Tom Jones live from WXPN's Non COMMvention at World Cafe Live

Watch Tom's preformance during WXPN's Non-COMMvention at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on Thursday, May 16, 2013. He performed songs from his new album, Spirit In The Room.

Tom Jones live from WXPN's Non COMMvention at World Cafe Live from WXPN FM on Vimeo.

The World Cafe will be broadcasting this session again on Thursday, June 27th, 2013.

NPR’s World Cafe with host David Dye can be heard on 250 stations nationwide. Fans can find their local station and broadcast time at the following link:

www.npr.org/templates/stations/schedule/?prgId=39

Or worldwide, fans can connect to the WXPN Philadelphia stream at 2pm EST, here:

www.xpn.org/music-artist/xpn-stream

Late in the day of broadcast, NPR will feature the artist's episode as the "Current Show" on the World Cafe website and archive the session for streaming, here:

www.worldcafe.org

Tom to Play Singapore Grand Prix

What does a knight, a magician, a dhol drummer and a soul singer have in common? Patrons at the 2013 FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX can expect them, and more, as part of race promoter Singapore GP’s electrifying entertainment line-up. Tom will be playing the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday 22nd September 2013.

Entry to Tom Jones’ concert is included with any three-day 2013 FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX Zone 1 ticket or Sunday single-day Pit Grandstand special ticket.

Other artists to play over the weekend are Rihanna, The Killers, Justin Bieber, Bob Geldolf and Laura Mvula.

You can buy tickets to the event at http://www.singaporegp.sg/

He's still got it: Tom Jones electrifies the crowd in West Hollywood

The 73-year-old proves his pipes are perfect for soul music at the Troubadour WEST HOLLYWOOD – Inside Tom Jones is a great soul singer; it just took him 70 years to come out. Jones’ most recent albums,  2010’s “Praise & Blame” and his new set, “Spirit in the Room,” cover vintage and contemporary gospel, blues, soul and rock tunes. It was from this meaty menu that he drew inspiration for his May 11 show at the Troubadour, his first of two sold-out nights at the 400-capacity club.

Jones opened the 105-minute concert with “Tower of Song,” the Leonard Cohen tale of a singer whose “hair is grey,” and in possession of “a golden voice,” both of which describe the legendary Welsh singer to perfection. With spare, largely acoustic instrumentation provided by a four-piece, the emphasis was on Jones’ rich voice, which remains remarkably steady and strong and has added a grizzled bottom end that gives it only more appeal. Less confident singers often pull back from the microphone when it comes to hitting a high note or sustaining it, but time and time again, Jones leaned into the microphone when such challenges arose and met them successfully.

The recent material deals primarily with such heavy matters as saving one’s soul (or not) and redemption (after repeated falls from grace) from the primeval stomp of John Lee Hooker’s “Burning Hell” and  Blind Willie Johnson’s “The Soul of a Man” to Tom Waits’ delightfully sinister “Bad as Me.” Jones often seemed to conjure up the lyrics from some dark, deep place in his own being, double fisting the microphone, holding one hand on the stand, with the other on the mic, his eyes closed as he softly swayed during some of the swampier songs.

He dispensed with the microphone stand for many of the faster numbers, often feigning boxing moves during Doug Lancio’s lacerating guitar solos. Jones’ hip-swiveling days may be behind him, but his still-swaggering sex appeal poured off him like the sweat running down his face in the steamy, packed venue. His removal of his jacket halfway through the performance was greeted with cheers and a man shouting out, “Looking good, Tommy!” He replied, “Not bad for an old fella,” before proudly confessing he was approaching his 73rd birthday. “June 7, 1940. I was born during the Battle of Britain,” he said, as his arrival during that explosive event somehow explained his magical success.

The stripped-down weightiness of the material didn’t lend itself to Jones hopping in the time machine to travel back to his lighter, glossy '60s fare, such as “What’s New, Pussycat” or “Delilah,” despite cries from the audience for the frothy classics, but Jones did throw in his 1966 hit “Green, Green Grass of Home,” written by Curly Putman. Earlier in the evening, he also referenced Putman as he paid homage  “to another Jones,” the late George Jones, by singing the country classic “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” co-written by Putman and Bobby Braddock. His touching tribute may have had more power than the Possum’s original, but couldn’t match the poignancy. He fared better when he saluted his old friend Elvis Presley with a sexy, virile “One Night With You,” which was, he claimed, first titled “One Night of Sin,” but, “in those days, the record company said, ‘No, no, no.’”

Jones capped his three-song encore with Jerry Lee Lewis’ rollicking “End of the Road,” delivering it with the same energy, verve and passion that he possessed at the start of the set. His love for this classic material that he grew up on was abundant, but it felt like there was something deeper at play here: At 72, Jones seems to have found his voice  — and his soul — after all these years.

