Las Vegas: Top 5 Shows By BlackBook

1. KA at MGM Grand (Strip: Central) - With martial-arts-inspired acrobatics, thundering music, and a set that rotates 360 degrees, KA is the least airy-fairy of the Cirque de Soleil offerings.2. O at Bellagio (Strip: Central) - Cirque de Soleil performers + giant tanks of water = jaw-dropping acrobatics. 3. Tom Jones at MGM Grand (Strip: Central) - Come for the kitsch, stay for the charisma. There’s a reason he’s been doing this for 40 years. 4. Cher at Caesars Palace (Strip: Central) - 17 Bob Mackie costume changes. An entrance that involves descending from the ceiling. Truly, in coming to Vegas, Cher has come home. 5. Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular at The Venetian (Strip: Central) - Onstage fireworks, a falling giant chandelier and—we think—some people singing.

Read this article online at http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/las-vegas-top-5-shows/4710

USA TODAY interview

LOS ANGELES — Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys made a beeline for Tom Jones at London's Q Awards in October. Jones, 68 and still a magnet for young acolytes, recalls the indie-rock singer gushing, "I love Love Me Tonight. It's slamming! We play it before we go on stage every night." Turner then prodded the Ting Tings for their assessment, but the hot dance-pop duo had been out of town and said they weren't current on radio hits, prompting laughter. The song blared from radios in 1969. Nearly four decades later, and 42 years since Jones won the Grammy for best new artist, the full-throated Welsh pop star remains capable of surprising fans with remarkably fresh and popular returns. "You've got to have young ears," says Jones, perched on a couch in his Century City high-rise office. New album 24 Hours, his first U.S. studio release in 15 years, finds him collaborating with Future Cut, the British production duo behind Lily Allen and Estelle. He submits a soulful, brass-fueled cover of Bruce Springsteen's The Hitter and turns in a robust version of the Tommy James classic I'm Alive. "Tom Jones is like the William Shatner of classic-pop singers," says Spin editor Doug Brod. "He has one of those voices that's still powerful and instantly recognizable, and perhaps a bit kitschy. His willingness to poke fun at his panty-catching reputation and his engagement with trends set him apart from MOR nostalgists like Engelbert Humperdinck."

The former ditch digger who exploded in the '60s with It's Not Unusual and What's New Pussycat? enjoyed a late-career resurgence with such unexpected hits as 1988's collaboration with Art of Noise on Prince's Kiss and 2000's Sex Bomb with Mousse T.

This time, his high-profile partners are U2's Bono and Edge, who co-wrote the brazen Sugar Daddy after drinking with Jones in a Dublin club. (Opening lyrics: "I've got male intuition/I've got sexual ambition/I'm the last great tradition.")

"It's a bragging song," Jones says. "I liked it, but I thought, what are people going to think? But it's done in a clever way, not in a sloppy or blatantly sexy way. It's a wink."

Hours' lyrics and vocals serve up less macho swagger than a typical Jones disc, a result of the singer taking an active role in songwriting for the first time in his career.

One songsmith proposed a tune, T-Shirt, with a refrain of "You look good with my T-shirt on/I can't wait for you to take it off."

Jones sighs. "I said, 'Look, sweetheart, I've done that. I did Sex Bomb. Do we have to be this blatant?' I had to put some guidelines down."

Jones never discouraged those swooning women who pelted him with lingerie at concerts, but he says he didn't set out to be a sex symbol and later realized the persona may have damaged his credibility.

"It caught up with me. I thought, why are people going on about the way I look? Then seeing old footage, hmm, did I have to wear pants that tight? It backfired.

"If you're going to sing sexy songs, you need to get a reaction, but it can overpower you," he says.

His determination to get real on 24 Hours yielded graceful and weary reflections on loss and relationships, including The Road, a romantic tribute to Linda, his wife of 51 years, and the title track, a sequel to the prisoner plaint Green Green Grass of Home.

"I've had this recurring nightmare of being in jail, maybe because I was bedridden with tuberculosis for two years as a child," Jones says.

The song also functions as a meditation on mortality, he says. "The footsteps I hear at my door may not be the jailer. I hope I go quietly, accepting it."

Not that he's going anywhere, mind you. Loath to retire or even take vacations, Jones plans to sing as long as his lungs pump air.

"I don't want to stop singing, and I dread the day I have to," he says. "I'm lucky my voice is still strong. I used to smoke, but I stopped in the '60s. How Frank Sinatra did it, I don't know. He'd smoke and sing at the same time. That dryness and heat, it's the worst thing for singers."

Sinatra was among his favorite stylists, and he admired Bing Crosby, though Jones is quicker to praise such bellowers as Frankie Laine, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Billy Daniels.

Jones in turn inspired a host of singers, none more famous than Elvis Presley, who shadowed the U.K. sensation during their overlapping Vegas runs in the late'60s and '70s. They remained close until the last two years of Presley's life, when he withdrew.

"He loved being Elvis Presley," Jones says. "I don't think he could have been an old Elvis.

"Elvis always prided himself on the way he looked. Always. When that started to slip, I knew something was wrong."

Naturally, Jones counts Presley among rock's finest talents, along with Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. The pop crooner's discography, which hops from show tunes to country-pop to techno, suggests there's little music he dislikes.

"Doo-wop," he offers. "I never wanted to be part of the choir. I didn't want to blend in." Lyrics, longevity, new album by Tom Jones By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

Philadelphia Inquirer review

For all the studly showmanship of his 1960s pop-idol persona, Tom Jones has always been a more than credible singer of vintage R&B and rock. (Check out the DVDs of his 1969-71 variety show, where he went toe-to-toe with the likes of Aretha and Little Richard, and his excellent 2004 album, Tom Jones and Jools Holland.) 24 Hours shows both sides of the Welshman. The first half pushes toward Jones' Vegas side, with echoes of his old near-kitsch pop hits. Even here, though, Jones' charm can shine through, and not just on the tasteful "We Got Love." The macho strut of "Sugar Daddy" verges on the ridiculous, except that the 68-year-old Jones seems to be in on the joke ("The older I get, the better I was").

