Tom Jones International

Amazon News: As of Tuesday morning, 24 Hours was #6 in Easy Listening and #32 overall on the Amazon.UK list and #21 on the Amazon.com Vocal/Pop list, #51 overall. On HMV it’s #31 with an arrow (or, as we’ve said for years, “a bullet”). Please add your review. Just click the link at right.

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All but one review below is a rave — just what’s needed (in fairness we had to post the negative one). We’ve put the last line of each good one in boldface type because those lines stand on their own. Each day, word on this CD gets better and better. And it’s so exciting to watch, to be a fan and to see others learn what we’ve known about the greatest singer in the world.

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From amazon.com comes an 11-minute-17-second podcast interview with Tom. He talks about the sound he likes, the sparseness of Springsteen’s song, how he approached it — similar to the way he approached Prince’s Kiss — and lots of other stuff. Very interesting.

Here is the amazon.com podcast: Part 1 • Part 2.

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This review from Billboard has a few sense errors, but it’s terrific. This guy know whereof he speaks (and what of he listens). Clearly, we love and approve of the last sentence.

24 Hours

Rather than stage a stripped-down comeback in a incense-laden studio with an acoustic guitar and/or Rick Rubin, 68-year-old Tom Jones struts in the other direction, having waited for the full Winehouse-led rebloom of the bombastic rock’n’soul he made not so unusual in the first place. Jones roars out of the box with Tommy James & the Shondells’ “I’m Alive,” a sweat-soaked jumpsuit of a song thick with fierce maleness (”I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I’m a man,” Jones howls). The Bono-penned “Sugar Daddy” is basically a series of dirty-sex couplets delivered as a smirking kiss-off to anyone who dares doubt his continued virility (”Daddy always gives you what is good for you”). Then there’s the Bruce Springsteen obscurity “The Hitter,” about a past-his-prime boxer who can’t stay clear of the fight. Like [you may with] Jones, you might be wondering what he could possibly be doing in the ring, until he lands a hook or two. —Jeff Vrabel

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“America first. We’re aiming all over the world, but it’s very important for me to get a hit here.” We’ve been saying this in one way or another all along on this site (and taken flak from overseas fans for it), so it’s nice to read that Sir Tom says it, too.

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Will the real Tom Jones please stand up?
A team of songwriters, including Bono and Springsteen, digs into the man’s life in order to craft the man’s songs.

By Geoff Boucher/Los Angeles TimesNovember 25, 2008

Tom Jones went into Lillie’s Bordello looking for a drink and found a new career as a consulting songwriter. It was about four years ago, and the Welsh singer was in Dublin for an award show when he headed over to Lillie’s, the famed Grafton Street club.

“I saw Bono and said hello and asked him if he wanted to come upstairs for a drink and a chat. We got to drinking and talking there, and I asked him if he would write me a song. He said, ‘What I’d love to do is write a song about you. And I want it to be a Tom Jones song, not a U2 song. Tell me about yourself. I remember what I saw on television, but tell me about before you got into show business . . . . How much of that did you bring with you and how much of you is still back there?’ ”
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Please don’t forget: You can order 24 Hours (which is released tomorrow here in the US) by clicking the button on the top right. Notice the price is down to $11.98. And, you can post a review of the CD by clicking the button under that. We hope you’ll do both. Thanks!

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Don’t forget Sir Tom Jones on Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW Tuesday morning, 11:15 am, PST. He’s there with the band and singers and, what’s really great is that the show begins at 9 am and, unlike most shows, they tell you what time Tom comes on. That’s really considerate. He’s also on Live With Regis and Kelly at 9 a.m. on ABC (syndicated; check listings) where Nicole Kidman is also a guest. Thus we figure Tom will be on during the last half-hour. And, tomorrow night, he’ll be on Entertainment Tonight. This show is also syndicated, so check local listings.

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Graham Norton Uncut is the “rest” of the weekly half-hour show Norton does on the BBC. They take that show and, as our correspondent Liz said explained, and sort of “unedit” it. The taping for the show lasted around two hours and lots, therefore, was left out.

So, on Sunday evenings, the BBC shows what they call an “uncut version.” It’s really cut, but it does last about 50 minutes or so. The very brief clip here addresses a topic many fans brought up — those people on Strictly Come Dancing who actually danced while Sir Tom was singing. It’s funny and proves that great minds (Tom, his fans and Graham Norton) think alike.