By Melinda Newman Special to MSN Music

You can read the full review at msn.com here

A robust Tom Jones tears through 40th album - MSN Music Interview

Legendary singer and raconteur draws on wealth of life experience for covers set Tom Jones has been making music for six decades now, but the famous Welshman attacks the material on his 40th album, "Spirit in the Room," with the brio and relish of a newcomer. He sinks his teeth into stripped-down covers from songwriters as diverse as Leonard Cohen and the Low Anthem with the full life experience of his 72 years, cackling maniacally on Tom Waits' "Bad as Me" and growling menacingly on Blind Willie Johnson's "Soul of a Man." The follow-up to 2010's "Praise & Blame" once again pairs Jones with producer Ethan Johns, and many are comparing their growing body of work to Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash's seminal series of albums.

Unlike the frail Cash, however, Jones is still incredibly robust, splitting his time between his adopted hometown of Los Angeles; London, where's he's a judge on the British version of "The Voice"; and concert stages around the globe.

Jones is as great a raconteur as he is a singer, and it doesn't take much prompting, if any, for him to launch into an amusing story about splashing around with Elvis Presley in Hawaii or how magical it still feels to be onstage after all these years. The legendary artist starts a U.S. tour on May 11.

MSN Music: What kind of spirits did you feel you conjured up in the room as you were recording this album at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios?

Tom Jones: We were in a place called Box, in Wiltshire [England]. My grandmother was born there [before] they moved to Wales in the late 1800s. It used to be an old water mill, and I was walking around and I thought, she must have walked around here. Box is very small. She couldn't have been born in another part of town. So [after recording the] first album went so well, I thought, "I wonder if she is still floating around here?" When we got here to do the second one, it felt the same kind of feel as it did when we did "Praise & Blame." I said, "It feels like there's a spirit in the room," and Mark, my son, said, "That's a great title!" My grandmother's father [was] a stone mason. He [could] have been one of the men who built this bloody place.

How did the theme for this album come about?

Ethan said, "Let's do some songs from some of your favorite songwriters, not like a well-known song, something that would suit you." I wanted to do Leonard Cohen's song ["Tower of Song"]. I love that because of the lyrical content. The opening line is "my friends are gone, my hair is gray ... I was born with the gift of a golden voice." Jesus Christ, if I could have written that, I would have.

Was that the first song you recorded to help you get the tone for the album?

No, I think the first one that we did was "Soul of a Man," because we were listening to a lot of old blues stuff as well and I know a lot of old blues, country blues, gospel-type stuff.

On that and Tom Waits' "Bad as Me," you're unleashing some demons. You're looking for people who can sin just as well as you and then you have to go seek redemption in some of these other songs.

Well, that's it. We thought we'd mix it up. That Tom Waits song, Jesus Christ!

It sounds like you take absolute delight in singing it.

Yeah. It's another side of me. It's like, "You're as bad as me ... You think of all these crazy things ..." I've always loved Tom Waits. I was looking for stuff by these people that I could relate to that was touching me. "Tower of Song" is as true as "Bad as Me."

Do you think you could have sung these songs even 20 years ago, or do you need all 72 years of life that you bring to them?

I think different times of your life things happen and I don't think it could have happened before.

You and Ethan are already working on a new album. What's on that?

I love '50s rock 'n' roll and old bluesy kind of stuff and I love country music. I love Hank Williams' "Why Don't You Love me Like You Used to Do," so we did that. We also did "You Pretty Thing," the Bo Diddley song. Maybe we'll do three albums and put them in a box set: do an album of '50s rock 'n' roll, an album of all blues and do an album of all country, and keep them separate.

You seem to still get amazing enjoyment out of singing. Do you feel like you're 25 again?

Oh, it's unbelievable, it's just the fire that's in there ... you know we're all sort of ripping the s--- out of it. [Laughs] And I said to Ethan, "You know what, the people that are on this record, why don't we just go out as a band? I wonder if we could get away with it? Maybe just say it's a band and not saying it's me."

Speaking of, you start a limited U.S. tour on May 11. What does it feel like still to be onstage after all these years?

It's a fantastic feeling. When I'm there, I give my soul. I pour myself out. I just get all the emotion out of myself when I'm onstage, and it's a wonderful experience. I think I'm going to do this until I can't do it anymore because I would hate to retire or to not do it and then think to [my]self, "Why did I do that? Why did I stop? Why? When people want to hear me and I still want to sing?"

"Just Dropped In" is probably the only song here that most people will already be that familiar with. That was a hit for Kenny Rogers & the First Edition right around the same time as "Delilah" was a hit for you. What made you decide to record it now?

It was written by a man named Mickey Newbury and he was the one that put "An American Trilogy" together.

For Elvis Presley.

Elvis did it, but I was doing it at the same time. Elvis beat me to the punch and recorded it, but I was doing it live onstage.

I was in Hawaii with Elvis in '69, I was doing shows there and he had rented a house, so I was out at his house and we were in the ocean just fooling around there on the beach. We were both singing lines from Jerry Reed's songs and parts of "An American Trilogy," and I said "Well, I'm going to do it" and Elvis said, "Well I'm going to do it." "And I said, "Well, OK, that's all right, I don't mind," and he said, "Go ahead." That was it, so we were both doing it 'round about 1970, 1971, but Elvis recorded it and I never did. Once Elvis did it, I thought, "Well, now if I record it, they'll think I'm doing Elvis Presley," which I wasn't, but that was it. [Then] I was listening to Mickey Newbury and I heard his version of "Just Dropped In" and I thought, "Jesus! What a great song," so I wanted to do it, and as I'm thinking about it, Kenny Rogers recorded it.

