Tom Jones Prepares New Single: 'Run On' / 'Didn't It Rain' - Clash Music

Welsh crooner Tom Jones has confirmed details of his new single 'Run On' backed with 'Didn't It Rain'. Tom Jones is busy defying expectations. The singer's image of a tanned lothario has been shattered on his raw, honest new album 'Praise & Blame' which returns the Welsh icon to his roots.

Inspired by American gospel, blues and country the album received almost instant acclaim. In the vein of the Johnny Cash series 'American Recordings' the album strips back public perceptions to find the true artist.

Produced by Ethan Johns, the album is steeped in ragged recordings by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan and Hank Williams. 'Praise & Blame' was promoted via some unusual shows, including a midnight set at Latitude.

Set to turn Gold over the next few weeks, Tom Jones is due to follow his new album with the double A-side 'Run On' / 'Didn't It Rain'. 'Run On' is a much covered gospel classic, with everyone from Moby to Elvis Presley having a crack at the song.

Tom Jones has given the track a rockin' treatment, turning it into a highlight of the new album. The Welsh singer realised the track was a challenge almost immediately: "…if we did it we realized we would really have to bring something special to it. Ethan and myself decided to kick up a rockier version, which is what we did and I'm happy to say it's more alive and earthy."

Backed with Mahalia Jackson's gospel classic 'Didn't It Rain' Tom Jones brings some special to these renditions. Much covered, his familiar voice at times cracks with emotion as he delivers a church eulogy.

As a special bonus for digital customers Tom Jones has made a new track available. 'Lord Help' is a deep and dirty slice of blues, completing a remarkable return for the 70 year old singer.

Tom Jones is due to release 'Run On' / 'Didn't It Rain' on September 20th.

Read the review at Clashmusic.com here

New Single Release: 'Run On' / 'Didn't It Rain'

Tom Jones follows the phenomenal success of his recent  ‘Praise &  Blame’ album  - currently hitting gold status in the UK having spent the past month in the Top 10 - with news of  a brand new  AA  sided single  ‘Run On’ / ‘Didn’t It Rain’ on 20th September.

‘Praise & Blame’, a collection of songs culled from a wide ranging  Americana catalogue, has witnessed the coming together  of Tom Jones with visionary producer/musician Ethan Johns (Kings Of  Leon, Laura  Marling, Ray Lamontagne) and been  hailed by many as one of Sir Tom’s career highlights.

The fervent exhortation classic ‘Run On’ was a challenge from the outset. As Tom says “…if we did it we realized we would really have to bring something special to it. Ethan and myself decided to kick up a rockier version, which is what we did and I’m happy to say it’s more alive and earthy.”  Accompanied by Ethan on guitar, ‘Run On’ is one of the (many) highlights of the album and an urgent, climactic finish to an extraordinary body of work.

The tempo remains upbeat with a warm-hearted version of the Mahalia Jackson’s inspirational narrative ‘Didn’t It Rain’. Underpinned with boogie woogie piano and an outstanding gospel choir, here is a natural, heartfelt performance that presents evidence of the lad from Wales who throughout his life listened, knew and sang the repertoire that comprises much of ‘Praise & Blame’.

A bonus for digital consumers comes with the addition of ‘Lord Help’,  an imploring, rollicking blues  turn that completes what  is —at the age of 70— a triumphant return  for Sir  Tom Jones.

“An extraordinary achievement…Praise & Blame’ is clearly one of the best albums of Jones’s entire career.”

***** The Independent

“…A blistering album…at last Jones the artist is the match for Jones the entertainer.”

**** The Guardian

“The verdict? All Praise and no blame.”

****Sunday Times Culture

“This is the most gripping, honest and brave record that the great Tom has ever made.”

****1/2 The Sun

‘Run On’  / ‘Didn’t It Rain’  will be available as  a limited 7” single and digitally with the addition of extra track  ‘Lord Help’.

At 70, Singer Tom Jones Rocks The Blues - The Kansas City Star Review

By ROBERT TRUSSELLAnd so begins a new chapter in my love-hate relationship with the great Welsh singer Tom Jones.

