& Gentlemen…MR. TOM JONES!!!!" />

Ladies & Gentlemen…MR. TOM JONES!!!!

There was a time those words would be answered with shrill screams, waves of applause & knick­ers being tossed on stage. The likes of which, Mr. Pretty-Boy, Justin Tim­ber­lake, has never seen.

But that’s just it, Tom Jones is a man, not a boy-toy. With an albeit cheesy past related to tight trousers and the afore­men­tioned panty-tossing (which, as a kid and now, as an adult, I think is weird), but it was Tom’s schtick and he rode it.

I’m not sayin’ that JT or (insert any cur­rent teen-heartthrob’s name) is any less tal­ented, or that I am proud of Mr. Jones’ too-tight trousers and panty-tossing fans. I’m just sayin’, Mr. Jones had grown women in the palm of his hand…and still does today. They are just a bit more reserved, like he is now.

I have long been a fan of Mr. Jones, not a knicker-tossing fan, but a fan non-the-less. About 10 years ago, he was at the top of the charts with a crit­i­cally acclaimed album called Reload. Well, not the top of the charts in the U.S., but in a much cooler place music-wise, Eng­land and the rest of Great Britain. I just hap­pened to be there on a trip when I heard Burn­ing Down the House in a way David Byrne could never have imag­ined. It was the top video, and you heard it every­where. The same hap­pened when Mr. Jones recorded Prince’s KISS a few years ear­lier. It was far more con­vinc­ing com­ing from Tom than Prince. And did you know that was Tom Jones singing SexBomb which was fea­tured in Sex and the City?

Repack­aged and renamed in the States as Reloaded, it is a very dif­fer­ent CD than the one I picked up in Lon­don. I guess the pro­duc­ers were afraid of not includ­ing his ear­lier works that most Amer­i­can would rec­og­nize like What’s New Pussy­cat, It’s Not Unusual, etc., which makes the Amer­i­can ver­sion far less impres­sive and inno­v­a­tive than the British release.

In the MP3 player, above, pay atten­tion to Mama Told Me Not To Come, Burnin’ Down the House, Moth­er­less Child, Some­times We Cry, KISS & Baby, It’s Cold Out­side. Reload was orig­i­nally a “duet” type of cover album where Tom was paired with a wide range of musi­cians, such as, The Cardi­gans, Van Mor­ri­son, Rob­bie Williams, Stereo­phon­ics, Cerys From Cata­to­nia, Natalie Imbruglia and Sim­ply Red. The orig­i­nal CD is avail­able on Ama­zon, click here: Reload.

Tom Jones has a new CD out called 24 Hours with all orig­i­nal songs. I didn’t want to jump into this rec­om­men­da­tion with­out a lit­tle back­ground for you. Those that know me well, know I like to pass on every tid-bit of infor­ma­tion I have on a sub­ject, so that they can have just as much use­less infor­ma­tion stored in their heads as I do. Although, I don’t think that would be possible.

I received 24 Hours as a Christ­mas gift from my friend, Evette. Fun­nily enough, she had called me a few weeks ago to let me know that Tom Jones was going to be on the Today Show. “Oh, Prob­a­bly because he has a new CD com­ing out. I have it on my Ama­zon wish-list. It’s on pre-order right now..”, I said. To her credit, she did not con­vey an “I’m laugh­ing with you-not at you” tone in her voice as she answered “You would.” No, I would say it was a straight-up “I’m laugh­ing at you” tone. She can’t laugh too hard though, because she actu­ally asked for a copy of the orig­i­nal Reload CD and she went with me and my Mom to see Mr. Jones in con­cert a cou­ple years ago.

When I first lis­tened to the new 24 Hours CD, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. There were tracks that I liked imme­di­ately, and the ones I didn’t, have grown on me. It is an inter­est­ing com­bi­na­tion to a throw­back ’60’s beat but with more sophis­ti­cated arrange­ments, sound, and pro­duc­tion with a cool club vibe that I could sing along to, all the while, sound­ing like true Tom Jones. His voice is pow­er­ful, play­ful, soul­ful and fun. One of the few singers today that can rock out and sing a soul­ful bal­lad of a man who has lived life to the fullest– I’m just guess­ing here.