And then there's the famous story of your not getting to record "The Long & Winding Road" after Paul McCartney approached you because the timing wasn't right.

That's why I did the Paul McCartney song ["(I Want To) Come Home"] on this album.

You lost some good songs over the years, but all in all, it's safe to say it's turned out OK for you.

Yeah, exactly, so I can't mourn too much, I can't say "S---, if I had been there!" because some singers always miss the boat and they never get one. Thank God, I did get some, I didn't miss that many.

In some ways, you're making good 40 years later: You've got Mickey Newbury's song on here, you've got McCartney's song on here ...

All I need to do now is "An American Trilogy" and I've got it.

You'll be caught up.

I don't think I'll ever catch up, but I'll try.

By Melinda Newman Special to MSN Music

You can read the full interview at MusicMSN.com here

Album Review: 'Spirit In The Room'

Are he and Ethan Johns the next Rick Rubin/Johnny Cash?

Tom Jones has, thankfully, never faded away since his sexy, swinging success of the ‘60s, and every decade or so, he has a resurgence.

In 1989, hipsters embraced Jones through his kicky remake of Prince’s “Kiss” with The Art of Noise. Then in 1999, he scored a dance hit with “Sexbomb.”

This latest wave, though somewhat lower profile, started in 2008 with “24 Hours,” his first album of all new material in the U.S. in 15 years. He covered such wildly divergent material as Bruce Springsteen’s “The Hitter,”  and “Sugar Daddy” (written by Bono and The Edge), as well as performed a number of his own compositions.

That whet people’s appetites for 2010’s “Praise & Blame,” his first pairing with producer Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ray LaMontagne). Unlike “24 Hours,” which had a little silliness along with depth, “Praise & Blame” aimed to give Jones a certain gravitas afforded folks like Johnny Cash with his Rick Rubin/American Recordings set. And it worked. The collection of gospel covers received wildly enthusiastic reviews. The song reached No. 2 on the U.K. Albums Chart.

So the pump was primed for another set between the sympatico Jones and Johns and they have delivered in a big way with “Spirit in the Room,” out today (23).

While the pair have broadened the parameters —these songs are more about the human spirit and the human condition than religious tunes, though there’s plenty of spirituality here— the guidelines remain the same: let Jones’ voice fully carry the album because, at 72, he still can. His vocals are vital and robust here. Surround him with songs that will be familiar to some and new to others, but none were such big hits (with the possible exception of Mickey Newbury’s ‘60s hit, “Just Dropped in”) that the originals will loom large.

In almost all cases, Johns has opted to give Jones’ voice as little accompaniment as possible because it’s still so rich and supple that it never needs a place to hide. The one  place that differs is on The Low Anthem’s gorgeous “Charlie Darwin.” The original features layered gossamer vocals. Instead, Johns adds a choir that gives the song an even more otherworldly feel.

Jones drops all the schmaltz —to be fair, he hasn’t relied on that in a long time— and lays his sins bare, especially on a scarily menacing remake of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man.”  He takes Tom Waits’ deliciously devilish “Bad As Me” and turns up the heat as he relishes in finding someone who shares his same demons. Just listen to his cackle.

Conversely, there are songs of great tenderness, including his cover of Bob Dylan's  “When The Deal Goes Down, “ rendered as an accordion-and optigan-bolstered waltz so smooth and genteel you could practically ice skate to it.

Not only does Johns have a sure hand as producer, his guitar work here—on slide and electric— adds a Spaghetti Western feel to many of the tracks, giving them a cinematic feel, especially on Joe Henry’s swampy and haunting “All Blues Hail Mary.”

Some artists just get better and better with age and just as Jones has let his naturally gray hair shine through over the last few years instead of dying it black, there seems to be the same kind of authenticity in his songs. He pours every one of his 72 years’ worth of experience and pain and hurt and joy into these songs.

By Melinda Newman Tuesday, Apr 23, 2013

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/news/album-review-tom-jones-spirit-in-the-room#XoavEzWbW76F31Q5.99

Spirit In The Room: A Conversation with Tom Jones - The Huffiungton Post

A Conversation with Tom Jones Mike Ragogna: Tom, welcome.

Tom Jones: Thanks, mate!

MR: You have a new album, Spirit In The Room, on which you take songs by artists such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and you make them your own. How did you choose this batch?

TJ: Well, first of all, I wanted to do songs by some of my favorite songwriters. Ethan Johns, the man that's producing me, said, "Tell me what songwriters you really like," and we'd listen to stuff that they'd done, and hopefully find one that we could do. That's what we did. We listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen songs, a lot of Paul McCartney, Odetta, Paul Simon, Blind Willie Johnson, Tom Waits, Richard Thompson, Bill Hall Ward, Vera Hall and Low Anthem. It's basically songs by songwriters that I like.

MR: The approach you and your producer took on this was so personal and intimate, and it was recorded in a wooden room.

