Tom Jones International

Don’t forget to check out this morning’s interview on Wake Up With Wogan below!

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We especially like the photo at left with Tom and his friend, that guy who sang The Wayward Wind. And, if you look behind Sir Tom in the photo at right, you’ll spot, over his left shoulder, his managers.

Here’s video of Tom being interviewed at the Q Awards.

And, to give you an idea of the work of the Mancunian band Elbow that Tom mentioned, here they are performing The Loneliness of A Tower Crane Driver at the ceremony when they won the prestigious Mercury Award earlier this year.

Don’t forget to check out this morning’s interview on Wake Up With Wogan below!

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Here’s the Q Awards website which, at the mo, has very little content. But, these photos are from that site. Check back with Q later. They say there’ll be video. Meanwhile, we’ll have to make do with digitalspy.com, always cheesy but, in this case at least, timely.

Tom Jones and Grace Jones were among the veteran musicians in attendance at this year’s Q Awards.

The Welsh singer, 68, who won the Q Merit gong in 2002, revealed that he was at the ceremony to present an accolade to Jamaican-born Grace Jones, 60.

“I’m going to present Grace Jones with an award,” Tom told DS. “I don’t know her well, but of course, I’m ready for anything.

“She comes across like a lady, but I’ve heard she throws a big right hand as well, just in case you don’t call her a lady.”

Praising the singer, he said: “I think she is great. She’s very flamboyant. She’s got a style of her own, which is always great I think.”

Speaking on the red carpet, Grace said: “It’s my first time at the Q Awards, so it’s quite exciting. You get to mix with people from showbiz. It’s bit of glamour and you get to dress up, which is fun.”

Other celebrities at the Grosvenor House ceremony included The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Sugababes, Adam Ant, Stereophonics and Coldplay.

Also from digitalspy.com here’s more than we need to know about Nick Hodgson’s feelings about Tom Jones’ sweat. Icky, but since they had the first news about the Q Awards, we’ll give them credit.

From Tom’s website comes news of two — count em! 2! — interviews tomorrow.

Tom will be appearing on the George Lamb show on BBC Radio 6Music, between 10:00-13:00 UK time tomorrow (Tuesday 7 October). You can listen live at that time by clicking here.

Tomorrow you’ll also be able to hear Tom being interviewed by Mark Lawson for the Front Row programme on BBC Radio 4. This will be broadcast between 17:15-17:45 UK time, and you can listen live or through the BBC’s “Listen Again”

On the air with Sir Terry Wogan, Tom introduced his UK single, If He Should Ever Leave You on this, a most-popular morning radio show. Tom was charming and clearly excited about the new CD in this most pleasant 13+ minutes. And we were most impressed at how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Tom sounded at 8:34 a.m.

He said he’ll be in the UK for three weeks this trip and, next year, will have a full-scale tour there.

Awhile before Tom went on the air, Terry Wogan read a wish from our friend The Georgia Peach. Then, after the interview, read a message from Paula, our UK friend, who said, “I don’t remember when I was last so hopelessly excited first thing on a Monday morning….”

Between those messages, right before he began the interview by playing It’s Not Unusual, Sir Terry read the message below from us:

“We have the largest Tom Jones fan website in the world, tomjonesinternational.com, and we want Sir Tom to know we join all his fans in wishing him the best with “24 Hours.” We’re listening to you here in Las Vegas…Ellen & Ursula”

He commented on the time difference and, then, said something about fans in Las Vegas toward the end of the interview. So, here it is in two parts:

Wogan Interview • 10-06-08 • Part I • Wogan Interview 10•06•08 Part II

We hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we did and, we have to say we love the last few, plaintive horn notes in the song. So haunting.

Apologies for the rough cuts of the interview. We’ll try to get better.

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Here’s a brief — too brief — review of 24 Hours from Music Week. Since it’s a “real” music publication, we’d like to see lots more at great length as the release date gets closer. We understand that commitments here in Las Vegas inhibit the UK promotion, but hopefully there’ll be plenty of phoners he can do to keep it fresh.

Here’s the last song in the Good Morning America concert — Mama Told Me Not To Come.

After this there’s one more number to go — a reprise of Mama Told Me.

This “poll” is actually a gambling come-on but if you watch the bad video of I Like the Way there are several fun clips that come on after it is over. Even though it’s a waste of time to vote, it’s fun to watch.

Here’s Tom singing Sex Bomb.

Released a few years earlier as a dance single and on Reload in 1999, this was the first album — mainstream — release of the song in the US.

We will be posting two more clips from the GMA week and we have to again thank our friend The Flash for the video. Check out what he has to offer. It’s pretty amazing.

Please don’t forget the October Question of the Month (below)!
And be sure to check out the video from Good Morning America (also below)

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Moderators’ Note/Question: Why are they saying this is Tom’s “songwriting debut?” Didn’t he allegedly write Baptism By Fire and some other stuff from his Jools Holland collaboration? And didn’t he allegedly write songs with Wyclef Jean for Mr. Jones? And, also, didn’t he allegedly co-write Looking Out My Window and And I Tell The Sea with Gordon Mills?

We understand that cred seems to demand singers perform their own music these days, but this is silly. All any writer or journalist has to do is look on albums and CDs to see that Tom’s been credited with writing years before this CD’s release. With that voice — that amazing, like-no-other voice — is writing so important? It’s nice he’s writing for this CD, but it’s not new. Why risk credibility, and diminishing any accomplishment, by saying it is? And we don’t think Tom deserves any of the potential backlash from this, either.

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The BBC press office announces:

Later Live … With Jools Holland Ep 5/9

Tuesday 14 October /10.00-10.30pm BBC TWO /www.bbc.co.uk/later

Snow Patrol, Tom Jones and Eliza Carthy are among Jools Holland’s guests on this week’s edition of Later Live. Snow Patrol, who make a welcome return to the Later studio, perform a song or two from their new album, A Hundred Million Suns, the follow-up to the million-selling Eyes Open.

The legendary Tom Jones, who is about to release his new album, 24 Hours, which features his songwriting debut, is also in the studio to perform a number from it.

Eliza Carthy, meanwhile, performs songs from her recent acclaimed album, Dreams Of Breathing Underwater.

Further acts due to appear tonight will be confirmed closer to transmission.

Please don’t forget the October Question of the Month (below)!

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Tom will be on Wake Up To Wogan on Monday morning at 7:30 British Summer Time (BST). He’s slated to play the first single from 24 Hours which, we’d guess, is If He Should Ever Leave You, the song he did on Canadian Idol. We hope he gets this kind of promotion here in the USA as it’s kind of a foregone conclusion that the CD will be a hit — however briefly — in the UK. Please, please, whomever-makes-these-decisions: Don’t settle for anything other than an all-out bombardment of promotion! Work on the USA!

You can listen live at the site above. Since on the US west coast it’s on at 11:30 p.m. we’ll try to record it and post it for your that night.

Thanks, Dale.

Finally, the promo concert on GMA October 30, 2003 begins with Tom singing It’s Not Unusual.

We love the shots of the audience — especially the little kid — and of the band. (Check out Herman looking as he did when we first met him.) As always, everyone’s having a blast.