My favorite tracks on the CD are Style and Rhythm, Sugar Daddy, Sea­sons and Give a A Lit­tle Love.

Like my other favorite singers, Elvis and George Michael, Mr. Jones is all voice and charisma. I think he has been sold short on the true tal­ent that he is. Pack­aged and sold as a sex– sym­bol early on in his career, I think it has been harder for him to be taken seri­ously by the Amer­i­can pub­lic. In Great Britain, he is iconic, in the States, not-so-much. But I will do my part to change that and encour­age you to open your musi­cal taste up to a man who’s con­tri­bu­tion to music can­not be denied.

Will Justin Tim­ber­lake be able to deliver Rock Your Body, Señorita, Cry Me a River or any of his hits, as con­vinc­ingly in 30 years? Time will tell.

But as Tom tells us in Sugar Daddy, “Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.”

I’m just sayin’.

Print Friendly

6 Comments

  1. avatar

    I grew up watch­ing my par­ents watch the Tom Jones show — I think it was Sun­day nights. I didn’t under­stand the panty thing at the time. All I knew was that he was a fab­u­lous enter­tainer, and even as a tod­dler, I remem­ber being mes­mer­ized by him. I guess he did what he felt he had to do to make a liv­ing. On the other hand, my guess is that he had lit­tle to do with the panties. I bet some fan did it once on her own and it stuck. What’s a guy to do? Ride the wave. Tom Jones has a remark­able instru­ment in his voice and, panties or not, no one can deny him that. (And1 thanks for let­ting me know that was Tom on the SexBomb song. Who knew??

  2. avatar

    H-o-l-y L-o-r-d~! I knew ~ LOL~ I FREAKIN LOVE Tom Jones~ (and Elvis) who’d a thought there were fel­low Tom and Elvis lovers out there~ While Elvis’s great­ness was worldl known~ Tom not so much~Maybe Elvis stole a bit of his thunder~But Tom Jones has a won­der­ful voice and STILL has great cords~ Won­der if Elvi’s would have held up as long~ I can hardly wait to lis­ten to this~! Thanks so much for the great info~

  3. avatar
    La Dolce Diva

    Glad you all enjoyed the post! I also watched his vari­ety show and loved it. You can get some episodes on DVDhttp://is.gd/d84t

    If you ever have a chance to see him in con­cert– please do. It is loads of fun and he doesn’t stop singing or mov­ing. You won’t be dis­ap­pointed, he does a good job of singing his oldies with­out rush­ing through them or seem­ing bored.He has a reper­toire of fresh or more cur­rent cover hits that he does really well, some­times bet­ter than the orig­i­nal artist.

    He is also quite funny and tells a good story. He also laughs at him­self quite a bit.

    There are still some die hard fans or per­haps women try­ing to be “cute” hold­ing up panties or toss­ing a few pair on stage, but Tom really doesn’t pay atten­tion to them. And really, in today’s age, panties seem pretty lame and well– I say it –stupid.

    As for Elvis steal­ing a bit of Tom’s thunder…I always take heart in sto­ries I’ve heard that Elvis really liked Tom Jones and often went to see him in Vegas. I like to think a bit of Elvis lives on in Tom’s spirit of fun.

  4. avatar

    Well, you cer­tainly are the “Music Trend Diva”. In today’s (Jan 6) USA Today there is an arti­cle on Mr. Tom Jones and his new album ’24 Hours’ in the Life sec­tion (page 4D). As for the sto­ries you heard about Elvis lik­ing Tom, well he did!!!!! They remain friends up until the last 2 years of his life. It is a fun arti­cle, not as good as your review, but worth check­ing out.

  5. avatar
    La Dolce Diva

    My dear Evette, you doubted moi? I am happy to know that a national news­pa­per fol­lowed my lead and cov­ered this impor­tant news­wor­thy topic ;)

  6. avatar

    Enjoyed your post! I actual saw Tom Jones in con­cert in Rapid City, SD, with my mother. I must have been in jr. high at the time. What a riot! He sang sus­pended from a plat­form and show­ered those clos­est to him with sweat. Women even threw their panties at him. I remem­ber being sur­prised that the ladies in my home town, of all places, would be hip enough to do that! Thanks for bring­ing back some fun memories.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>