TJ: Yes, it was done in a place called Real World, which is owned by Peter Gabriel. It's a little place called Box in Wiltshire, and the only reason I had ever heard this name before is because my grandmother had been born there and then moved into Wales. Box is a very small place, but Peter Gabriel has built a studio there, the studio is why we called it Spirit In The Room. I felt something...I don't know whether it was because my grandmother is from there. The studio is a very old building and I began to wonder if my grandmother had ever been in there.

MR: I also have heard that from other artists who have worked there, that there is something special about the "feeling" in that space.

TJ: It's an old place. It's an old building in an old village. It's something more than just a recording studio.

MR: Let's talk about some of these songs, like the couple of Tom Jones originals.

TJ: Yeah. Well, Ethan and I were listening to all these songs, and we kind of used a part of one and a part of another and created some new songs as well. That was interesting.

MR: It takes a good relationship with somebody to comfortably be able to go into a room and start making music.

TJ: That's why I like working with Ethan--you start from scratch. We had to bring the tape machines into the room--that's how funky this room was to record in. It's like being in a rehearsal room somewhere, or somewhere you like to get together with a bunch of musicians that isn't a recording studio. Ethan picked this place on purpose so that we could try things out. Nothing was written in stone and the there were no songs pre-picked like I've done in the past. All this is from scratch. We talked about songs that we like and we tried them out different ways until they sound as real as we can possibly make them, and we go with that.

MR: Tom, let's talk about "Traveling Shoes." How did it come about?

TJ: Well, with "Traveling Shoes," he started off with the riff that is on there. It's like a Chuck Berry type of thing. Then I started singing some of the words to "Traveling Shoes," which I had heard before.

MR: "Tower Of Song" sounds like it came right from your soul.

TJ: To me, it could have been written about me: "My friends are gone and my hair is grey," which is true. "I ache in the places I used to play." [laughs] It's uncanny. There's another verse that gets a little braggy: "I was born like this, I had no choice. I was born with the gift of a golden voice." I thought, "My God, I could have written this," or I wish I had. That's the kind of song we were looking for, songs that felt real coming from me, that could be about me.

MR: You have just come off another collaboration with Ethan, Praise And Blame. That album had the same sort of personal approach. Having recorded together already, I guess you guys old pals just easily jumped into the process.

TJ: Yes. That's exactly what happened. We thought like, "Does lighting strike twice?" We went to the same room in Real World, and that was it. We knew that the feeling we got from the first record was something that we wanted to capture again--different songs, slightly different instrumentation, but the same stripped down, real feeling.

MR: Listening to "When The Deal Goes Down," it captures this organic, old-time carnival setting musically.

TJ: Exactly. When I heard the structure of the song, it was a lot like the songs that I heard in this club in Wales I used to go to. There were a lot of old-timers and old coal miners there that my father had worked with, and they had old songs that they knew from the turn of the century. It reminded me of that, and it sounded like some of those old songs that they would song. It sounded, to me, like a song from a different time, so we tried to record it like that. We tried to get it to sound like it came from the days of the music hall and gas lamps. It was the structure of the song that drove us that way.

MR: Tom, I have to say that personally, this is my favorite collection of songs you've ever recorded. It seems like it's less of the icon Tom Jones and more the man Tom Jones.

TJ: Right. That's what we tried to do. We tried to get a part of me that people hadn't heard on record before. Songs that I didn't get a chance to do when I was younger, and some of the songs fit more now than they would have when I was a young man, you know what I mean? So I think the time is right now for me to do more soul searching. Less performance and more as if I were singing them to myself.

MR: I'm sure at some point you sat and listened to this album from top to bottom. Is there anything that you learned about Tom Jones as you did that?

TJ: Yes, that it's me. It's what I sound like without big arrangements or without anything that you would do if you wanted to make a pop record. That's what I've done in the past with producers who want that. But Ethan said, "Look, why don't we just make a record that we like, that we love doing, that means something to us. Then, hopefully, that will translate to the public and they'll feel that." Luckily, so far, so good.

MR: Do you see yourself doing more albums like this in the future?

TJ: Yes. In fact, I'm going over to London and we're going to try some songs out for about a week, just to tread the water and see. It's a different studio, though. It's in Wiltshire, the same county, but it's another studio that Ethan has found and says is similar to Real World. Some of my favorite musicians are going to be there, and we're just going to try some things out and see where that leads us.

MR: I really wish you good luck with that because this approach fits you so well.

TJ: Well, thanks.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

TJ: First of all, to listen as much as possible to different things. Don't copy. Try not to listen to one person or to one style of music and copy it because then, you're going to sound like somebody else. Try to find yourself, what you really want to do, the way you really want to sing, and stick to that. Be true to yourself because there is only one of you and you've got to be true to yourself. If you're not, then you'll always fake it, and then you won't enjoy it. If you're true to yourself, you'll have a ball. It's a great business to be in if you are yourself,

MR: And what was the best advice that you ever received?

TJ: The first advice was when I was working in a paper mill as a young boy. This old man said to me, "I hear that you can sing." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, why don't you give it a shot?" I said, "I am, I'm just trying to figure out how to get into it." This old fellow said, "Look, you go out there and give it the best shot you possibly can because you can always come back and do this. You'll kick yourself if you don't." He had been in the British Army and been all over the world and had a great life, and he said, "When you're old like me what you have left are memories. Make sure they're good ones." That's the advice that I took from this old chap, and I still believe that. I would say to any young performer who isn't sure, "Yes. Try it. Give it your best shot, and if you fail, you fail, but at least you tried."