The second half takes on a more autumnal air, with the music turning toward classic soul. And Jones, acting his age, is up to this mature material, highlighted by a spectacular, Stax-like take on Springsteen's "The Hitter."

- Nick Cristiano Tom Jones 24 Hours (S-Curve ***)

Tom Jones At 68: Still Doing His Thing And Singing His Song

I love Tom Jones, probably more than any heterosexual male has a right to. Sure, I love his overblown '60s hits, his too-tight pants, his unbuttoned shirts and medallions and the impish grin that's caused countless panties and hotel room keys to be flung onstage wherever he's appeared for the last four decades and change. But what I really love about Tom Jones is his ability, and his willingness, to sing just about any song in any genre. In his '60s and early '70s heyday, he'd do everything from "Cabaret" to "Soul Man" to "Ring Of Fire," often on the same album. In recent years, his repertoire has included Yaz's "Situation," the Stones' "Gimme Shelter," Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life," and Leadbelly's "Black Betty," to name just a few.

And he doesn't just sing these songs, he beats them to a bloody pulp. You see, Tom Jones' voice is not a subtle thing. You want delicate crooning, go elsewhere. But when you're dealing with a set of pipes as powerful as Mr. Jones', why go for subtlety? He barrels over any song in his path with that huge, colossal instrument of his, using his trademark mixture of soulful fervor, showbizzy schmaltz, sexual bravado and operatic hysteria.

Because Tom Jones' tastes are so eclectic and wide-ranging, his records are wildly divergent, hit-and-miss affairs. In this decade, he's recorded a godawful hip-hop-ish album with Wyclef Jean and a nifty swingin' rock and jump blues album with pianist/bandleader Jools Holland. Neither record saw release in the States, even though Jones plays regularly to packed houses in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and remains a huge star in Europe.

In fact, 24 Hours, released last month, is the first Tom Jones album to make it into stores Stateside in almost 15 years. This time around, he's decided to recreate, for the most part, the style of his classic '60s hits, with retro-modern production reminiscent of Mark Ronson's work on Amy Winehouse's records. As usual, the results are inconsistent. But the high points are some of the best music he's made in years, and at age 68, his voice is still, shockingly, the force of nature it was 40 years ago.

The opener, "I'm Alive," is a dynamic, declarative track that shows TJ can still outsing any S.O.B. on the charts, and quite possibly the entire planet. "I'm a man!" he bellows. "And I'm red and yellow and black and tan, I'm a man!" I'm not really sure what that means, but the next line -- "I'm alive! And I'm doin' my thing and singin' my song, I'm alive!" -- I can get behind a hundred percent. While there's nothing else quite as exciting on the album, there are plenty of other killer tunes that wouldn't sound out of place on a late '60s Tom Jones LP.

Entries in the "Really? Tom Jones did that?!" sweepstakes this album include "Sugar Daddy," a song he co-wrote with Bono; the funereal title track, a death row ballad worthy of Johnny Cash; and a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Hitter," a first-person tale of a boxer that Jones turns into a 6-minute-and-change soul epic. I think it's pretty hip not only that he's covering a songwriter of Springsteen's caliber, but that he's doing an obscure song from an obscure album (2004's Devils & Dust) -- it's not like he's doing "Born To Run" or "Dancing In The Dark" at the behest of his management for demographics' sake. The man's an artist, dammit.

Sadly, though, the words "Tom Jones" and "artist" are rarely mentioned in the same sentence. Tom's act has long overtaken his artistry in the public consciousness, and a career's worth of great music has been reduced to a few '60s pop hits with the visual accompaniment of swiveling hips and airborne women's underwear. And that's a shame. Do yourself a service by checking out this mighty titan of pop while he still walks the earth. Pick up a copy of 24 Hours and show Tom Jones the respect he so richly deserves. By Tony Sachs Huffington Post

Soundtrack of my life: Tom Jones

The voice of the valleys reveals to Will Hodgkinson why sounding 'nice' was never an option for him... When I first discovered the joys of singing: Ghost Riders in the Sky - Vaughn Monroe (1949)

I must have been eight or nine when I climbed on top of my school desk and sang this because I had heard it on the radio the night before. I accompanied myself by banging a ruler. It was the first time I really got attention for singing, because at home I was singing so much that everyone took it for granted. A few years later I discovered rock'n'roll and all the boys looked to me for what was going on. We were teddy boys, y'see. We knew about Elvis. Then I heard 'Great Balls of Fire' by Jerry Lee Lewis and I knew how I wanted to sing.

When I was working in a factory: Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and his Comets (1954)

I worked as an apprentice glove cutter when I left school at 15. All the other guys working in the factory were amateur musicians. One day 'Rock Around the Clock' came on the radio and I started singing along. 'Will you shut up?' they shouted. 'It's fantastic!' I replied, and they told me it was nothing but 12-bar blues and that anyone could play it. 'I don't give a shit, it's great,' I said, and challenged them to do a version of it. They did, and it sounded terrible. With rock'n'roll it may only be three chords, but it's how you play them that counts.

The record that changed my life: It's not unusual - Tom Jones (1965)

I was working with [producer] Joe Meek, but that ended when I grabbed him by the neck and ripped up my contract. Then I was doing demo records for other singers, and we cut 'It's Not Unusual' in Regent Sound in Soho as a demo for Sandie Shaw, who turned it down. I told my manager I had to have this song, but the first version we recorded wasn't anything special. Then my producer Peter Sullivan said: 'You've got a big voice. Nice is not enough. You are not nice!' As a result, the song jumped out of the speakers and became a hit.