You can watch the entire show at our TJI.com Video Library.

If you have RealPlayer Download (which comes with the latest version of RealPlayer — a free app available at realplayer.com) you can download the clips and watch them on their desktops on a much larger screen with RealPlayer.

And, if you want to see more vintage video of Tom on TV, check out The Tom Jones Collector’s Page)

Meanwhile, Vince sent us this video of Sir Tom from Portugese TV. It’s a canned interview but, nonetheless, it’s fun.

As we told you opening night at the MGM last month, Tom was reported to have died and, after singing I’m Alive he talked about it. Here’s an interview picked up by many news outlets where he discussed the experience. And, we must say, he’s right to be proud!

Veteran crooner TOM JONES has mixed feelings about reading his own obituary - after he was killed off online last month (Oct08) by a sick Internet prankster.

The Delilah singer, 68, was fast asleep in his Los Angeles home when his daughter-in-law and manager Donna heard the seemingly tragic news, and she phoned in to check on his status. Hours later, Jones sat for a TV interview with news broadcasters CNN - and had a chance to read the obituary editors had prepared in case the death rumours were true.

But Jones admits he was rather proud of the achievements the article detailed.

He recalls, “It’s a strange thing because there was a rumour going around about a month ago saying that I’d passed away. Somebody put it on the internet… and Fox news got a hold of it in Los Angeles and called my agent asking if I was all right. So my agent called my daughter-in-law, who is one of my managers, and my son, who is my other manager, was flying from London to L.A. so he was in the air. “There’s a fellow who works for me in Los Angeles and Donna, my daughter-in-law, says to him, ‘Can you check on Tom to see if he’s all right?’ And so he came in the bedroom and he said, ‘Well he’s snoring, and I don’t think people snore when they’re dead!’

“Then I did an interview with somebody from CNN later that day and she said do you want to read your obituary? Honestly, they had it all printed out! So I read it, and there was some nice things in it, I must admit!”

Accompanied by Mark and Don, Tom came into the studio where his band and singers awaited him. The band has gotten its bearings and rehearsed a bit and Sir Tom, just came in and did what he does best. This time, for a short bit on Good Morning America today in New York.

If you watch the video, you’ll notice lots of people peering in the window (the studio is in Times Square — “The Crossroads of the World”) watching the performance. That’s partly because there was apparently a security issue at the studio, with guards and patrol dogs checking inside and out. But Tom acknowledged the fans with a wave to those he knew.

At any rate, we kind of wish Tom were on for more time but, since, after the show, he continued to sing, maybe they’ll use that footage another time. He’s introduced and interviewed by Robin Roberts.

At any rate, here’s: GMA Part 1 • GMA Part 2

If you cannot access the video here, check it out on the TJI.com Video Library.

Please don’t forget to add your review of 24 Hours to our review page. Use the link at right. We look forward to what you have to say.

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Tom Jones, ‘24 Hours’

By Christopher Muther/The Boston Globe / November 24, 2008

The songs may have changed, but in the Tom Jones universe, some things are constant: hip swiveling, proud displays of chest hair, and big booming vocals. Jones has always lustily attacked his songs, which is why “24 Hours” marks a departure for the 68-year-old knighted pop star. Instead of tearing and shredding every song with his usual bravado, Jones demonstrates that he can be a subtle fellow. He’s no shrinking Thom Yorke, but the title track, about a death row inmate, is a quiet reflection on life. Overall, the inspiration behind the album is Jones as Amy Winehouse or Jamie Lidell. “I’ve been singing this song since before you were born,” he boasts to all the Winehouse-come-latelys on the U2-penned “Sugar Daddy.” Given that he is the grandpapi of sweaty Brit R&B, it is a natural fit for Sir Tom to show these young’uns something about soul. Sadly, he’s not working with producer Mark Ronson, but tracks such as the honeyed “If He Should Ever Leave You” are sufficiently Ronson-esque. He smartly revisits songs from Bruce Springsteen (”The Hitter”) and, for those who miss the raw, hungry Jones, he delivers a roaring rendition of Tommy James & the Shondell’s “I’m Alive.” (Out tomorrow)

ESSENTIAL: “If He Should Ever Leave You”

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TOM JONES/24 Hours/(S-Curve)

THE NEW YORK TIMES/Published: November 23, 2008

Tom Jones’s patented idea of macho camp was complex enough in the 1960s. But on “24 Hours” — his first album of new material in 15 years, though far from his first comeback — his performance goes further into the sincere-insincere hall of mirrors, a game of flamboyant posing that feeds on the love and outrage of the British media. This time it’s wrapped in imitation–antique R&B kitsch, with spun-sugar violins, horns, wah-wah guitars, chattering high-hat cymbals. His production team, Future Cut, has trained its focus on two targets, 40 years apart: Amy Winehouse fans and anyone fond of Mr. Jones’s 1960s big-beat pop origins.

