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British Summer Time, Hyde Park **** Review - The Times

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51-v1AbOBnL._SL500_AA300_Bringing the curtain down on ten days of British Summer Time shows in Hyde Park, Tom Jones stepped on to the Great Oak Stage and set it alight. Already bathed in evening sunlight, the backdrop was transformed into a flaming inferno as he began with a rocked-up version of John Lee Hooker’s Burning Hell. “When I die, where will I go?” Jones sang, his big, throaty voice accompanied to begin with by only two guitarists and a drummer. It sounded more White Stripes than What’s New Pussycat?. He returned to this gospel-blues theme later in the set with a propulsive version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Evil, a song that Jones recorded in 2012 with Jack White.

Under Milk Wood: Tom Jones plays Captain Cat and Katherine Jenkins is Polly Garter in new TV adaptation

Tom Jones as Captain Cat, Michael Sheen as First Voice, Katherine Jenkins as Polly Garter, Bryn Terfel as Reverend Eli Jenkins and Jonathan Pryce and Sian Phillips as Mr and Mrs Pugh – could there be a more exciting wish-list for Under Milk Wood?

Add Matthew Rhys, Charlotte Church, Aneurin Barnard, Eve Myles and Robert Pugh – as well as a host of others – into the mix, along with a dollop of modern-day technology, and you get a new star-studded, cutting-edge version of Dylan Thomas’ ‘play for voices’.

But this is no fantasy. These stars of the acting and music worlds have teamed up for an hour-long TV adaptation about the colourful characters from the fictional fishing town of Llareggub.

And executive producer Bethan Jones says they were only too keen to get on board and become part of BBC Cymru Wales’ centenary celebrations for the Swansea-born poet.

“We just thought, ‘ Who are the people we’d love to work with on this?’ and just went for it,” she says. “We were asking them as part of the Dylan Thomas centenary and they felt they wanted to be involved. Those who were not available were really disappointed.”

While some asked if they could perform certain roles – Sheen wanted to deliver the famous opening lines, for example – others were more than happy with the parts they were offered.

“We asked Tom Jones to do Captain Cat and we were really thrilled when he said yes, it was the icing on the cake. He’s fabulous and there’s a real humour. We also asked Bryn Terfel to do Eli Jenkins. The reverend delivers the beautiful Sunset Poem which I know Bryn has sung in the past so it was a no brainer to ask him to do it.”

Under Milk Wood was filmed in a wealth of locations, including Laugharne, New York, Los Angeles, London, and Cardiff, and the focus is on the words, with the cast delivering their lines up close to the cameras and directly to the audience. There are no sets, props or costumes.

“It’s almost like a no frills version which is really concentrating on the text,” says Ms Jones. “There’s a real sense of love and enjoyment in the words. There are some beautiful performances. The cameras are very close up to the actors so they are delivering the words straight to you. You’re hearing sections of text you almost didn’t know existed.”

Directed by Pip Broughton and also starring Ioan Gruffudd, Alexandra Roach and Iwan Rheon, the film is also a celebration of 21st century technology with some of the cast delivering their lines via Skype and others using their mobiles to film performances. It features Dylan’s favourite watering holes from both sides of the Atlantic, with Matthew Rhys delivering his words (as one of the narrators) at the White Horse Tavern in New York and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (another narrator) based at Brown’s in Laugharne.

As each of the iconic characters joins in, the piece builds up into a collage of famous voices and faces.

Under Milk Wood is the first collaboration between BBC Cymru Wales and National Theatre Wales and woven into the dialogue will be evocative imagery created in Laugharne as part of NTW’s live performance, Raw Material: Llareggub Revisited, which will take place during the May Bank Holiday weekend. And audiences watching the live performances will get a preview of the film – which will be broadcast on May 5, just hours after the final NTW show – when snippets are screened.

While there have been countless performances of Under Milk Wood, Ms Jones hopes the new film will introduce it to a new generation thanks to the cast list and use of new technology – and entice those who may not think it’s for them.