When I went on the Ed Sullivan Show: In the Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett (1966)

This was my first time in New York, and the first time I heard soul. Jackie Wilson had been doing something similar with an orchestra, but 'Midnight Hour' was raw and that appealed to me. I had heard early rock'n'roll records before that, but they always sounded very rough indeed. Then Tom Dowd, the engineer for Atlantic Records, changed everything by recording songs that were direct but with great production, like this one. I felt a kinship with black singers like Wilson Pickett; felt that we were doing something similar, so for years I opened my show with 'Midnight Hour'.

The record that revived my career: Kiss - Prince (1986)

If I hear a song I like I'll do it in the show, so when I heard this I sang it in an R&B style. Then I was due to go on Jonathan Ross's programme in 1987 to perform the ballad 'A Boy From Nowhere', and he wanted something upbeat too. My philosophy has always been: when in doubt, do 'Great Balls of Fire'. But Jonathan asked if I had anything new. Art of Noise were watching and they asked if I'd do a version with them. When they sent me the finished version I thought: 'If this isn't a hit, I'll bloody well pack it all in.' It was a busting hit.

Strange and possibly true

1 Tom Jones - born Thomas John Woodward - originally performed as Tommy Scott. His manager changed his name to mirror the handsome stud of Henry Fielding's classic novel of the same name.

2 Women famously threw their knickers at Tom Jones when he performed on stage in the mid-Sixties. By the time he was performing at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in the late Sixties, they were throwing hotel room keys at him.

3 Jones has remained married to his wife Melinda for over 50 years.

4 He recorded the vocals for his 'Daughter of Darkness' in one take - when he was drunk.

5 The first guest booked for Jones's Sixties and Seventies TV show, This is Tom Jones, was Elvis Presley. He never turned up.

• Tom Jones's new album, 24 Hours, is out now on S-Curve/Parlophone

St Petersburg Times Review

Why we care: The High Priest of Panties is 68 now. But if this album is as awesome as I think it is, he's about to have a major career comeback. Borrowing from the retro cool of Amy Winehouse and Duffy, TJ blends '60s horns, hip-hop beats and his indefatigable lounge-lizard holler to make the party record of the year. This is the Welsh Wonder's first U.S. release in 15 years. Why we like it: Produced by the drum-and-bass team of Future Cut (Lily Allen, the Pussycat Dolls), the album ranges from the shimmering Piccadilly vibe of If He Should Ever Leave You to the overt grind of Sugar Daddy, written especially for Jones by none other than Bono and the Edge.

Reminds us of: The album's best cut is a soulful Stax take on Springsteen's boxing ode The Hitter.

Download these: I'm Alive, If He Should Ever Leave You, Sugar Daddy and The Hitter

Grade: A By Sean Daly Tom Jones Album: 24 Hours (S-Curve/EMI) In stores: Now

Rachael Ray

Rachael has had a crush on Tom Jones all of her life, and now her dream guest is stopping by! The legendary singer tells Rachael whom he idolized when he was growing up. "I was a teenager in the '50s," he says. "So rock n' roll had just begun in '55 when Rock Around the Clock came out. So first of all, there's Bill Haley and the Comets. And then Elvis Presley withHeartbreak Hotel, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On and Great Balls of Fire. So then you have all those great rockers -- Chuck Berry, Fats Domino -- people like that." When it comes to Tom's own songs, Rachael wonders if there are any that he's grown tired of singing over the years. "No," he answers, "because the audience keeps them alive -- they're so recognizable."

Rachael agrees. "I keep them alive all over my house! All over my neighborhood," she says, joking she even plays them "all over the gym -- on the rare occasion I'm there!"

Tom's singing has earned him countless fans (and fans throwing their underwear at him!) throughout his career, but does the Welsh singer have any other talents? "I used to sketch a lot when I was a kid," he tells Rachael. "I think a lot of entertainers have another talent. Tony Curtis paints, and Tony Bennett paints. But I'm a bit lazy -- once I got into singing full time, that sort of took a backseat."

Rachael asks if he thinks he'll ever pick up drawing again. "Maybe ... when I'm old!" jokes the 68-year old. "Maybe when I can't sing as well as I do now!"

Watch the appearance here: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/show/segments/view/tom-jones-here/

Tom on Jimmy Kimmel!

Watch Tom's hilarious skit on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel live!

Tavis Smiley

Grammy-winning Welsh singer Tom Jones has been recording and touring since the mid-'60s. He's sold more than 100 million albums, hosted a successful TV variety program and been a Las Vegas marquee attraction. He's also collaborated with such artists as Wyclef Jean and Jools Holland. In '05, he was awarded a knighthood for his contribution to the recording industry. Jones continues to tour extensively and attract audiences of all ages. The new release, "24 Hours," is his first U.S. studio-recorded CD in 15 years. Tavis: Pleased to welcome legendary singer Tom Jones to this problem. The Grammy-winning artist has sold over 100 million records worldwide, with his array of classic songs like "It's Not Unusual," "Delilah," and "What's New, Pussycat?" He's out with his first new U.S. studio album in 15 years. The project is called "24 Hours." Tom Jones, nice to have you on the program. Tom Jones: Thank you - nice to be here.

Tavis: You doing all right?

Jones: Yeah, great, thanks.

Tavis: It's been a long journey for you, and you're still doing this. Why?

Jones: I have to do it.

Tavis: You don't have to.

Jones: I have to do it. (Laughter)

Tavis: Why do you have to do it?

Jones: Well, because I have to sing. It's a thing that I can't stop. People say, "Well, why do you like to sing so much, and why do you do 200 shows a year," which I do? And I say, "Well, look, people have got to stop me from singing." Like we were in New Orleans earlier this year and I had a night off, and I was out clubbing.