I got to talk to Jones on the telephone in advance of an appearance at the Midland back in 1988. The show itself was vintage Jones nonsense — he sang medleys of his pop hits and worked some ill-fitting contemporary material by Michael Jackson and INXS into the lineup. And, of course, he worked up a sweat, prompting women to toss underwear on stage for him to mop his glistening brow.

But in the interview he described his roots as a teenage rocker in working-class bars and how he saw himself.

“I’m a blues singer,” he said matter-of-factly.

Jones, who turned 70 in June, was part of that Beatles-Rolling Stones generation of British musicians who were heavily influenced by American folk music. Skiffle bands proliferated, especially after Lonnie Donegan’s hit recording of “Rock Island Line” in 1955, and African-American bluesmen were feted as living gods when they toured the U.K.

That’s where Tom Jones came from. In all the years since that phone conversation, as he kept his career afloat as a perennial Vegas crooner, I couldn’t help but imagine what a Tom Jones straight blues album would sound like.

Now, as if to reclaim his roots, he gives us “Praise & Blame,” a lean, muscular, explosive recording that I can’t stop listening to. It’s more gospel than blues, but it’s a soulful, reflective record in which Jones roars and whispers and exhibits surprisingly good taste.

This collection of 11 tunes includes compositions by John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Billy Joe Shaver. It’s stunning. Jones rocks, but with a refined sensibility, a delicacy that creates mesmerizing sound portraits. He’s still the bombastic singer he always was, but producer Ethan Johns has channeled the bombast into elemental songs that achieve beauty in their simplicity. The resulting vocal performances may, at times, bring to mind Big Joe Turner and other great blues shouters from long ago.

I have no idea what Jones’ religious leanings are — he could be a godless heathen like me who simply gets turned on by high-voltage gospel music — but this carefully selected group of songs has an eye on the big questions. They deal with sin, salvation, redemption and the unanswerable question of where we go when we die.

The album opens with a quiet reading of Dylan’s “What Good Am I?” and wraps up with a pulsating version of the gospel standard “Run On,” in which Jones warns “long-tongue liars, midnight riders, ramblers, gamblers” and “back-biters” that “sooner or later God’s gonna cut you down.”

In between we find a raw version of Hooker’s “Burning Hell,” in which he proposes the possibility that there’s no afterlife, and an arresting rendition of Susan Werner’s lyrical “Did Trouble Me,” in which the singer tells us he “closed my eyes so I would not see” and “when I let things stand that should not be, My Lord did trouble me.”

In Shaver’s “If I Give My Soul,” a musician lost to drink wonders if he can be reunited with his wife and son if he gets right with Jesus. And in one of the CD’s most exciting cuts, Jones covers another gospel standard, “Didn’t It Rain,” in which the story of Noah and the flood gets the ’50s rock ’n’ roll treatment.

Jones is in fine voice, singing with passion and finely calibrated intensity, but in every case his voice is framed by unpredictable arrangements. Most of the basic tracks were reportedly cut live in the studio, but Johns laid in discreet overdubs from heavy-hitters such as Booker T (organ), Benmont Tench (piano) and Americana songwriters Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings. Their contributions are subtle if not imperceptible, but they add a bit of texture to songs that have been stripped down to their essence.

This album reminds us that gospel, blues and country all came from the same stewpot and are, to a large extent, old men’s music. It’s the music of experience, tempered by loss and peppered with disappointment, and Jones does that tradition justice.

Now, if you go on YouTube and look at some of the videos of Jones singing tunes from this recording, you’ll see a rather dapper fellow with a white goatee and a sense of style that is just a bit incongruous when juxtaposed against the content of these songs. Still, the music had to come from somewhere, and Jones wouldn’t have recorded these tunes unless he responded to them in some fundamental way.

So thanks, Mr. Jones. My only complaint: He should have recorded more than 11 songs. The CD grabs you by the lapels but is over before you know it. And so the only thing to do is listen to it again. And again.

Read the review here.

