Even before he became world-famous, he was already called ‘Tiger Tom’ in Wales. In January 1965, a new British star confidently stepped into the spotlight: Tom Jones. The young Tom stood out especially for his powerful voice and sexy appearance. More than 45 years later, Tom Jones is a world-class star whose tremendous charm and presence still make many a woman’s heart beat faster.
Playboys
Tom Jones was born on 7 June 1940 as Thomas Jones Woodward in Trefforest, a small village in Wales. Tom grew up in a mining family. At the age of twelve, he contracted tuberculosis, which kept him ill at home for over two years. Tom still calls it the worst period of his life. The sick Tom listened to a lot of music. Once declared cured, he went to secondary school. There, Tom met his great love Melinda Trenchard, whom he married in March 1957 at the age of 16. A month after the wedding, their only son Mark was born. To earn a living for his young family, Tom worked as a construction labourer during the day. In the evenings, he moonlighted as a drummer and singer in local pubs and clubs. He formed his own band, The Playboys. In 1963, Tom was asked to become the singer in another band. As Tommy Scott & The Senators, he then made a name for himself in Wales. Enthusiastic fans gave him the nickname Tiger Tom. The famous producer Joe Meek even recorded some demos with Tommy Scott & The Senators, although this did not lead to any success.
Sandie Shaw
During one of the performances with Tommy Scott & The Senators, Tom was accidentally discovered by Gordon Mills. This man would later also manage Engelbert Humperdinck and Gilbert O’Sullivan. Mills became Tom’s manager and advised him to change his name to Tom Jones, after the wildly popular adventure film then showing in British cinemas. Mills also had a song ready that he had actually written for Sandie Shaw. But the singer rejected the song because she didn’t think it suited her well enough. So Tom was allowed to record the song 'It’s Not Unusual'. With great success, as in February 1965 he scored his first British number 1 hit with it. Suddenly, Tom was a promising star predicted by experts to have a great future. That prediction was entirely correct, as later that same year Tom was the opening act for the Rolling Stones and performed the title track of the James Bond film Thunderball.
Sex Bomb
Tom continued his success with big hits like 'What’s New Pussycat', 'Green Green Grass Of Home', 'Detroit City' and 'Delilah', which also charted highly worldwide. Tom’s sexy appearance, suggestive hip movements and enormous popularity could rival those of Elvis Presley. When ‘Casanova’ Tom performed in Las Vegas, he became friends with Elvis, a friendship that lasted until Presley’s death in 1977. Throughout the sixties and seventies, Tom entertained his audience with his own TV shows and spectacular theatre concerts. In 1988, he scored yet another worldwide hit with 'Kiss', borrowed from Prince. Through collaborations with, among others, Van Morrison, Procol Harum and the cartoon characters The Simpsons, Tom’s popularity remained unprecedented in the nineties. Around the turn of the century, Tom delivered his best-selling album ever with the CD Reload. The single from this album, 'Sex Bomb', became a huge global hit and perfectly matched his still impressive macho image.
Inspired
In 2006, Tom Jones was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. A year later, he gave a spectacular performance during the Concert For Diana at Wembley Stadium in London. In 2010, Sir Tom celebrated his 70th birthday with a big concert at Norwich’s football stadium. After appearing as a guest on the popular American TV show American Idol, Tom decided in March 2012 to become a judge on the British version of The Voice. Two months later, he released his 38th (!) and newest studio album Spirit In The Room, a strong pop album on which an inspired Tom sings songs by, among others, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and Paul McCartney. Meanwhile, Tom lives alternately in Los Angeles and Wales. Together with his childhood love Melinda, the woman he has been married to for over fifty years, he enjoys their son, grandchildren and the good life. "The fire is still in me. Not to be an oldie, but a goodie. I want to be a contender," says the nearly 82-year-old Tom Jones.
Birthday Party
Tom Jones performed on Wednesday evening 6 July 2022 at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam. Originally, he was to celebrate his eightieth birthday in 2020 at the Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, but due to the coronavirus crisis, that party was postponed by two years. The now 82-year-old, ‘godfather of modern soul’, as concert organiser MOJO calls him, probably stood on stage in the Netherlands for the last time. Jones later also celebrated his birthday in Luxembourg, Germany and Ireland.