MR: That's beautiful, Tom. I'm so glad that we got to talk again, all the best with the new project, your new studio sessions, and everything.

TJ: Oh, that's all right, mate. Nice talking to you. Thank you.

Tracks: 1. Tower Of Song 2. Bad As Me 3. Traveling Shoes 4. All Blues Hail Mary 5. Lone Pilgrim 6. Hit Or Miss 7. Dimming Of The Day 8. (I Want To) Come Home 9. Love And Blessings 10. Soul Of A Man 11. Just Dropped In 12. Charlie Darwin 13. When The Deal Goes Down

By Mike Ragogna

The Huffington Post

22nd April, 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/emspirit-in-the-roomem-a_b_3129575.html

Tom Jones shakes his soul with fresh 'Spirit' - LA Times Interview

The new album 'Spirit in the Room' finds pop music's quintessential sex symbol giving his powerful voice over to the tender side.

Tom Jones sits in a cozy booth along one wall of a favorite Beverly Hills restaurant. At 72, his curly hair and neatly manicured mustache and goatee are more salt than pepper after his decision to give up black hair dye a few years ago. But Jones appears dapper as usual, ultra-tan and fit in his smart black suit and dark, ribbed crew-neck shirt.

The era-spanning entertainer is here to talk about his new album, "Spirit in the Room," coming out Tuesday. His latest work continues a career rejuvenation that kicked off in earnest three years ago with "Praise & Blame," a collection produced by Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns. That album revealed Jones as the powerhouse gospel and soul singer many long felt had been overshadowed by his sexy show-biz hunk public persona.

At the moment, however, he can't help taking in the young folk-pop-jazz singer on the restaurant's small stage as she offers up versions of songs from the early-'70s singer-songwriter bible created by James Taylor and Carole King. He nods approvingly, if not enthusiastically. When the singer delivers one of her own songs, he perks up. "Now that sounds more like it's coming from her — I really like that one."

Had the singer known she was being assessed not only by one of the most recognizable singers of the last half-century but also a vocal coach for "The Voice UK" reality competition series, she understandably might have been intimidated.

But Jones wasn't concerned this night with passing judgment on someone else's career, just reflecting on his own, which exploded in 1965 with the punchy, horn-driven pop-rock hit "It's Not Unusual." The song vaulted the South Wales native (born Thomas Jones Woodward) into the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Forty-eight years later, in the opening track of "Spirit in the Room," the first words out of the mouth of one of pop music's quintessential sex symbols are, "Well my friends are gone and my hair is gray/ And I ache in the places I used to play/ And I'm crazy for love but I'm not comin' on."

The lyrics are from Leonard Cohen's "Tower of Song," and like all the material on "Spirit in the Room," the message is one Jones feels in every pore.

"When I heard it, I thought, 'This song could be written for me.' My friends are gone, and my hair is gray, which is a fact; most of my friends anyway.... There's another line in there: I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice.

"When I hear songs like that, the first thing I think is, 'How can somebody come up with something like that? … They're songs I wish I could write myself. But … if I hear something and I feel like I can put myself into it, then it's my song anyway. The big difference is," he says with that hearty Welsh laugh, "I don't get the royalty payment."

Elsewhere on the album, Jones reaches back as far as Blind Willie Johnson's existentially inquisitive "Soul of a Man" and as far forward as the Low Anthem's "Charlie Darwin," stopping in between with deeply probing songs from Richard Thompson ("Dimming of the Day") and Paul Simon ("Love and Blessings").

He also sings Paul McCartney's "(I Want To) Come Home," which has never been included on a McCartney album. He'll be touring the U.S. more extensively with the new album than he did with "Praise & Blame," including stops May 11 and 12 at the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

Producer Johns, who has also worked with Ryan Adams, Emmylou Harris and Rufus Wainwright, surrounds Jones' voice with bare-bones instrumental support, adding subtle but evocative production touches: a gently picked acoustic guitar for "Tower of Song," Pops Staples-like tremolo-drenched electric guitar lines on "Soul of a Man," eerie sustained keyboard notes underpinning "Love and Blessings."

Johns has all but done away with the polished stage orchestra treatments that characterized, and sometimes hampered, Jones' work through the '70s, '80s and '90s.

"Once we sat down and talked about the fact they wanted to make a spirited, honest recording, rather than a produced affair, and we started talking about the kind of music he wanted to do, I thought, this could be great," Johns said. "It looked like a really good opportunity to do something he's never done."