Listen to Tom Jones' Radio 2 Maida Vale Session with Janice Long

For the next 6 days you can listen to Tom's Maida Vale session with Janice Long for Radio 2. Tom sings, 'Lord Help', 'What Good Am I?' and 'Burning Hell' at 13 minutes into the iplayer.

Listen here

Tom Jones: Praise & Blame - CWG Magazine 3.5 Review

Long Live Tom Jones – Long Live the King – Tom Jones is a King. He’s a force of nature like a flood or a hurricane. If you could splice the DNA of Sinatra together with Elvis, Tom Jones would be the result.TJ’s musical career spans a few decades and a lot of material. It would be easier and shorter to list the musical styles he hasn’t mastered – Hmm… maybe opera? Tom’s new album, Praise & Blame, is filled with the rootsy, bluesy rock and roll material that he was meant to sing. Oh, throw in a heavy undercurrent of gospel, and this music runs soul deep. I’ve discussed in this column before that there are only two distinct kinds of music, ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ but what about a Welshman singing Black American music? Has he paid his dues enough to sing the Blues? Muddy Waters would have told you, and B. B. King can still tell you, that if you’ve lived it and you feel it, you become the blues and they become you. Everybody’s got em’, some people just sing em’ better. So has Tom still got it? Can he still deliver the mail/male? No-brainer here – Yes! What Praise & Blame really reminds me of is a dark, smoky little bar where the Saturday night band that plays the deepest, most soulful, down-home blues late into the early morning turns into the church band and choir after a little coffee and a shave. Come Sunday, there’s not a 7th or 9th note in earshot but the power of the Gospel makes the church windows bow in and out in time to the music.

The more perceptive listeners among you may find that Praise & Blame is not as accessible as a casual listener might like, even I had to spin this one a couple of times before it’s true power and meaning started to assert itself. Tom is in total control vocally here, and everything about this album must be viewed through that lens. The band exists only as a foundation for Tom’s singing and which allows him the freedom to take his time and really pick his shots. When Tom spins a tale as he sings, he really draws you in and forces you to take the time to really hear and understand the lyrics and their meaning. Better musical backup would have been a bonus, but maybe it would have clouded some important lyrical and vocal elements. Try listening to “ Burning Hell” and see what a distorted slide guitar and Tom can do. Follow that up with “ Lord Help” and you’ll be a witness to the Saturday night gospel, blues-rock I’m talking about. Testify Brothers and Sisters! Don’t knock, just walk right in, ‘cause there’s strange things happening every day – Just follow your ears. Rock Bottom Line: A surprising and strangely satisfying musical outing by a master vocalist still very much in command of his instrument and talent. CWG Rating 3.5 Guns

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Croon on, suave gorilla - National Post Review

Dave Bidini, National Post · Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010 He was like a lot of what was conjured in those times: seeing the neighbours drunk at a block party; stripmall Chinese food; plywood basement wet bars; Penthouse Letters found mud-splatched near the creek and the guy who wrote in to tell how he liked to sit naked and masturbate on a pizza; Bobby Orr's clothing ads in the Gardens' programs; acres of purple velour; The Tonight Show; designer trousers and chest hair bramble; cool Britannia losing its way; The Parallax View, which we saw in a shopping centre theatre on holidays, and which yielded Paula Prentiss's flouncing bosom and Sean Connery's sharkish leer; Charlie O and Joe Rudi, and Catfish, too; fuzz bass and Tiki chic; K-Tel records, maybe some Dobie Gray or Incredible Bongo Band; camel toes and pornography on Super 8 reels; and, filmed in Sensurround, the strange life of the modern man, whose fantasy was some chick in a sheer blouse sitting cross-legged in the lobby of Howard Johnson's.

