting at the gates or trying to climb over fences the way they do for this man Tom Jones.”

Veteran actor-teacher Lee Strasberg and newcomer Jacque Lynn Colton also appear in Yockowald, which ends with a wild chase scene.

“I become involved with the character Jacque plays,” Jones told MIDNIGHT. “She’s a woman who weighs over 200 pounds who’s lost the will to live.

“Because of me she finds new joy in her life.”

Jones has bought the Dean Martin Bel Air estate for $1.2 million. He has his son Mark, 18, with him “as m major domo,” while his wife Linda remains in England packing their belongings to move to Hollywood.

“I’ve always wanted to stay in Hollywood,” he said.

A friend told MIDNIGHT, “This may be Tom’s first dramatic film but it won’t be his last. He didn’t buy that 30-room house for eight weeks filming time.

“People are going to be amazed at how good Tom is,” said producer Rouse. “He delivers lines with an uncanny sense of timing. There’s enough action to slow down an Olympic athlete but Tom handles that like a pro, too.”

Jones told MIDNIGHT he’s “having a ball. I chose this part because it’ll let me enter acting gradually.

I don’t think it would have been a sound idea for me to start off my acting career with Hamlet, now, would it?”

Thanks once again, AF.

In the United States, the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle is, among puzzle fans, the one that sets the standard, much like the puzzle in the London Times.

We read a story once about a celebrity who said he knew he’d made it when he finally appeared in a Times puzzle clue. American Idol winner David Cook’s fans are trying to start a drive to get him his own puzzle in the New York Times.

That’s why we were so pleased when we looked at the Sunday, July 6 puzzle to see the clue for #7 across — “1971 Tom Jones hit.” The answer has nine letters.

Yes, we know it’s silly but, please, indulge us. We do the puzzle every week and have done it for a long time, so it was just cool seeing Tom’s name there. That is, indeed, recognition.

Now, we’re really looking to the next mention of Sir Tom in the puzzle after his new CD is released. This clue will appear at the end of 2008 or early in 2009. It will read “2008 (or 2009) Tom Jones hit.”

Meanwhile, we won’t ask the Times for a puzzle, but if you make up a challenging Tom Jones crossword, we’ll be happy to post it.