Jones' work with Johns on "Praise & Blame" would do more to stretch his image than the singer's 1999 dance-floor hit "Sexbomb" or his 2008 album with Wyclef Jean. It upped Jones' artistic credibility and elicited comparisons to Johnny Cash's victory lap run with Rick Rubin — with one key difference:

Where Cash's voice was slowly deteriorating over the course of his decade's worth of recording with Rubin — a powerfully moving component of the resulting performances — Jones' double-barreled vocal cords sound every bit as potent as when he was in his 20s and catching part of the wave of British Invasion rock led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

His genuine passion for songs becomes apparent when he starts quoting various lyrics. "There's a song on the 'Praise & Blame' album … 'If I Give My Soul' by Billy Joe Shaver," he said. "It's saying, 'If I give my soul, will my son love me again?' Because the man messes up in his life, playing the devil's music. He succumbed to rock 'n' roll.

"That one again, that could have been me. I could have gone down that road, but I didn't, thank God. I held onto my wife, and I held onto my son," he said referring to his wife of 56 years, Linda, and their only child, Mark Woodward. "He put some great lines in it — 'Please put new boots on my feet' and 'If I give my soul to Jesus, will you stop my hands from shakin'?' Things that I can relate to."

Some of the songs' writers couldn't agree more.

"Tom played me his take on 'All Blues' just after he cut it — though I did not know beforehand that he was aiming to," Joe Henry said of Jones' version of "All Blues Hail Mary." "You can't imagine how strange — and wonderfully so — it is to hear that come off his tongue."

Jones is managed by his son and his son's wife, Donna. Mark also offers his suggestions on song choices, along with Johns.

"Ever since he was a kid he was always suggesting or wondering why I'd do certain things," Jones says, chuckling. "But kids are kids. As you get older, of course, I realized he knew what he was talking about."

The experiment that has turned into at least a trio of albums — Jones was off immediately after the interview to record basic tracks in England for a third CD with Johns — began after Island Records signed Jones to a multi-album deal in 2010.

"You'd have to be kind of deaf and insensitive to music," Johns says, "to not get how astounding his vocal performances are on 'Praise & Blame.' It's so evident he's inhabiting a world that is natural to him, and doing it in a way so few people historically have done it. He has a real facility for it. There aren't that many people around now who can genuinely sing that material the way he does — and it's not just the sound of his voice, but the way he phrases, his swing."

It would seem a natural turn for a singer in his 70s who grew up loving American blues, gospel and R&B, but Jones says bemusedly, "No one ever asked me to do a record like this before.

"I just thought of this: Because I'm of a certain age and I've been around a long time, maybe I can take advantage of that. Maybe I can not have to chase pop music or trends. Maybe now I can just do what I want — as long as people like it. It has to appeal to people, you know what I mean?"

But that's not to say you'll never see Tom Jones, the "What's New Pussycat?" sex symbol, shake his hips ever again.

"I still get fired up by old rock tunes," he said. "I still love to sing 'Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On.' When in doubt: 'Great Balls of Fire.' Those songs still resonate. If I was at a party and there's a piano player there," he says with a mischievous chuckle, "at the end of the night 'Great Balls of Fire' is gonna be in there."

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times April 20, 2013

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-tom-jones-shakes-his-soul-with-fresh-spirit-20130421,0,6391523.story

Two Years, Confined to One Room - A Wall Street Journal Interview

Stricken with tuberculosis as a child, Tom Jones recalls his home in Wales. —Singer Tom Jones, 72, has sold over 100 million records—including "It's Not Unusual" and "What's New Pussycat?" His latest album, "Spirit in the Room" (Rounder), will be released Tuesday. Mr. Jones lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. He spoke with reporter Marc Myers.

I was born in the house of my grandmother in Treforest—a small town in the south of Wales. Nearly everyone in my family had been born in the front room of that two-story home.

When I was 1½, my grandmother on my father's side moved in with her daughter—allowing my family to move into her larger, three-story house about a mile away in Pontypridd. It was convenient, since my father and his brothers worked in the local coal mines. Like our first home, it was a terraced house—one of many identical stone residences that lined the road. Ours stood at the end of a row at the top of a hill on Laura Street.

In 1974, Tom Jones visited the streets in Wales, shown here, where he lived as a child. Today he lives in California, where he continues to record and perform.

On the ground floor were three small sitting rooms, with the kitchen in the back. Up a flight of stairs were two more rooms, one behind the next. On the top floor were three small bedrooms—one for my parents and one each for me and my older sister. It was a loving environment, and the neighborhood was filled with family and friends.

But everything changed in 1952, when I turned 12. I began to feel tired and listless, and my mother had trouble getting me up in the morning. When she took me to the doctor, an X-ray showed I had tuberculosis. Fortunately, we caught it early, so my TB wasn't contagious and I could stay at home.

The first plan of action was isolation and rest. My mother moved me down to the middle floor, and I spent the next two years confined to bed. The doctor said I had to relax and that the windows needed to remain open—lowered only slightly in the winter. Blankets and the coal fireplace in the room kept me warm.

Bed was a novelty at first. I didn't have to go to school, which was great since I wasn't a very good student. Later I learned I was dyslexic. But being forbidden to sing during the first year was a real drag. I had started singing early and had been performing in school, at family gatherings and at birthday parties. To keep myself occupied creatively, I sketched and painted with India inks.

My mother was a saint—and very house-proud. She took care of everything. She constantly cleaned and changed the room's walls for me—cutting out pictures of cowboys from magazines and putting them up. From my window, I could see the green valley below. But as good as that view was, I'd grow restless. So my parents routinely moved the bed around to change the scenery.