Lording above all of this from his mossy peak at the epicentre of our suburban gomorrah was the Welsh pop star, Tom Jones. Rough velvet. Expert panty thief. The hands of a miner and the phallus of a satyr. Friends of mine once recorded with the suave gorilla in the early 2000s, and he was angry during most of the session, though not petulant, as one might have expected. Instead, he was frustrated that his voice -- a hirsute bedroom growl also capable of choirboy cascades and waterfall bellow -- was no longer capable of rising to his immediate demands. Back in the dirty '70s, he could punch out the damned thing and it would ask to be hit harder, but the years had worn down his vocal chords. After a few hours of warming up, he felt good enough to try. One take later, he was in a cab headed for the Wild Honey on St. George Street, or maybe Sheba's, where the Lebanese girls still swooned after the weary mist of his cologne.

Rock 'n' roll loves comebacks -- it's the industry that resists them at first, not the art -- and, with the fine, estimable Praise and Blame, it's Jones who finds himself walking in the shadows of Johnny Cash and Elvis, although there's a little bit of Neil Young in there, too, seeing that

Jones never quite left the world of contemporary music, appearing vibrant even when standing still. But better than American Recordings or Elvis in '68, Praise and Blame doesn't feel or sound as much like a producer capturing magic in a bottle as it does an artist devoting time to make sure that his final lasting record -- his musical epitaph -- is as profound and epic as all that came before it.

The album's first track, What Good Am I?, is the sonic equivalent of a film by John Cassavetes. The singer finds himself as the shell of the former modern man, the 905 Lothario sobbing into his forearm as he questions all of his worst decisions, which, in his twilight, he sees affecting the ones he cared about most. For all of the leonine vocals that established Jones' reputation as a great singer, it's his weakening vibrato at the end of the line -- "If I shut myself off / so I can't hear you cry" -- that possesses as much raw emotion as anything he's ever done. God bless the week's middleweight belt holder, Win Butler, but seasoned artists who find it in themselves to push their hands deep into their guts and pull up small devils tassled to their soul are more rare these days than indie kings attempting to hold form. One of Praise and Blame's calling cards is the sound of an artist making music without having to worry about cementing his legacy or answering, as Butler does, to a fickle generation tied to his music. After all, those whose lives were defined by It's Not Unusual or She's a Lady are now old and Viagra'ed, and, even though they've got the best stories, it's hard to get them off the couch, which is why Jones's music is as important as any new quaking band's. On Billy Joe Shaver's If I Give My Soul, Jones sings about being "a foolish man," sounding like a repentant playboy whose wife has gone and whose children have left him. The singer's La-Z-Boy is torn and weathered, and his TV has to be hit with a stick to work. In this song, you can glean as much about the suburbs as anything by Arcade Fire.

Praise and Blame is a gift to the ears partly because it's the sound of an artist making music for no one other than himself. The irony is that, like Nick Lowe's fiftysomething triumph, The Convincer, or Elvis Costello's The Delivery Man or, really, anything by Loudon Wainwright, it's unlikely that zoomer radio will find time for Praise and Blame, the medium being burdened, as it is, by light classical, Carrie Underwood or the best of Clay Aiken. Still, Praise and Blame reminds us that it's not only music made by young people that pulls us together, and it shouldn't take some hackneyed '60s revue or Eagles reunion to make this sort of thing happen. If you know someone who is closer to the end than you are to the beginning, it's a record they should own. It's also something that both of you should probably hear.

Read the review here

Tom Jones - ‘Praise & Blame’ - 9/10 Yahoo Music Review

Having been to the intoxicating heights of panty-throwing Vegas indulgences with old running mates Sinatra and Elvis, we assume Tom Jones is well aware that the Devil does indeed have the best tunes. Yet the man justifiably known as ‘The Voice' also possesses a set of lungs that could rival God's for earth-shattering reverberations; we've found that any top-volume spin of ‘Delilah' can still crack safes at 30 paces. Like a kind of Snoop Dogg of theology, then, with ‘Praise & Blame' Jones unites the secular and spiritual gangs in a way which, on the likes of ‘Lord Help' - as it threatens to run into Yeah Yeah Yeahs' debut EP territory in the fade, having just blasted along on a gothic Americana boogie - sounds like Jones wants to soundtrack an episode of ‘True Blood'. Calling upon the Lord to help the poor, needy, gambling and sinning, he seems equals parts in prayer for and admonishing those he's watching over.