Tom Jones is still young at heart. This is not only thanks to the popularity of the Welsh singer as a judge on The Voice. On his latest albums, he still experiments freely with his music. First and foremost, there is of course the voice. Tom’s gospel range is still incredibly wide. Age has not diminished the power of his voice at all. Supported by a classic rock ’n’ roll band, he swung away. On some songs with two guitarists, making ‘Talking Reality Television Blues’ suitable for festivals like Best Kept Secret. ‘Surrounded By Time’ sounds atmospheric and menacing in this line-up.
Top 2000
In the 23rd edition of the Top 2000, Jones appears with two entries:
Sunday Morning Classic
On 17 July 2022, it was (finally) Tom Jones’s turn to shine as Sunday Morning Classic. Not with one of his older albums but precisely his very latest, Surrounded By Time.
Everyone who grows older is aware that time begins to behave differently. Everything seems to go faster; every year, every day, every hour and every minute become increasingly valuable. At 80 years old, Sir Tom Jones can undoubtedly relate to that. And from that awareness, he seems to be making better albums. Anyone looking at Tom Jones’s career understands that he has often been laughed at. He freely admits this in his excellent autobiography Over The Top And Back from 2015. His career has been full of gimmicks for decades. From the ‘wink wink, nudge nudge’ lyrics of What’s New Pussycat and the mariachi band blaring through the murder ballad Delilah, to the testosterone-driven counterpart of Prince’s Kiss, the self-parodies that were his guest roles in Mars Attacks! and The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, or the deliberately cheesy hit that Sex Bomb was. What has been beyond doubt all these years is that magnificent voice. The voice that time seems to have no hold over. The 80-year-old Jones sounds in 2021 just as vital and monumental as the Tom Jones who scored his first hit in 1965.
Time changes everything and at the same time nothing changes. Although it must be said that Tom Jones has been working more consistently in recent years on the albums he records. Since producer Ethan Johns took over the work of the Welsh windbag, Jones’s albums have had a clear creative direction and a consistent build-up. The beautiful Praise & Blame saw him dive deep into devotional music in 2010, while the follow-up Spirit In The Room (2012) contained a great collection of more folk-oriented songs, and the more country and R&B-driven Long Lost Suitcase (2015) formed the soundtrack to the aforementioned autobiography. Much has happened in the years since. Tom Jones occasionally had health problems that painfully made clear that although his voice is as fresh as a daisy, his body is becoming less sprightly. His wife also passed away. That the transience of life forced him to face reality formed the conceptual basis for Surrounded By Time.
On this fourth collaboration with Ethan Johns, Tom Jones seemingly maintains the high quality of the earlier trilogy without any effort, while completely making a rather eclectic collection of covers his own. Opener I Won’t Crumble With You If You Fall (original by Bernice Johnson Reagon) at first hearing fits seamlessly with the earlier Praise & Blame, but instrumentally you already hear an exciting and ominous soundscape unfolding that indicates a new direction. Classic The Windmills Of Your Mind (best known version by Dusty Springfield) further explores that direction. Jones and Johns could easily have chosen a more traditional arrangement, but it is precisely the swirling and sultry arrangement that makes it an exciting whole, after which the album takes a U-turn with the bouncy and almost hysterical performance of Popstar (Cat Stevens).
Although musically perhaps the least interesting, that song immediately makes you sit on the edge of your seat because of the unexpected angle from which it comes. From this moment on, Surrounded By Time musically shoots off in all directions, with Jones’s voice holding everything firmly together. From the psychedelic, extended spoken word piece Talking Reality Television Blues (Todd Snider) to the restrained and fragile I’m Growing Old (Bobby Cole) or the magnificent (again semi-spoken word) trip that is the over 9-minute closing track Lazarus Man (Terry Callier). An absolute highlight is the Waterboys cover This Is The Sea, which has received a completely new arrangement and sounds through the delightfully jangling organ as if Jones recorded it in the late sixties, early seventies. However, precisely because of the age and life experience Jones now puts into it, the song rises far above itself and once again shows that truly good music knows how to stop time and lets the listener experience present, past and future in a few minutes. Powerful!
Written by: Edgar Kruize (Written in Music)
source: NPO and Wikipedia photo: Mykal Burns and by Raph PH
Below you will find a small selection of Tom Jones’s albums. If you are looking for a specific album, please let us know. We will gladly search for it for you!