And there was a good band on stage and I jumped up. One night off, and I had to get up, I had to sing. (Laughter) So people have got to - they've got to get the hook for me.

Tavis: Where does that come from, you think?

Jones: Just love of it. I was born with it, I suppose, growing up in Wales, where I come from, which they call the land of song. There's a lot of singers there, a lot of male voice choirs especially. And so I was brought up with - everybody sang around. In my house, at parties and weddings and birthdays - any chance I could get, I would get up.

And one of my cousins was asked one time because she said, "We can all sing - all the Joneses can sing." Yeah. So they said, "Well, what was different about Tommy?" And she said, "Well, the only difference we noticed with him, when he was asked to sing he had to jump on the table," you know what I mean? (Laughter) It was like he was (unintelligible). That's all she remembered.

Tavis: Yeah, well, I wasn't there but I have to believe that while everybody in the Jones family can sing, they obviously couldn't sing like you - and I'm talking specifically now not about their talent or their gift, but about their sound. How did you develop this sound? Was it there? When people hear you, you sing a couple licks, we know it's Tom Jones. How did you develop your style, your sound?

Jones: Well, I think it was singing as a child without a microphone, so you had to project. And then singing in pubs and singing in chapel and in church - no microphones. So you had to project. So I learned that very early - it just came very natural to me.

Tavis: That soulful thing, though. You're not up in a White church singing with that much soul, though, Tom.

Jones: Yeah, well, I did. (Laughter) I remember being - this is god's honest truth - when I was in school and I sang "The Lord's Prayer," and the teacher said, "Why are you singing this like a Negro spiritual?" And I didn't know what she was talking about. I said, "I don't understand what you're saying."

Tavis: You were how old then, roughly?

Jones: About eight or nine, something like that - maybe a little younger than that. So I said, "I don't know, that's the way I hear it." She said, "You're changing the melody, and you're making a gospel out of 'The Lord's Prayer.'" I said, "Well, I don't know - that's the way it's coming out." So maybe it was because I was listening to gospel singers on the radio, and it was rubbing off on me without me really realizing it. But that's how it was coming out.

Tavis: That's an amazing thing, though - you're eight or nine and you're singing, and the soul is just coming out and you're not even cognizant that that is a sound.

Jones: No, no, I didn't know. I didn't know what I was doing. I just liked what I was doing, and I wanted to be free doing it, because I went for lessons later on to a soprano, an opera singer, and she said - because I wanted to know if I was singing correctly or not. And she said, "Look, why don't you become an opera singer? You have this big voice." And I said, "I don't really want to, because I like to be free."

I don't like to sing things that are only sung a certain way, and opera is like that - there's only one way you can do it.

Tavis: Can't be constricted. You can't constrict Tom Jones.

Jones: No, exactly. So I've got to do it the way I do it.

Tavis: Your way.

Jones: Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah, I ain't mad at you. So you and Elvis were friends.

Jones: Yeah.

Tavis: We all know Elvis loves gospel music. We now learn that Tom Jones started out singing gospel music, and listening to Negro spirituals and other stuff on the radio. True story - you and Elvis were in a hotel room in Vegas one night, just the two of you, singing some of your favorite gospels?

Jones: Yeah.

Tavis: Tell me the story.

Jones: Okay, okay. Well, we used to play Vegas at the same time. Elvis would be at the Hilton and I was at Caesar's Palace. So after the show, especially he would finish his engagement and then would stay over to come and see me. So we would go back to his suite -

Tavis: Stop. Before you go further, what's it like when Elvis is sitting in the audience checking your stuff out?

Jones: Yeah, it was great. He used to walk on stage when I would be in the middle of a song. (Laughter) He would just walk on stage, and I'd be like what - I thought I'd busted my pants or something. I thought maybe something's gone, because people are screaming.

Tavis: And you couldn't see him walking behind you.

Jones: No. So he'd come up behind me and then we'd be - so we fooled around on stage like that. And then we'd go back to the hotel room. So then he would get up his - because he always had a gospel group; he always had singers on stage with him.

Tavis: Always - Jordannaires, everybody.

Jones: Yeah, they knew all the gospel tunes, and an electric piano. So at the time Kris Kristofferson had a song out called "Why Me, Lord?" And Elvis loved that song, and so did I. So we would be - and "Killing Me Softly," I remember those two songs were out - Roberta Flack. And so we would either be doing "Killing Me Softly" or "Why Me, Lord," and this would go on all night, because Elvis would get on something and he wouldn't let it go.

Tavis: They say he used to unwind that way - he'd go back to his room with his gospel group that he kept around all the time he would unwind singing gospel.

Jones: Yeah. So the sun was coming up and I said, "Look, I've got to get back to Caesar's Palace because I've got two shows to do tonight. You've finished your shows."

Tavis: But you're Tom Jones - you're the guy that likes to sing. (Laughter) You're the guy that don't want to stop singing, Tom Jones.

Jones: Well, you know. So I would be trying to get out the door and he'd go, "Tom." "Yeah?" "Why me, lord? What have I -" and he's start again. (Laughter) So then I'd have to turn around and get back into the song again. But it was great.

Tavis: What have you made, over these many years, with the people - I want to come to your music now - the people who love your stuff so much that they have, for lack of a better word, tried to copy you or parody you. I'm thinking about Carleton Banks, the character on the "Fresh Prince." Everybody tries to do their own Tom Jones impersonation, parody you. Have you been humored by that, you've been offended, insulted by that over the years? What do you make of that?

Jones: Well, I think it's - I like it more than dislike it, because at least they're taking notice. I'm having some effect. And with Carleton doing it on the "Fresh Prince," it was a funny skit, and he was sort of overdoing it (unintelligible). (Laughter) But anyway, so it was cool, though, and it gave me a chance to go on the show - I loved that show anyway. And I was on there and it was great. So there was more positive than negative to that stuff.