Remember ‘Green, Green Grass Of Home', ‘What's New Pussycat?', ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On'? Even 2008's long-player ‘24 Hours'? Forgot about it. Instead of expansive string arrangements we get low-key embellishments from Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings; swampy, atmospheric keyboard runs from Booker T; sparingly but perfectly used sassy interjections from a small female chorale; and raw, earthy production from Ethan Johns.

Recorded live, it does for Jones what the ‘American' recordings did for Johnny Cash - a parallel borne out by ‘If I Give My Soul', where Jones wonders: "If I give my soul, will he stop my hands from shaking? / Will my son love me again? / Will she take me back again?" It could easily have come in cracked beauty from ‘The Man In Black''s late output; and though, at 70, Jones' voice is in far greater shape than Cash's, for him to make such benign sentimentality sound as though his life's blood depends on it is no small feat.

As its title suggests, this record is no endless stream of religious doctrine. With the likes of ‘Did Trouble Me', ‘Ain't No Grave', ‘Run On' and a cover of Bob Dylan's ‘What Good Am I?' the songs have been carefully selected to tease different nuances out of a system of complexities built on judgement, forgiveness, supplication and fear. That Jones has done it so essentially and convincingly is exactly why he deserves to be known as ‘The Voice'. Take those hats off and launch them into the air for one of the most uplifting, career-topping albums anyone could have released, regardless of age.

9/10

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Tom Jones: 'Praise & Blame' 4* The Arizona Republic Review

An album of deeply felt spiritual music from the face that launched a thousand panties? The man who once titled an album "The Lead and How to Swing It?" That Tom Jones? Well, yeah. And it's actually kind of flawless, setting the tone with a haunted rendition of Bob Dylan's poignant "What Good Am I?," where, backed by thundering floor toms and plenty of atmosphere, he calls himself out on his personal shortcomings. Billy Joe Shaver's soulful, self-incriminating country ballad, "If I Give My Soul" is just as heartfelt. And "Ain't No Grave" sounds more defiant here than when an ailing Johnny Cash recorded it. In fact, what's most surprising is how frequently - and raucously - this album tears it up. The second track "Lord Help" is a swaggering blues-rock treasure. John Lee Hooker's "Burning Hell" rocks even harder, channeling Led Zeppelin's blue explosion with plenty of grit in the vocal department from Jones (whose voice, it should be noted, is a good three octaves lower than those Zeppelin records). And Sister Rosetta Tharpe's rollicking "Strange Things" sounds like it could blow the top off a revival tent. Despite the rocking, "Praise & Blame" is exactly the sort of album artists tend to turn to as the prospects of their own mortality start creeping up on them. And Jones, who recently turned 70, has done a more compelling job than most - thanks in part to Ethan Johns (of Kings of Leon fame), whose less-is-more production here can't help but echo Cash's late-period work with producer Rick Rubin. That Jones holds up to those comparisons says all you need to know about the artistry this often underrated vocal presence brings to the proceedings.

Read the review here

Praise for Tom Jones' "Praise & Blame" - CNN

I've been with The Morning Express team for a few years now, and I can't think of any stories we've ever done involving singer Tom Jones. So it was unusual to be showing his latest music video on the show yesterday. In fact when I said I was a Tom Jones fan, one of our editors laughed in my face... right in the middle of the newsroom! Maybe because when you think of Tom Jones you think of his hit songs that go best with a wink-and-a-nod, like "What's New Pussycat?", "She's A Lady," "Sexbomb," and his cover of Prince's "Kiss."But his new album is a big step away from those types of brassy songs. "Praise & Blame" is a serious collection of stripped-down songs meant to capture the spirituality and depth of human emotion. There's a good mix of gospel, traditional country, and blues on the album. Also in the mix are a couple of up-tempo rockers, like "Lord Help" and "Don't Knock" that have a White Stripes-kind of sound to give them some edge.

But the album is at its best with the slower, more thoughtful songs. My favorite is his cover of Bob Dylan's "What Good Am I?" His voice is raw, but powerful, giving soul to the self-introspective lyrics.

