"It's Not Unusual"
The Carlton Dance
"What's New Pussycat?"
Let's be honest here, with the image and music Tom Jones has put out in the 60s and 70s, it might be difficult to take him seriously, to the point where one would classify him as a guilty pleasure. And this makes sense of course. With hits like "Delilah", "She's A Lady", and even later ones like the cover of Prince's "Kiss", "If I Only Knew", "Sex Bomb", and Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" and "You Can Leave Your Hat On", you get the idea that this is a singer who capitalizes on recording songs about fulfilling a woman's every fantasy and desire. Again, this is a fair observation.
Nonetheless, it would seem that in the last five years, Sir Tom Jones has taken a whole different direction musically. In 2010, he lost weight, ditched the hair dye, bore out his aging grey hair and wrinkles, hooked up with producer Ethan Johns, relocated to Real World Studios, and recorded an album of gospel folk and blues songs. And the result:
ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING!!
With the album Praise & Blame, Tom Jones had begun to reinvent himself artistically. By taking on this music, he has proven that he has left Las Vegas (almost for good, but we'll get to that), and returned to his roots, the music he grew up with and loved to listen to and sing: great songs written by John Lee Hooker, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Pops Staples, and Billy Joe Shaver.
Two years, he released a follow-up entitled Spirit In The Room. Once again with Ethan Johns at the helm as producer, Tom Jones looked back, while looking forward at the same time. The most popular track from this record was an interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Tower of Song". He sings in anguish, with regret yet content. He bares out his soul, bleeding with emotion. This is arguably the best version of this classic.
What makes this record unique also is that he covers contemporary songs from older artists, such as "Bad As Me" by Tom Waits, "Love and Blessing" by Paul Simon, and "(I Want To) Come Home" by Paul McCartney. Another highlight is a song Tom Jones wrote with Ethan Johns entitled "Traveling Shoes", an homage to the blues and gospel music that influenced Jones.
Now here we are in 2015, and everything has come full circle with Tom Jones' latest release Long Lost Suitcase. Here we find Jones going back even further than on Praise & Blame, digging deeper into his musical roots. In my opinion, this is the best record in the trilogy. Here, Tom Jones is in full bloom, singing with grit, soul, and purpose. At age 75, his voice has frankly never sounded better.
The two biggest highlights are a cover of Gillian Welch's "Elvis Presley Blues" and "Raise A Ruckus". On the former, we hear Tom Jones telling a story you could've sworn he experienced in real life, accompanied only by two distorted reverb delay electric guitars. Full of power, full of soul, and bluesy and hell. On the latter, he trades in a brass band for a folk band on this New Orleans march; we find ourselves marching the streets of New Orleans, on Mardi Gras, with parade goers dancing silly in their costumes, beads flying everywhere, and women waving their white handkerchiefs in the air.
So where do we go from here? Well, to the stage of course.
Back in November, I went to the O2 in London to see Tom Jones and Van Morrison. To be completely honest, I went mostly for Van Morrison. I had never seen him in concert and he is one of my biggest influences (more on that in another post). But I knew that Jones had come out with some great material in the last few years, and I was looking forward to seeing him let it all hang out, so to speak.
The best thing about Tom Jones' set was not how many hits he played, but the lack of hits he played. How many you may ask? Only 2. That's it. TWO. And you know what was the best thing about hearing those two songs? He did not perform them the same way he's done in the past. He changed the style arrangements of both songs. The first was "Sex Bomb". He began the song with a rubato singing the first verse and chorus, right before the band kicked into full swing band mode. The second was of course his very first hit "It's Not Unusual". Here, he completely ditched the brass section, and instead had an acoustic guitar and an accordion front and center, accompanied by an Afro-Cuban calypso rhythm on the drum kit. The rest of the show was focused on his material from the Ethan Johns trilogy, plus an encore of duets with Van Morrison that made the price of admission more than worth it, especially since I was sitting close to the side of the stage.
His 2015 concert performance is sheer proof that Sir Tom Jones has officially departed from Vegas, for good, with no looking back. He has realized that he doesn't NEED to keep performing "She's A Lady" or "What's New Pussycat?" for the rest of his life. He has no desire to please purists and can do whatever the hell he wants and it will be just as good, if not better, in this case especially. His voice is the best it has ever sounded in his 50 year career and he shows no signs of slowing down.
I guess to put this in perspective, you could compare these 3 records to the American Recording albums Johnny Cash made produced by Rick Rubin. But I digress.
SERIOUSLY! Do yourself a favor and check out these Tom Jones albums. It's some of the best music you will ever hear and you will be hearing Tom Jones at his absolute best. I believe that in the eyes of the general public, Sir Tom Jones is arguably the most underappreciated vocalist in popular music history. Honestly, at 75, he could outsing singers more than half his age. It is my hope that when you hear these albums, you will gain a newfound appreciation for his talent, reinvention, versatility, and his commitment to his craft and his roots.
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