Some of the songs’ conceits were excellently counterblocked by British critics when they got their turn with the album a week ago. “Sugar Daddy,” written by Mr. Jones with U2’s Bono, is a frisky manifesto: Forget my age (68), feel my chest hair. “I got male intuition/I got sexual ambition,” he bellows. “I’m the last great tradition/let me state my position.” (“The effect is as immediate as swallowing a bad oyster,” declared Pete Paphides in The Times of London. He has a point.) In “The Road” Mr. Jones attempts dubious sensitivity, mollifying a cheated-on wife by insisting “what matters is here and now” (a line that “merits a saucepan to the temple,” Jude Rogers of The Guardian wrote).

But by the halfway mark the album steadies itself. Claiming grown-up, thinking-man singer-songwriter territory (why not?), Mr. Jones sings some serious, unrepentant hard-guy narratives. He performs a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Hitter,” redone in Southern soul, and a mysterious new song, 24 Hours — a more morbid “My Way” — seems to come from the perspective of a life-sentence inmate. Throughout, Mr. Jones overdoes it of course. He can even make death musings banal. But his voice remains built for excess: it’s a great gargly instrument, heaving and overwrought as ever. BEN RATLIFF

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From unrealitytv.com:
Preview of Here Come The Boys

Following on from the previous week’s Divas II, which saw performances from some of the biggest female names in music, this week it’s the turn of the boys in ITV1’s spectacular television event Here Come The Boys. Featuring star turns from some of the world’s best loved male artists, including Sir Tom Jones, Seal, Will Young, Boyzone, Scouting For Girls and Enrique Iglesias, Here Come The Boys will be presented by the glamorous Holly Willoughby.

Catching up with Holly during rehearsals, she said, with a cheeky smile: “I am the only female and I get to share the stage with loads of gorgeous men.”

Talking about the inspiration behind the event Holly said: “Cancer charities do great things and testicular cancer is really important. The moment a man is ill they just clam up and don’t say anything, when actually they spend most of their days with hands down their pants anyway so why don’t they do something about it?”
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The Official BBC Charts has 24 Hours at #32 this week. Amazon UK has it at #7 in Easy Listening, #34 in Pop and #51 overall. Amazon.com has it at #81 in Music and #28 in Vocal Pop. Not sure what those categories are (we thought “easy listening” is where crooners are put), but at least there’s chart action. If you haven’t bought it, you can by clicking the link at top right.

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To add your review, please go to the end of this post and write in the “comments” section. Because so much is happening, and so much is being posted these days, you can also use the link to the right that says “Click Here To Review ‘24 Hours’ to post your opinion and read all the substantive reviews we’ve found so far. If you find any others, please send them (or the link to them) so we can post them for all to see.

The release of 24 Hours in the US Tuesday is huge. For the first time in 15 years — 15 years!— we in the USA — where the largest number of TJ fans live — now have some new product available in stores and not as imports. As of that day, the world is completely saturated with 24 Hours and everyone will have the opportunity to listen and evaluate.

We hope you will all follow the link to the right and add your opinion to the comments at the end of this post. And, please remember, everyone is entitled to an opinion. If we all agreed it would be a very dull world.



To get things going, we’ll begin:
24 Hours Fan Reviews

I’m Alive:
Ellen: I really like it. The joy, exuberance — the life — that infuses it is wonderful. Sir Tom Jones may be 68, but in many ways the man who sings this celebration of life is in his prime.
Ursula: Energy. Passion. Big Sound. It’s a terrific song that he uses to open his show.

If He Should Ever Leave You
Ellen: The more I hear it, the more I like it, especially the string cadence (that’s what I learned the last notes are called) at the end.
Ursula: The horns really fill out the big sound of this retro-sounding track. The lyrics are a bit trite. Upbeat. It shows off Tom’s vocal style that was popular in the 60s and 70s. Great tune.
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Here’s Tom Jones on Star Academy. Don’t you wonder what he’s thinking as he looks at the contestant? On the right, new busking video from Wednesday. If anyone has video of Tom singing Money Honey that day, we’d love to see it.