I also liked "If I Give My Soul" which has an ethereal quality, along with direct confessional lyrics. It sounds like an attempt to do a U2-sounding song, and it works.

As I listened to the album, I kept thinking, for a man who turns 70 this year, his voice is amazingly strong. Hopefully that will mean more great records in the future and that he'll still be on the road doing the fun stuff he's known for.

Read the review here

Tom Jones: A new peak for the voice of the valleys

His record company doubted him. But this pop legend hasn’t stayed at the top for 45 years without understanding what his fans want By Ian Burrell

My, my, my, Tom the Voice, at the age of 70, is set to return to No 1 in the British album charts with a record which was described as "some sick joke" by one of the executives on his own label.

When Jones first heard of the scathing email in which David Sharpe, vice-president at Island Records, demanded of colleagues that they "pull back this project immediately or get my money back", he was said to be bristling with indignation.

"I've never met the fellow," he said dismissively. Now, as he prepares to stand, hips swinging and trousers tight, astride the hit parade once more, the Welsh warbler might consider toasting Mr Sharpe with one of his favourite vodka martinis.

Maybe it was all one big publicity stunt. Leaked to the press, the email ridiculed the gospel-influenced tone of Praise & Blame, which Jones has described as his "Johnny Cash album", exploring themes of faith and redemption. "What are you thinking when he went all spiritual," snapped Mr Sharpe. Intrigued, thousands went to listen to, and indeed buy, a record that is vying with Eminem for top spot in tomorrow's chart. Perhaps in years to come, schools of public relations will be citing the "sick joke" routine as a prime example of a successful campaign, up there with the frenzy of support generated for the BBC 6 Music radio station by an apparent threat to close it down.

It's unlikely. The probable truth is that Mr Sharpe just didn't get Tom Jones. He didn't realise the authentic appeal of a singer who learned his chops in a Presbyterian chapel in Pontypridd singing songs such as "Lord, Help the Poor and Needy" by the blues artist Jessie Mae Hemphill. Nor that someone who would stay up late in his Las Vegas hotel suite with his friend Elvis Presley singing evangelist gospel songs such as "The Old Rugged Cross" might have an innate feel for John Lee Hooker's "Burning Hell".

But the public saw the light, sure enough. Especially when Jones went on the penultimate edition of BBC1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and performed that Hooker number with all the presence of an artist who was once a fixture at Caesars Palace and had his own networked show on ABC, performing duets with the likes of Little Richard and Ray Charles. Jones found more believers at the arty Latitude Festival in Suffolk earlier this month where he caused crowd chaos by turning up at one of the smaller stages and performing Praise & Blame in its entirety.

This would be Sir Tom's first No 1 album for 11 years, since Reload, a collection of cover duets mostly with young artists, such as the Cardigans and Natalie Imbruglia. In that sense, Praise & Blame is a comeback moment, though a very different one from his resurgence at the end of the 1980s when his son Mark became his manager and helped him to emerge from a period in which he had gone more than a decade without a British hit.

In 1988 he scored a massive hit and captured a new generation of admirers by recording Prince's "Kiss", produced by the avant-garde Art of Noise. Soon afterwards he was performing for a younger audience at the Glastonbury festival and signing in 1993 to Interscope Records, the same label as Snoop Dogg.

It seems that Mr Sharpe was hoping for something with a contemporary feel after Island poached Jones from EMI in October last year for £1.5m. "Having lured him from EMI, the deal was that you would deliver a record of upbeat tracks along the lines of 'Sex Bomb' and 'Mama Told Me [Not to Come]'," he railed, referring to hits from the Reload album that Jones had enjoyed with house DJ Mousse T and Welsh rockers the Stereophonics respectively.

Perhaps he should have taken a closer look at the singer's appearance lately. The dyed jet-black thatch and goatee beard have gone, replaced by a natural grey. "I like the colour of my hair now," Jones said recently. "Before, when I didn't dye it, it was a salt and pepper colour but the last time I left it, it came out white and I thought, 'Well, that's good'." In every sense Jones is going back to his roots.