“We’ve got a real cross section of performers– big stars like Tom Jones, Michael Sheen, Matthew Rhys, Jonathan Pryce and Sian Phillips, and those who are young and at the start of their careers like Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Aneurin Barnard and Craig Roberts.” So would Dylan approve?

“I hope so – we’re using technology and a sense of the love of the words so I think it would appeal to him.”

By Karen Price for Wales Online

You can read this full article at Wales Online here

The Voice UK Season 3

The Voice UK Season 3 premiered on Saturday night on BBC One.

It was a great show and start of the series, introducing the two new Coaches, Kylie Minogue and Ricky Wilson. As well as the two new presenters, Emma Willlis and Marvin Humes.

Unfortunately the show is not shown out of the UK, but the BBC have uploaded all of the performances and clips to their youtube channel.

Our favourite moment from the show was when Sally Barker gave her moving rendition of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". You can watch the clip here.

Delilah Featured On American Hustle Soundtrack

"Delilah” is featured on the American Hustle Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.  Available now on iTunes http://bit.ly/1gWpHsP.  Film in theaters Dec 20th.

American Hustle is a fictional film set in the alluring world of one of the most extraordinary scandals of the 1970s, American Hustle tells the story of brilliant con man, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who along with his equally cunning and seductive partner, Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), is forced to work for a wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia that’s as dangerous as it is enchanting.  Jeremy Renner is Carmine Polito, the passionate, volatile, New Jersey political operator caught between the con-artists and Feds. Irving’s unpredictable wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), could be the one to pull the thread that brings the entire world crashing down. Like David O. Russell’s previous films, American Hustle defies genre to tell a story of love, reinvention, and survival. The film is directed by David O. Russell, written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell, and produced by Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison, and Jonathan Gordon.

American Hustle – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

1.    Jeep’s Blues | Duke Ellington 2.    Goodbye Yellow Brick Road | Elton John 3.    White Rabbit | Mayssa Karaa 4.    10538 Overture | Electric Light Orchestra 5.    Live And Let Die | Wings 6.    How Can You Mend A Broken Heart | Bee Gees 7.    I Feel Love | Donna Summer 8.    Don’t Leave Me This Way | Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes 9.    Delilah | Tom Jones 10.  I’ve Got Your Number | Jack Jones 11.  Long Black Road | Electric Light Orchestra 12.  A Horse With No Name | America 13.  Stream Of Stars | Jeff Lynne 14.  Live To Live  | Chris Stills 15.  Irving Montage | Danny Elfman

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Mommes and murders as Tom Jones soars in Tel Aviv - The miner’s son from Wales invokes his fictional Yiddishe heritage, rocks, rolls, raps and rabble-rouses, on a high-energy return visit to Israel

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Tom Jones is a miner’s son from Glamorgan in South Wales. His mother Freda, who died 10 years ago, was born in Wales, and so were her mother and father before her. Yiddishe, in short, Sir Tom is not. But you wouldn’t have known it in Tel Aviv on Monday, when the 73-year-old indomitable, and unclassifiable, singer sent the lyrics to a song that’s a good few years older than he is booming through the cavernous Nokia Arena. He told the audience that his father Thomas taught him “My Yiddishe Momme” when he was a kid. And he sang it with so much conviction that no one could doubt Freda Jones cared little “for fashion’s styles” and instead found her “jewels and pleasures… in her baby’s smiles.”

Conviction and demonstrable pleasure. “That is a beautiful song,” he mused in that lilting Welsh accent, when the last notes had faded away.

There had been the odd raised eyebrow, maybe even a little snigger, in the office when I mentioned where I was going Monday night. Me, with my exhaustive Dandy Warhols collection, off to hear a man at whom swooning middle-aged ladies used to throw their underwear?

But quite apart from my general “they come, we go” approach to artists who play in Israel, I knew Jones would be a blast, and he didn’t disappoint. He brought a bright, loud, 10-piece band along with him — including two guitarists, two female backing singers and a stellar horn section. He played a set that featured blues, rock ‘n’ roll, country, pop, funk, gospel, even (heaven help us) some minor rapping. He didn’t keep us waiting for hours, he didn’t end too soon, I’m pretty sure he didn’t mention the non-state entity next door, and he most certainly didn’t lip-synch.