And, thanks to Dre, who also told us about the busking video at right, here reporters and presenters of the BBC Wales newsroom practice singing the Tom Jones classic Delilah for Children In Need.

A review that makes some trenchant, interesting points from the New York Daily News, one of the US papers with the largest circulation:

24 Hours marks new day for Tom Jones

Saturday, November 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM/by Jim Farber

There’s a cliché sound for oldster comeback records these days, courtesy of star producer Rick Rubin.

When the producer began his high-profile mission to clear away the cobwebs from some of his favorite older stars — including Johnny Cash, Donovan and Neil Diamond — he didn’t so much revive their music as distill it. Rubin’s recordings for those icons were equal parts collaborations and comebacks, all honoring his own mandate to keep everything stripped, raw and pure. Producer Jack White used a less severe version of this same strategy on his comeback CD with Loretta Lynn, as did Joe Henry on his hard, bluesy revival album for Bettye LaVette.

Tom Jones’ first CD of new material in 15 years, 24 Hours, stands in direct opposition to all those works. As maximal as Rubin’s CDs are minimal, Jones’ album doesn’t aim to refigure an iconic star’s signature sound but rather to re-scale its most daring peaks.

The hit Brit duo Future Cut oversaw the project, and while they’re best-known for working with bratty artists like Kate Nash and Lily Allen, the flagrantly retro sound they concocted here comes closer to what Mark Ronson did with Amy Winehouse. 24 Hours boasts the same brash and busy style that first made Tom Jones a household name back in 1965. It’s a blowsy, horny, ecstatic blowout, boring deep into Jones’ seemingly contradictory, signature style: lounge-soul.
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Be sure not to miss Liz’ story in the post below!


We are of course thrilled that 24 Hours is reviewed in this week’s People. But, because we can be as shallow as the next person, we couldn’t help noticing the appropriateness/irony of the placement.

For this is the magazine’s annual “Sexiest Man Alive” issue and, while we cannot argue with the choice of Hugh Jackman, we’d have loved to see Sir Tom celebrated on that list. But, apparently, the powers-that-be at the pub think sexy stops at 60. Still, quite short, it’s nonetheless a nice, three-and-a-half star review:

“With the retro movement ongoing in the U.K., Welsh stud emeritus Tom Jones reclaims his ’60s sound on his first U.S. release in 15 years. Indeed, the first single If He Should Ever Leave You, with its classic-feeling soul-pop holds its own with Amy Winehouse’s Rehab or Duffy’s Mercy. Meanwhile, the swaggering Sugar Daddy, cowritten by U2’s Bono and the Edge, shows that, at 68, he can still keep the panties coming.”

The review at right from the serious UK pub Record Collector is an out-and-out rave. We thank NO for sending it and want to point out that we love their references to the “album.” The interview, too, is interesting.

Below is a review from the Stepfather of Soul blog:

The 2008 Soul of Sir Tom!

Your everlovin’ Stepfather of Soul is working on a playlist for a new podcast, but in the meantime, the new CD by Tom Jones, 24 Hours (to be released in the US on Tuesday), has been getting some of my attention since the kind folks at Giant Step sent me a review copy.

Yes, I’m talking about that Tom Jones. The tight slacks-wearing Welshman whose place in the pantheon of cheese sometimes obscures some serious chops and, as I discussed when Luciano Pavarotti died, some serious soul, despite his not being a soul singer, per se. (And, of course, serious soul fans are aware of several Parrot sides of his that meet “soul record” standards. Some of my fellow soul bloggers have covered some of them.)

Anyway, 24 Hours is one of those “autumnal” albums like Solomon Burke’s Don’t Give Up on Me was: Jones still sounds good at age 68, but time has added something to his voice that makes songs like today’s selection particularly poignant. Miami soul queen Betty Wright co-produced Jones’ cover of Bruce Springsteen’s The Hitter, and in his hands the song’s dark story takes on extra weight thanks to an arrangement that turns Springsteen’s song into a Southern Soul-flavored thing with its 12/8 rhythm and strong horn charts. Although the lyrics clearly reflect a broken boxer’s return home after a fall from the top, Jones’ vocals, which at times sound almost as if channeling Burke, capture the world-weariness of the song perfectly. This is strong stuff! Tom Jones has got soul, y’all!