There has been great diversity in Jones's 47-year professional career. He has had hit records in almost every genre, and even when he went through a period of being unfashionable in Britain, during the late 1970s and 1980s, he had a successful career as a country singer in America.

From the age of six, Thomas Woodward, as he was christened, was tugging at his mother's skirt asking to be allowed to sing at family events. He would have followed his father down the mines but for the intervention of tuberculosis, which struck him down at the age of 13 to the extent that his ambition in life was once to walk as far as the lamp-post at the end of his street.

"The doctor said to my parents, 'Whatever you do, you can't put this boy in a coalmine because he has weak lungs'," Jones told an interviewer two years ago, enjoying the delicious irony of the diagnosis.

He has demonstrated extraordinary endurance, and his energy is unflagging even as a septuagenarian. "Once you pass 50 you're bullet proof. You're still performing and doing it, and kids like it," he said in 2002 of his youthful new audience.

There was always a bit of kitsch to Jones's 1990s appeal; the medallion man of hairy chest and open shirt hanging out with the young things. The famously jovial Welshman will surely have no regrets, yet there is something more organic about his latest reconnection with the soulful sounds that inspired him when he started out in the 1960s with a love of American rhythm and blues. "It was ... like when I had my band in Wales," he said of the experience of recording Praise & Blame.

After moving to London, Jones adopted his mother's maiden name, which enhanced his image as the Voice of the Valleys. He had his first No 1 in 1965 with "It's Not Unusual", a song that would later be covered by the Supremes. Mary Wilson, one of the singers in that Motown group, has claimed to have had an affair with Welshman, who has been married to his childhood sweetheart Linda for more than half a century. Countless other women who have pelted Jones with their underwear at his concerts down the years have doubtless dreamed of their own liaisons.

Jones is still best known for his 1960s hits, such as "Delilah", a passionate story of infidelity, jealousy and revenge, and the Peter Sellers film theme tune "What's New Pussycat?". Both have become karaoke classics. The plaintive "Green, Green Grass of Home", which was a No 1 for Jones in 1966, took on new significance recently when the Welshman indicated that having moved to Los Angeles in 1974, partly for tax reasons, he was considering moving back to Britain. In 2005 his wealth was estimated at £175m.

Maybe Praise & Blame is a part of that process. A consummate entertainer, he is doing this one for himself as much as anyone. "I've been wanting to do this album for a long time, but it's hard to get a record company to go along with you because most of them want hit singles and pop music which I have been known to do," he told the BBC earlier this month.

Reading David Sharpe's now infamous email it's clear that's exactly what the Island executive had been after. But Jones has made his Johnny Cash album all the same. Now, 42 years after he first headed the album charts with Delilah, he is set to outdo Bob Dylan, who set a record by going to No 1 last year with Together Through Life at the age of 68. That's not such a bad set of lungs.

A life in brief

Born: Thomas Jones Woodward, 7 June 1940, in Pontypridd, South Wales.

Family: His father, Thomas Woodward, was a miner and his mother Freda a housewife. At 17 he married Linda Trenchard. A month later they had a son Mark, now his manager. In 2008 he acknowledged paternity of model Katherine Berkery's son, whom he has never met. He has two grandchildren.

Education: Left school at 16 with no qualifications.

Career: Since his first British No 1 in 1965 with "It's Not Unusual", Jones has been a regular feature on the British and American music charts. His ability to switch between genres and to collaborate with musicians from Van Morrison to Wyclef Jean has helped to continue this success. Jones has released 58 albums and sold about 150 million records, winning two Brit awards and receiving a knighthood in 1996.

He says: "I'll record as long as my voice works and as long as people want to hear me."