Tavis: How did you navigate that period in your career where things take a dip? Because for most artists you're not on top all the time, and certainly in the music business. Your career takes a dip and you just keep going, you keep plowing your way through. How do you navigate those periods where you're not at the top of the charts?

Jones: Right. Well for me, it was always the people - an audience. I've never gone on stage and no people have been there, you know what I mean? There's always been people there, so they kept me going without hit records. I was still doing shows - maybe not as big. When you get a hit record you play arenas. When you don't, you play theaters.

But the people have always been there for me, and that's the best part of it for me, the live performances anyway. All roads lead to the stage for me. That's where I live.

Tavis: What do you get out of that? What does that live performance do for your spirit, for your soul?

Jones: It lifts me up. There's nothing like it. I've never experienced anything in life like being on stage.

Tavis: Tell me about "Kiss," your remake. Huge hit for you. Tell me how you chose that, how that came to be? I love it.

Jones: Right. Well, I was looking for a song because I'd been looking for songs all the way through the '70s, '80s, always searching for new things. And so I thought, well, what can I do to get back on top 40 radio? So I was doing "Kiss" in my show, because I loved doing it live, and I was on a TV show in England, and The Art of Noise, who recorded it with me, saw me do it on this TV show.

So they said, "Well, why don't we do it together?" And I thought, well, god, Prince has had a big hit with this thing only, like, two years before. But they said, "Yeah, but we can put a new thing on it." So I said, "Well, okay." I knew the song, it was easy for me to get in the studio and do it, and there it was.

I was looking for a new song, thinking that was going to do it, and it was "Kiss" that got me back on top 40 radio. So it was just like that.

Tavis: Why do you like the song? What is it about it? Because Prince has done a bunch of songs - why do you like that song?

Jones: Yeah. Well, it's like a rhythm and blues song to me. It's got a standard structure to it, and thank god Prince did it all in falsetto, (laughter) because sometimes he could put a print on something and you don't want to touch it. But he did it all in falsetto, and just with hardly anything in the background - it was just like a bass thing going on with the guitar. So it was very sparse, so it left a lot of room.

Tavis: A lot of room to do something with.

Jones: Yeah.

Tavis: Because the flip side of that is that it takes a bold man to try to touch something that Prince has done.

Jones: Well, yeah. (Laughter)

Tavis: "Well, yeah." (Laughter) Yeah.

Jones: We have the same birthday - June 7th.

Tavis: The same birthday?

Jones: Prince and me, yeah.

Tavis: I didn't know that.

Jones: And I told him that one time, and he said, "We only have one birthday. Everything else is just." I said, "No, no, but it's the same day," but he didn't quite - it didn't have an affect on him. (Laughter) Not as much as it did on me.

Tavis: It didn't have the intended consequence that you were looking for.

Jones: Exactly.

Tavis: Anyway, Prince is a special brother - we love that guy.

Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: Now let's talk about "24 Hours." Tell me about the new project.

Jones: Well this one, I signed with S Curve, the record label, and they were coming up with songs - covers, mostly - which I didn't really want to do again except for "The Hitter," which was a Bruce Springsteen song that's on there. So that came from the first session that I did. But the other stuff I wasn't too keen on, and then there were some new things being brought in which I wasn't getting excited about.

So I thought, well, I'd better get with some songwriters here and work with them and try and explain what I wanted them to do. So we got in touch with two guys called Future Cut, which two English producers, and they came over to L.A. with a bunch of tracks that they laid down, and that started it off. But even before that, I was with Bono in Dublin - Bono and The Edge from U2 - and I asked him would he write me a song.

So he said, "Well, I'd love to write you a song, but I'd like it to be about you." So I gave him a lot of information. We talked - drank and talked most of the night.

Tavis: Mostly drank.

Jones: Like we do - yeah. (Laughter) Back to Elvis again - but anyway, it's like it was one of those nights again. And so he wrote me this song called "Sugar Daddy," which is on there. So that's what sort of sparked me off, thinking well, if I'm giving him information and he's writing it down, maybe I can do that with other songwriters. So that's what I did.

Tavis: That, I would think, makes for a very personal album, a personal project.

Jones: Yes, more personal than things that I've done before, because I haven't written the songs before, they've always been written for me. But these things, I was in from the ground up.

Tavis: Tom Jones is an iconic figure, and I'm delighted to have had the time I've had with him on the set to talk about his life and about his work, and his new project - Tom Jones, "24 Hours." The title "24 Hours" means - what made you call it that?

Jones: Well, there's a song on there called "24 Hours." It's about a man on death row, actually. But the reason why we called the album "24 Hours" is because it's an ongoing thing. After one 24 hours is another 24 hours - it's just life that keeps going on.

Tavis: Makes sense, after one Tom Jones performance is another, and another, and another.

Jones: There you go. (Laughter)

Tavis: Two hundred a year.

Jones: There you go.

Tavis: Again, the new project by Tom Jones - "24 Hours." Glad to have you on the program.

Jones: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: It's a pleasure to meet you.

Jones: Nice to see you.

Watch this interview at http://tavispublic.kcet.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200812/20081201_jones.html

Tom Jones review from Budapest

Finally the security gave it up, Tom Jones fans ran to the stage to dance.. The evening started in a solid mood as the bigger part of the audience was from the senior age-group, and the youngers were not extreme figures either. Everybody waited for The Voice patiently, sitting on their seats. There were only seats, as the promoter thought the audience who come to a Tom Jones concert, can stay seated during the best dancing-songs. A few minutes after 9 Tom Jones appeared on the stage dressed in black and smiling, as we could always see him in the last years, only his hair became white since the video of Sexbomb.