Rather, he smiled throughout the hour-and-a-half long set, told us it had been “great” the last time he played here 15 years ago and “it’s still great now,” gave us some Shaloms and a L’chaim, and offered a lovable little bow at the end of each number like the old-fashioned gentleman entertainer that he is.

But if “there’s a mighty judgment coming” for him anytime soon, as he predicted in the co-opted Leonard Cohen number “Tower of Song,” Jones isn’t wearily awaiting it. He may have stopped dying his hair — it was “a different color” last time he was here, he said, self-deprecatingly admitting past vanities — but he looked fighting fit. He was waltzing during “What’s New Pussycat?” and wiggling the hips too. He offered a setlist that sampled vibrantly from six or seven decades. And he brought his belting baritone, that voice, intact. When Cohen delivers another great line in “Tower of Song,” about having been “born with the gift of a golden voice,” he’s being ironic. When Tom Jones sings it, he’s making a glorious declaration of gratitude.

I’ll acknowledge that Mrs. Reviewer and I, even in our advancing years, were among the younger members of the audience. I’ll admit that only a very few of the thousands who gathered for this second of Jones’s two Tel Aviv concerts got off their butts at any point in the proceedings to dance. And I’ll honestly report that the songs that went down best were the real oldies — “Green, Green Grass of Home,” “It’s Not Unusual” and “Delilah” — rather than the relative newies like “Sex Bomb” and “Kiss.”

But he gave even those ancient hits plenty of zest and drama. Who knew that “Delilah” was a tale of jealous murder? I’d certainly never listened to the lyrics before. (Though most of the folks around me plainly had, since they were singing along.) And who could begrudge him playing “It’s Not Unusual,” the song that Jones told us “started it” all for him in 1964? “When I was 10,” he lied.

At the end, after two encores, and having gathered that excellent band together at stage front for a group bow, Jones told the audience, “We’ve had a ball up here tonight, and we hope you did too.” He added, gently and sweetly, “So until next time, good night and God bless you.”

Yiddishe or not, his mother would have been kvelling.

By David Horovitz

You can read this review in full at The Times of Israel here

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Tom Jones sex bombs Tel Aviv

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The Welsh wizard of song showed Tel Aviv that some people, like fine wine, get better with age. It shouldn’t be surprising that Sir Tom Jones was on top form in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. After all, it’s not unusual (sorry!) for him to deliver an outstanding performance on stage, a place he so clearly loves.

The Welsh wizard pulled off a virtuoso performance to a packed house at the Nokia Stadium, masterfully whipping through his greatest hits, and throwing in some lesser known yet equally impressive tunes for good measure.

Unlike fellow pop veteran Cliff Richards over the summer, Jones kept the dancing to a minimum, perhaps knowing what the people had really come for. Granted, he did grace the audience with a few hip swivels during “It’s Not Unusual”, the jacket did come off during “You Can Keep Your Hat On”, and he did mimic the knife murder at the center of “Delilah”. But the simple dark jacket, turtle neck and pants, and low-key visuals kept the focus on the true reason for thousands of people to pay hundreds of shekels – that soaring, hushed, rocking, soulful, operatic voice filling the auditorium as easily and as beautifully as it would a small room filled with friends.

The singer smoothly transitioned from a cover of Leonard Cohen’s haunting Tower of Song (the line “I was born with the gift of a golden voice” earned him a round of mid-song applause by an audience who knew a truism when they saw one) to the all-out pop of “Mama Told Me Not To Come”, “Sex Bomb” and show-closer “Kiss”. His performance of “Never Gonna Fall In Love Again”, was performed so powerfully, with such intensity, that only the sweeping vocals and emotion of “Green, Green Grass of Home” could top it.

Jones spent a fair bit of time bantering with the audience, promising his fans after the first number that they were in for “a great night”. A little later, he recalled his last visit to Tel Aviv, lamenting the transition from a head of black hair to the silver fox he is today. His hair may have changed color with the years, but those goose bump-inducing vocals are still very much intact.

