Praise & Blame: A Tom Misquote
July 20th, 2010 | By TomJones
It’s been widely reported that Tom has called Praise & Blame ‘his Johnny Cash’ recording. We are not sure where this came from, but these words are not Tom’s.
With all due respect to the late great Johnny Cash, there was no design or intention to re-formulate the Rick Rubin ‘design’ of the American recordings. Research into the vast repertoire of the ‘spiritual’ repertoire was extensive, with inspiration drawn from the hundreds of recordings by dozens of great artists worldwide.
There was no pre-conceived way to approach the songs that eventually made the final cut of the album. The songs were worked as a band works, with Tom, Ethan, Jeremy and Dave playing live in the studio, in one room together, with the engineer in the same room. What you hear is what happened, in full takes, as the band and Tom worked through each song.
It so happens that Ain’t No Grave, which was recorded for Praise & Blame late last year, was not only included in the last Cash album, but was also the title…this was entirely coincidental. Tom’s version of Run On, which Cash also recorded, was inspired much more by Elvis Presley’s version, which Tom and Elvis would often sing as part of the many gospel singalongs that happened when they met after shows.
To take nothing away from either artist, there is little to compare, musically, between the two in their approach to this repertoire, which we hope you can hear if you give it a careful listen.
It’s good to read this statement on behalf of Tom Jones; I was just about to write something about it, as I was reading one of the latest reviews posted on this web site. The “Johnny Cash issue” seems to be a common place of every single review, since Tom’s new album was announced. There is also a need to classify the repertoire as American, or traditionally American, or somewhat American, if you just take a short time to browse through the reviews. There is a special delight in overlabelling everything, as if showing how much the reviewer knows. Musical work is slightly dealt with, instead. What about the music they’re listening to in the record? Nothing is seriously said about the arrangements, that change from song to song, nothing serious about the vocal work. It’s all right with Tom’s age and career, but what I miss is something about the singer that you hear sing in the record, performing. They shouldn’t review products only. They have forgotten the inner record, if I may say so.