The radio my parents rented for me was a lifeline. It was a simple, dark-brown model with two dials and two BBC stations. Late at night, you'd hear music from America—blues by Big Bill Broonzy and gospel by Mahalia Jackson. Eventually I also had a rented TV set and watched pop singers on the Saturday-night variety shows—especially Frankie Vaughan. I'd tell myself, "I'm going to be on there one day."

After a year in bed, the doctor let me get up for two hours a day. But all I could do was stand at the front door and wave at my friends going to play or stand standing by the gas lamppost at night. They didn't know how lucky they were. I promised myself that when I could walk to that lamppost, I'd never complain about anything again. Soon my mother bought me a ukulele, and I sang with the window open. People would gather below to listen.

When I had fully recovered in 1954, I moved back upstairs to my bedroom. Three years later, when I was 16, I married and we moved into my wife's family's house. Up until I turned 21, I worked in a local glove factory, then at a paper mill and finally in construction during day so I could sing at night. I used to tell friends I was going to meet Elvis Presley one day. They'd laugh and say, "You're great, Tommy, but be real."

Years later, when my single "With These Hands" was a hit, I traveled to the States in October 1965 to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show." TV had just gone color, so we had to fly out to Los Angeles, where CBS had color facilities. While I was there, someone asked if I wanted to meet Elvis. We went to Paramount Pictures, where he was filming.

On the set, Elvis saw me and walked over with his hand extended to shake mine. As he got close, he was smiling and singing "With These Hands"—the song I had performed on TV. I couldn't believe it. All I could think of were those years in bed and all those friends who had told me to get real.

A version of this article appeared April 19, 2013, on page M12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Two Years, Confined To One Room. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324504704578412883869516070.html

3 US Tour Dates Confirmed!!

To coincide with the US release of Spirit In The Room later this month, we have three exciting shows to announce. Tom will be performing 'Spirit In The Room' and tracks from his critically acclaimed album 'Praise & Blame' at the following venues:

May 11th - Troubadour, Los Angeles

May 17th Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia

May 18th Bowery Ballroom, New York

Tickets go on sale on Friday 12th April at noon. You will be able to find all ticket info and links here.

Tom Jones talks blues, roots music and latest album, Spirit In The Room with Music Radar

"Tennessee Ernie Ford doing Catfish Boogie... records like that were the start of rock 'n' roll" Tom Jones talks blues, roots music and his new album, Spirit In The Room “The album reminds me of all the stuff I listened to when I was growing up in Wales," says Tom Jones of Spirit In The Room. It's the veteran singer's second collaboration with producer Ethan Johns, and like their first effort together, 2010's Praise & Blame, the gritty, stripped-down production is light years away from the big and brassy Las Vegas orchestra trappings that attended much of Jones' late '60s and '70s work.

"The music I listened to early on was on the BBC," says Jones. "There was big band music and pop, but occasionally we would hear a more raw sound, and those were the blues records, the gospel records and some country things, too. Tennessee Ernie Ford doing Catfish Boogie and Blackberry Boogie – to me, records like that were the start of rock ‘n’ roll. That stuff caught my ear."

Jones and multi-instrumentalist Johns (the latter is the son of noted producer Glyn Johns) assembled a tight band of musicians (Richard Causon on piano and vintage keyboards, Ian Jennings and Sam Dixon on bass, and drummer Stella Mozgawa) and recorded songs in a loose, leisurely fashion at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Bath, England. "The whole thing was quite different from how we used to make records," says Jones. "We used to do three songs in three hours, with everything prepared beforehand. With Ethan, we went in and recorded from scratch – it was very free and open. And Ethan is a player, too, so I was talking to one of the people who would be making the music."

The songs, a haunting, soul-enlivening blend of Americana and blues-tinged covers by such names as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Blind Willie Johnson, Paul McCartney, Odetta, Paul Simon, Richard Thompson and Tom Waits, among others, (along with the Jones/Johns-penned Travelin' Shoes, based on an original by Vera Hall-Ward) were picked by artist and producer with an eye towards, as Jones puts it, "getting down to the nitty-gritty. You can do that with roots music – there's nothing artificial in it."

Jones' minimalist, unvarnished approach to recording with Johns has been compared to Johnny Cash's late-period work with Rick Rubin, and the singer acknowledges the similarities. "With Johnny Cash, God bless him, he was doing that near the end of his life," says Jones. "The way that they made those records is sort of along the same lines. I think the beauty in what Johnny and Rick Rubin did is that, once you take the bare-bones approach, you get into the lyrics of the songs, the essence, without big arrangements trying to sway you. It really suits me."

Spirit In The Room will be released in the US on 23 April (it came out in the UK last year). On the following pages, Jones discusses the selection and recording process of seven of the album's 13 cuts.

1 Tower Of Song - Originally recorded by Leonard Cohen

“I love Leonard Cohen; he’s an incredible writer. With this song, I connected with it as I would with anything when I hear it and say, ‘Hey, that could be me.’ I’m singing about myself, my experiences, what I feel. That’s what I thought when I heard Tower Of Song. ‘My friends are gone and my hair is gray.’ Well, that’s true: Most of the friends I grew up with are dead, and my hair is gray. Those words really hit home.