He started with Sugar Daddy which was written for him by Bono, and after the James Bond song Thunderball and a few new songs came Delilah and a part of the audience sprang to their feet for dancing. The show continued with Mamma Told Me and Burning Down The House and then more and more people felt they couldn’t sit on their seats. During What’s New Pussycat the security guards tried to keep the original sectors but when Tom Jones himself told the audience to dance at the beginning of She’s A Lady, nobody could resist dancing and going to the front of the stage.

And the biggest hits just came after this, the audience danced and screamed, and it really looked like Tom Jones enjoyed the concert very much. His voice was the same as we got used to it, nobody would say that he’s almost 70. Furthermore, he left the stage with such energy that we didn’t wonder if he had gone to a party to dance after the show.

Melinda Serfozo, Nepszabadsag

LA Times feature

TRUTH: “I gave them guidance and ideas and they found me, they found a Tom Jones song that fit the real me.” A team of songwriters, including Bono and Springsteen, digs into the man's life in order to craft the man's songs. 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?' " In the swirl of the club that night, the two stars, one born in 1940 and the other in 1960, talked about fame and rhythm, hard times and melody, and Bono was taking notes about his elder's previous life as a ditch digger and his youthful desire to have the right shirt and the right shoes to cover up the soot of his past as the son of a coal miner.

The conversation eventually led to "Sugar Daddy," a song of coiled funk and randy charm that would fit nicely on a mix tape between James Brown's "Sex Machine" and Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back." "Sugar Daddy" is the centerpiece on Jones' new album, "24 Hours," out today, but more than that, it set the template for the collection.

After finding nothing but frustration in the submissions of young songwriters, Jones decided to sit down with the more promising of the bunch and give them guidance in finding "the real Tom Jones and what he sounds like," as the star himself put it.

"That was the beginning of it, back with Bono, although I didn't know it at the time," said Jones, 68. "That was the start, that was the first one. The first time I talked to somebody about my ideas and they wrote it down. That was the key. I have ideas all the time, but I don't think to write them down. I suppose I should . . . It's been difficult getting good songs, the material I need. I should have put myself into it sooner."

The first single from the album, "If He Should Ever Leave You," has gotten airplay on KCRW-FM (89.9), and the earliest reviews for the album have been upbeat about its strongest moments and generally forgiving of its perceived missteps. All of this is welcome news to Jones, who in recent years had the sense that he was missing in action in the U.S.

"I had an album called 'Reload' that did well in Europe, and it wasn't even released here. It was terrible. I mean, I live in America, this is where I am most of the time, and I do loads of shows here. To have a hit record overseas but not have it out here, it's frustrating. Then I did an album with Wyclef Jean which, again, did well worldwide but was not released here.

"So for this one I signed with a new label, S-Curve, an American company, and we're aiming it here. America first. We're aiming all over the world, but it's very important for me to get a hit here. We haven't had [anything] negative so far, it's all been positive. But you never know until it goes out to the public. That's the test."

This week, Jones will hit "Good Morning America," "Live With Regis & Kelly" and "The Today Show." In December, he'll hit "Tonight Show" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Then there are chats with Rachael Ray, Tavis Smiley, a barrage of morning radio shows, all set up by his new publicity teams at S-Curve and also Shore Fire Media, the same New York publicity firm that handles Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.

Jones, clearly, is a man on a mission. He's had plenty of hits -- "It's Not Unusual," "Green Green Grass of Home," "What's New Pussycat?" among others -- but he says he feels an urgency to burnish his legacy.

"I want to be a contender. Just because of my age, I'm in the autumn of my career. That's where I am. I was in the spring when I started. I went through the summer and that was great. And it was a long summer. A great summer. Now, well, maybe I'm getting serious, thinking more. I feel like I have to do something now. I want to do as much as possible before I can't do it anymore. I want to do it while my voice is still with me."

Jones has an intriguing spot in pop culture. There is no denying his powerful vocal instrument, but his choice of material often has been suspect. This is the fellow who recorded "The Young New Mexican Puppeteer" about an Albuquerque boy who carved wood into the shape of Mark Twain and Jesus Christ. Also, his sex panther stage reputation can veer close to lounge lizard territory.

Still, younger artists such as Tori Amos, Portishead and Trevor Horn have, like Bono and Jean, collaborated with him after listening without prejudice. It helps too that Jones has a sly wink in the spotlight, goofing on himself on "The Simpsons," "The Emperor's New Groove" and Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!"

Two years ago, Jones went into the studio with a stack of material collected for him and high hopes. But the tunes, all by songwriters half his age, fell flat because they seemed to be writing for a Jones caricature, the oversexed Vegas Lothario singing novelty songs. There was also an attempt to duplicate the sort of success Jones and the Art of Noise had with a revamped version of "Kiss," the syncopated Prince song.

The producers thought that Jones could work some magic with the Arctic Monkeys hit "Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor." Jones gamely gave it a go and performed it at the Concert for Diana in 2007, honoring the late Princess of Wales. "I got slated for it," Jones moaned. "That was that."

Jones was "grinding the gears," as one member of his management teams says, so he retreated to the road, going on tour in South America. From those original sessions, only two songs made it onto the new album, most notably "The Hitter," a gripping Springsteen song about a fighter.

The production team of Steve Greenberg, Michael Mangini and Betty Wright (the trio behind the first two Joss Stone albums; Greenberg is also chief executive of S-Curve) had Jones take "The Hitter" from its acoustic origins into a soulful setting that sounds like Wilson Pickett channeling "On the Waterfront."

So Jones had a song by Bono and Bruce, the hard part was the rest of the album.

"We tried again and the first writer came in with a song called 'T-Shirt.' I said, 'What is that?' She said, 'You look good in a T-shirt, I can't wait for you to take it off.' I said, 'I don't think so.' Then she said, 'Well, let's talk about you, then. You've been married a long time. How do you manage that?' I told her that my wife and I, well, look, we've been married a long time, about 50 years, and there's always been a lot of ups and downs, but the road always leads to her. I said it and she wrote it down. That became the song 'The Road.' Just like with Bono, I gave them guidance and ideas and they found me, they found a Tom Jones song that fit the real me."