He also judged his audience extremely well, throwing in a truly moving version of the classic “My Yiddishe Mama”, and recounting how he learned it from his father. I would be surprised if there was a dry eye among the  show-goers in the house.

The standing ovation that Jones was awarded at the end of the show was more than deserved. The concert might have only lasted as long as Rihanna’s last Tuesday (my only real gripe), but this 73-year-old grandpa taught the R&B prima donna the secret to a long and successful career – get on stage and sing your heart out.

So if you’re in Tel Aviv on Monday, and get the chance, a night in the company of Tom Jones is certainly worth every shekel.

You can read this review at the Jerusalem Post here

Tom Jones Happy to be Back in Abu Dhabi

Tom Jones is back in his element. The 73-year-old Welsh legend is happy to be back on stage after completing his second season as a mentor on The Voice UK. He explains watching all these young things perform onstage during the show gave him the itch to get back on the road. “I enjoy doing television work but there is not a lot of singing involved and instead I am listening to other people sing,” he says. “I enjoy that but I love being on stage and doing live shows. I just wanted to get back up there because the reaction you get – there is nothing like it.”

Jones still savours his previous show in the capital in 2010; a sold-out gig at Adnec. He returns Thursday to Yas Island’s du Forum.

“That was a great night and it was one those shows that reminded me that this is why I do it: to entertain people and make them have a good time,” he says. “I am very happy to come back and do it again. Also, the good weather is a plus.”

Jones is promoting his latest album Spirit In The Room. The elegiac new collection, his 40th, is a loose sequel to 2010’s rootsy Praise & Blame, where Jones covers tracks from artists including Paul McCartney (I Want to Come Home), Bob Dylan (When The Deal Goes Down) and Paul Simon (Love and Blessings).

Where Praise & Blame covered traditional gospel, Jones explains the goal with the new record is to pay tribute to songwriters he respects.

“We got songs that other songwriters have written that were not overdone and that have not gone bad,” he says. “Artists like Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and Tom Waits; these are artists whose work I always liked and this was a great opportunity to work with some of their songs.”

Jones looked for songs that echo his present circumstances. The results shatter the iconic image of the young, virile Jones of five decades ago.

In the acoustic opener, Leonard Cohen’s Tower of Song, the first lines are: “Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey / I ache in the places where I used to play.”

It is what it is, Jones says. “I couldn’t sing that song 20 or 30 years ago because it wouldn’t be honest,” he says. “I am 73 years old now and my hair is grey and a lot of my friends are gone. It is definitely a time to reflect.”

Spirit in The Room is not a bunch of covers but evocative reinterpretations, a stellar example being his lush gospel take on The Low Anthem’s lo-fi gem Charlie Darwin.

Jones explains it’s a balance between channeling the song’s spirit and giving it your own spin.

“It’s about staying true to the distinctive tone of your voice,” he says. “You can be influenced by a song but you shouldn’t copy it. Like an actor, you really try to dig up some of those big emotions within you and bring them out and on to the song.”

Jones enjoys giving such advice to young contestants on The Voice UK.

He states that artists’ participation in talent shows is an opportunity to see the music world from a less ego-driven vantage point. “Most of us entertainers are preoccupied by our own careers. So to be given a chance to offer some of my knowledge to other people is a great opportunity, really.”

Tom Jones performs tomorrow night at the du Forum, Yas Island, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost from Dh300. For details, visit www.ticketmaster.com.ae

Saedd Saeed. Sep 17, 2013

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/tom-jones-happy-to-be-back-in-abu-dhabi#ixzz2f9b9agEc

The Power and Magnificence of Sir Tom Jones - Yahoo Music Live Session & Interview

51-v1AbOBnL._SL500_AA300_In the ranks of contemporary music, there are precious few whose status is such that they have been awarded a literal knighthood from the Queen for the services they have rendered.For that matter, there are perhaps even fewer whose live performances have consistently featured enraptured women tossing their undergarments toward the stage. And even fewer of them have the voice—and the charisma—of legendary singer Tom Jones.