“When we recorded our version, Ethan said, 'I want to get this as live as possible.' The microphone was wide open; it wasn’t a directional mic. There’s a great room sound, very ambient, as if you’re walking in on a band rehearsing.

“Of course, you get a good sound when you’re at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. We did both this album and Praise & Blame there. A very natural-sounding room.”

2 (I Want To) Come Home - Originally recorded by Paul McCartney

“I know Paul, and I’ve asked him over the years to write me a song. He’s tried it – he sent me one, but I was recording with Wyclef Jean, and the song he wrote me didn’t fit in with what we were doing. But I’ve always wanted something by Paul McCartney.

“Actually, here’s a story: When he wrote The Long And Winding Road, he gave it to me. I was talking with him one night in London way back, and I said, ‘I’d love for you to write me something, Paul,’ and he said, ‘I will.’ But what happened was, we had a record coming out, and I couldn’t stop it. Paul wanted me to do The Long And Winding Road, but he wanted it to be my next single. So we just couldn’t do it.

“From then, any time I see Paul, I always ask him about a song. Ethan heard this one, and he loved it. Everything that Paul has done is so popular, but this song, which was in a movie, wasn’t that well known.

“I listened to it, and I said, ‘That’s fantastic.’ Again, it applies to me. It could be me, my life. The production is minimal, and it works very well with what we wanted to do with it."

3 Dimming Of The Day - Originally recorded by Richard Thompson

“I’ve sung Richard Thompson songs before; I’ve always thought that he was a powerful writer. When we were getting ready to do this album, I definitely wanted to see what else of his might work. A few other people have recorded Dimming Of The Day, so I listened to what they did to see if I could take it somewhere else, which I think I did.

“We put a very simple beat to it, a natural style of production. The key to this song, and this whole album, is that you don’t want to over-arrange. That gets in the way of the song, gets in the way of what I’m trying to put across. For me to deliver a song like this well, it’s got to sound like I wrote it myself. Getting the right production can make a big difference.”

4 Traveling Shoes - Written by Tom Jones and Ethan Jones, based on Traveling Shoes by Vera Hall Ward

“Ethan and I were listening to some old blues songs, and I said, ‘Why don’t we elaborate on some of these?’ These kinds of songs have been done before, but the trick is to move things around; you take what was originally there in some form and change the pieces here and there. With a lot of blues, it’s hard to even say what the original of something is sometimes. They’ve been done and redone so much, but that’s how they continue to live on.

“I play guitar when I write, if it’s in a certain key. I’m not a great guitar player, but I do enjoy playing, and I know a few keys. Ethan is a far better guitarist than I am, so I let him take over in the recording."

5 Love And Blessings - Originally recorded by Paul Simon

“I know Paul. I’ve listened to a lot of his songs, and I knew that I wanted to do something that he wrote. He’s such a beautiful writer. Ethan played this one for me and asked me what I thought, and I said, ‘I love it.’

“We did it in the same rhythmic pattern as Paul, but we changed it quite a bit in the middle section – he had himself singing with the background vocals. Ethan played a real rock guitar, quite bluesy, which sounds incredible.

“I’m a big guitar fan, especially when it comes to the blues. Ethan is a great blues player. He’s got a bloody wall full of guitars. What's great about him is, you can talk to him about your ideas on how the guitar should go, and he gets it. He’ll try things out until you say, ‘That’s it. That sounds good to me.’”

6 Charlie Darwin - Originally recorded by The Low Anthem

“It’s a message song, but it's not morbid. It’s telling you about the world and the kinds of things that Charles Darwin was warning us about. I’m a historian – I love history – and when I heard the part about the Mayflower coming across, I could see it. These desperate people looking for a better world... It struck a chord in me.

“When I did it, it sounded so real. There’s a big piece in the song – it happens twice – and I said, ‘I hear English church singers in these parts.’ It’s not a gospel choir; it’s an English church choir. So that’s what we did – we went to a church and recorded a choir singing those parts. I had that sound in my mind, and I’m so pleased that we got it across. We kept the song, but we brought it somewhere new.”

7 When The Deal Goes Down - Originally recorded by Bob Dylan

“To me, it had the feeling of an old music hall song. That’s how I heard it. It reminded me of what I used to hear in pubs when I was growing up in Wales. The people would sing songs that were much older than them, things from the First World War and even before that. It had a structure as if it was from a very different time.

“That’s the sound we tried to get. We did it with a old pipe organ – you have to pump it with your feet as you play. That’s Richard Causon playing it, and he sounds incredible.

“I’ve never met Bob Dylan. For some reason, we’ve never been in the same place at the same time. I’ve always been a fan. He’s one of the best lyricists who ever lived. It’s never flowery with Bob Dylan – he says just what he means. On the Praise & Blame album, I did What Good Am I?, which he wrote. You can take a Dylan song and do it your own way, because the way Bob records, he does it very sparse. God bless him.”

By Joe Bosso March 27, 2013

To read the full review at musicradar.com click here

SPIRIT IN THE ROOM US RELEASE