The music-as-memoir approach continued. Jones has co-writing credits on more than half of the album. For the second go-round, Jones primarily worked with producer duo Future Cut (Lily Allen, Kate Nash and Estelle), which plucked ideas from the singer's old Decca records. Snippets of brass from the track "I'll Never Let You Go" they liked enough to re-record and weave into "If He Should Ever Leave You."

In the studio, Jones sang into a vintage microphone and, with arrangements of baritone sax and plenty of room, the resulting songs have an Amy Winehouse-style return to vinyl-era soul for the digital era. At least Jones hopes so.

"We're keeping next year pretty open to see what happens with this CD. The size of venues are determined by how good the record does. The fans need to hear it on the radio; it's a reminder that sparks them to come to show. They see you on TV for the first time in a long time and then the crowds come. If it's what we hope it will be, then there will be bigger venues. A European tour . . . all of it. We hope. And I can't wait to play these new songs for the crowds. It's like I always say: If they're quiet at the beginning, they won't be quiet at the end. Not when I'm done with them."

Boucher is a Times staff writer.

By Geoff Boucher November 25, 2008

The Culture Show

Yesterday afternoon the Southbank was mobbed with people who had come to see a very special Culture Show Busking Challenge. Tom Jones worked his magic on the crowd, but will he be able to surpass the record of the current holders of the Busking Challenge crown, the Fron Male Voice Choir?Watch the clip here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thecultureshow/2008/11/ladies-and-gentlemen-tom-jones.html

BBC Top Gear

The voice of the Valleys gets to grip with a manual car. For the first time in 40 years.Watch the appearance here: http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/tom-jones

24 Hours review: The Beat Patrol

What goes around comes around... For the last twenty years the boyo from Pontypridd has been working with and covering the work of young bucks like EMF, The Art Of Noise, Prince, Catatonia, The Stereophonics, Robbie Williams etc etc, in a constant quest to re-tool his ’sex bomb’ image for the 21st century. While an undoubtedly iconic white soul merchant, Tom’s past crimes against taste in embracing the Vegas lifestyle and treading a line between easy and full-on rock ‘n’ roll meant his sweaty entreatments would always have the faint air of parody: the dirty old uncle at the wedding, attempting to get on down with the kids. But now at the age of 68, Sir Thomas Jones Woodward, releases an album that utilises the zeitgeist production skills of L.A’s Future Cut to make him sound like, well…how he sounded back in the mid 60s. Yes, now that Ronson, Winehouse and Duffy have put ersatz soul back on the map, it seems that the hippest thing Tom can now do is sound like himself. For this reason alone 24 Hours is a winner. Another reason the album succeeds is that, despite a few covers, the majority of the material on offer is co-written by Jones himself. While most of it never really breaks out of the kind of lounge soul that made him a star of the Saturday night variety all those years ago, the subject matter is a surprise. Family, friends and past mistakes are all addressed here. “Seasons,” a convincing southern soul simmerer looks back over a career filled with many wrong turns. But the key text here is “The Road,” a blue-eyed schmaltzer that pays tribute and apologises to Linda, his long-suffering wife of over 50 years. “I know I caused you pain/Left you shattered on the ground”. It’s the heartfelt sound of an ex-philanderer paying his dues at last, and it convinces. Later on “Never” he again re-affirms his love for her. Bless him.

In the cover versions corner he plays it fairly safe. Tommy James’ “I’m Alive” is the kind of material he would have belted out in the clubs in ‘65, whereas Springsteen’s “The Hitter” is gritty enough to resist any messing other than turning it into an Otis-lite ballad. The only big mistake is “Sugar Daddy.” Written by Bono and The Edge, it portrays Tom as the worst kind of lecherous old geezer: bumping and grinding in a style most unbecoming of his age.

In the end, the Voice from the Valleys still rings true. At this age (and with a sizeable fortune to fall back on) there’s no reason why Jones should even get out of bed. To turn in an album this hungry at this age speaks volumes about his desire to prove that he’s still got it. And he has.

Chris Jones

Jools Holland - Performance and Interview

Welsh wonder Sir Tom Jones captured a generation of knicker-throwing fans back in 1964 with his smash It's Not Unusual. More than 40 years later he's still going strong. Tom plays songs from his cracking new record 24 Hours and chats to Jools at the piano. Watch the performance here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/later/artists/tomjones/

24 Hours' marks new day for Tom Jones

Tom Jones has released the new album "24 Hours" after a 15-year hiatus. 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.

Romantics and sticklers tend to cast soul as the enemy of lounge's artifice. But soul stars had their own theatricality, and British singers like Jones (as well as Lulu and Petula Clark) showed how the gripping drama and high melodies of lounge could offer an exciting shading to soul's grit. The songs on "24 Hours" have the sort of broad, quasi-campy melodies that fired Jones' career in hits like "It’s Not Unusual" and "Delilah."

New cuts like "If He Should Ever Leave You" or "Give a Little Love" sound like they were penned in the ’60s (a supreme compliment), though they actually represent the first works written by the 68-year-old Jones (along with a host of able conspirators, you should know).

Jones' star power even earned him a new composition from Bono and The Edge: "Sugar Daddy," which winkingly plays with Jones' randy character.

The CD's first two-thirds keep the pace wild and the style mid-century mod. The last third goes for "deeper" ballads, including a cover of Springsteen's "The Hitter." Though these wistful and battered songs aim to play off Jones' age, they don’t have the credibility, or power, of his breezier pieces. Only the lighter ones make ideal use of his barrel-chested power, his operatic reach. Sincerity and intimacy may count for a lot with many elder stars.

But for Jones, it's the youth of the music — the density and vigor — that really makes it sing. By Jim Farber NY Daily News

The Scotsman Review

THANKS to the commercial and especially creative success of Johnny Cash's final recording sessions with Rick Rubin, veteran artists no longer need be confined to trotting out all the 30 or 40-year-old hits or releasing insipid covers of "standards" in the twilight of their careers. Instead, they have been given permission to experiment and explore – not necessarily in order to make a self-consciously hip record to appeal to "the kids" but to play to their strengths and make a credible contribution to their back catalogue. Despite some resistance from a fanbase that just wants to bellow along to Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond has produced two albums of confessional integrity in recent years, while, in the UK, Tony Christie has just released a dignified collection of urban melancholia which could not be further from the cheap cabaret of Amarillo.

Tom Jones has no particular need for any such career resurrection. He has done his fair share of collaborating with the young singers of the day in the last decade and is as popular an entertainer as he has ever been. He could happily continue in this semi-parodic vein until his leathery skin cracks for good or he is suffocated under a canopy of ladies' undergarments.

But it has not escaped his notice that a bunch of young upstarts – namely, Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Duffy and The Last Shadow Puppets – have taken to playing him at his own game, releasing albums which pastiche the big string- and brass-soaked soul productions of the 1960s. The time is clearly right for Jones to reclaim his musical roots.

24 Hours is deemed to be such an effective rebirth that it is his first album release in the US in 15 years. With Lily Allen's production team Future Cut at the helm, Jones has returned to songwriting. The results are not quite as soul-baring as promised on the tin but at least he doesn't sound like he is trying so hard this time around.

His opening cover of Tommy James and the Shondells' I'm Alive is delivered with full-blooded relish. The panoramic backing of horns, strings and garagey guitar is a retooled, though self-conscious throwback to his virile 1960s recordings – you know, the ones accompanied by his, ahem, thrusting dance moves.

The single If He Should Ever Leave You is a more organic revisiting of this style, featuring a stronger tune, a slightly patronising lyric from the "little girl, I can protect you" school which often prevailed in the Sixties, and nice attention to detail, such as the sighing backdraft of strings at the end.

Jones interprets the romantic escapism of We Got Love with a softer, lighter and consequently more youthful-sounding vocal and also plays it nice and easy with the northern soul groove of Feels Like Music, but is back with the apoplectic holler on Give A Little Love, played out like a battle between his larynx and the perky horns.

One suspects, however, that Jones is most proud of the ballads. He shows some rare vulnerability on The Road, a melancholy Bacharach-style confessional directed at his long-suffering wife. Seasons is his big, made-it- through-the-rain soul ballad, though he overcooks it a little, and it's really not as good a song as its creator thinks it is. The demonstrative melodrama of Never ("never gonna give you up, running through my blood") is more suited to Jones' overwrought style.

He comes unstuck on the title track, intoning solemnly as the voice of a death row prisoner staring mortality in the face. Unfortunately, he has forgotten to include a tune, so all that gravity is wasted.

The Hitter carries the whiff of a vanity cover. Jones makes the mistake of being a tad portentous in his interpretation of Bruce Springsteen's tale of a broken boxer, but it is hard to grudge him his enjoyment of the interpretation, which is pure Otis Redding pastiche.

Fans of the cheesier Jones will enjoy the loungey bossa nova of In Style And Rhythm – "so when you check someone out… don't concentrate on the lips, just keep your eyes on the hips, and if there's plenty of swing, and sure enough there is zing, you gotta do it in style and rhythm" he instructs with alacrity.

While it is actually quite sweet that an old lothario hasn't forgotten how to party, Jones does let his quality control slide unforgivably at one point.

Sugar Daddy, co-written with Bono and The Edge after a night of carousing in the pub, is an embarrassing misfire in the cold light of morning, being nothing more than a leering parody of Jones' tired image as medallion-wearing seducer. If the cringeworthy line "holy schmoly… you don't send a boy to do a man's job" doesn't undo the good work put in elsewhere on 24 Hours, it is only because the well-loved Jones has little to lose at this stage in his career. Whether he has made any great gains with 24 Hours is another matter. By Fiona Shepherd 24 HOURS *** The Scotsman

Tom Jones busks on London's South Bank

Tickets to see Sir Tom Jones perform usually sell for fantastic sums, but fans got the chance to see the Welsh singer perform for free when he busked on the South Bank in London. Hundreds of music lovers gathered outside the Royal Festival Hall to watch Sir Tom sing hits including It's Not Unusual and Green Green Grass of Home, plus his own versions of rock'n'roll classics like Jerry Lee Lewis' hit Great Balls Of Fire. Some women fans even chipped in with impromptu backing vocals, earning a good-natured laugh from the 68-year-old. The crowd was so thick that security guards had to clear a way for the singer at the end of his set. One spectator even scaled a tree to get a better view, while dozens of others filmed the show on their mobile phones. "We just happened to be walking past and I heard this singing, and I thought it sounded like Tom Jones," said onme onlooker, June, who watched the outdoor gig with her husband Nigel. "He came across as very nice – not at all flash."

Sir Tom, who was accompanied by an acoustic guitarist, raised more than £460 playing for Cancer Research, as part of the BBC Two Culture Show's Busking Challenge, which sees leading acts perform in public places for charity.

Last month the singer disclosed that he had written his first love song to his wife Linda, after 51 years together. His first solo album of new material for 15 years, 24 Hours, was released this week. Tom's busking will be televised on the Culture Show on BBC2 on December 2nd.

Watch the video of Tom busking at the Times Online site here and you can read more and see pictures at the Culture Show website

You can watch the news reports by clicking on the links below

BBC1 News at 10pm ITV News at 10pm By Matthew Moore, Daily Telegraph