They said: "He's one of the greatest performers I've ever seen, and the greatest voice." Elvis Presley

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Tom Jones: the oldest swinger in the charts - The Telegraph

If midweek sales hold up, 70-year-old Tom Jones is on course to becoming the oldest man to top the British album charts. Jones previously held the record as a mere stripling of 59, when his contemporary pop duets set Reloaded went to number one in 1999. But he was superseded by then 68-year-old Bob Dylan last year with Together Through Life. Now Jones is poised to take the crown back, with an album or raw rocking gospel music, Praise And Blame.The old guys are but spring chickens (well, autumn chickens, maybe) compared to Dame Vera Lynn, who got to number one last year aged 92, although that was with a compilation album recorded in her prime. Age used to be one of the battlegrounds of pop culture. Now, one has to almost wax nostalgic to think back to a time when fans debated whether this or that artist was too old to rock and roll. Do you remember when critics liked to poke fun at veteran rockers, referring to the Glimmer twins Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the Zimmerframe Twins? It turned out that rock was not really a flashpoint for youthful rebellion but just another form of music. And music is for life. And life is long. I have to admit, when I was an 18-year-old punk, I never imagined I would be a middle-aged rock critic. But the charts are still full of people who are older than me, and it is we middle-aged consumers who are keeping the music industry afloat. More than half of all CDs are bought by people over thirty, less than a fifth by people under twenty. Mind you, the young are still consuming just as much music, its just that they are not paying for it. Legal downloads are still dwarfed by the illegal. The international trade body IFPI has estimated that 95 per cent of music downloads worldwide are illegal. And there are figures bandied about the American music business (of which, I must admit, I am a little sceptical) claiming over 70 per cent of Americans under 20 years old have never paid for a piece of music. The generation gap is no longer about the music, it’s about the technology used to consume it. Well, we all know the music industry is in trouble. But in the meantime, it may be up to the oldies to keep us rocking. The thing about Jones’ continuing success is that he genuinely deserves it. He has made a great record, raw and alive with a love of music, shot through with emotional veracity and vital performances. People are talking about this as a religious album, and, indeed, the vice-president of his own record company notoriously dismissed it as “hymns” but actually this is the record of a sinner, engaging with God, the Devil and his own fears of mortality and redemption. And it’s not like it has come out of nowhere. To some Jones will always be the hip swinging Las Vegas belter, but his latterday career as a recording artist stands up with any more artistically admired veteran’s. Jones has shown the artistic courage to go new places, and try new things. Reload put him back in the charts with witty, contemporary pop. Mr Jones, his 2002 hip hop collaboration with (future Haitian presidential candidate) Wyclef Jean, was a brave and bold work, and is much better than it sounds on paper. And his 2008 album 24 Hours may have missed the top thirty but it dug deep in terms of songs and emotion, with a couple of tracks the equal of anything he has ever recorded. The Hitter is the stand out. It’s a remorseful but relentless brooding seven minute epic about a fighter who just doesn’t know when to go down. It could be the story of Jones’ life. He’s enjoyed great popularity and long spells in the wilderness. But it’s no accident that he is back at the top of the charts. Where most veterans are content to coast on their reputations and back catalogues, the big prize goes to those, like Dylan and Jones, who are still out there, giving it everything they’ve got.

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Tom Jones on course to top album charts

The Guardian Welsh singer set to knock Eminem off top spot with 40th studio album, Praise & Blame, but hints at collaboration with rapper

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone, as Wales' favourite crooner has been reminding us for a good 45 years. It is, on the other hand, slightly out of the ordinary to be loved by so many that you manage to chalk up a number one album in your 70s, as Pontypridd's finest may achieve this Sunday with his 40th studio album Praise & Blame.

Sir Tom Jones, who was today sitting at number one in the midweek chart sales, is on course to become the oldest male musician to have a number 1 album this Sunday, if he knocks Eminem off the top spot.

What may be more unusual still is a thinly-veiled suggestion from the septuagenarian sexbomb that he would be like to collaborate with the Detroit rapper currently in pole position. "I couldn't be more proud of this album and I'm really blown away by the response from everyone," he said. "It's great to be top of the charts with Eminem, maybe next time we could be top together."

Although the link-up may appear incongruous to some, Jones is likely to be unfazed. As a young man he worked with legends such as Elvis, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles and in recent years has hooked up with artists as diverse as Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and Cerys Matthews.

Speaking on the telephone while touring the UK to promote his new album – a critically-lauded collection of gospel and blues-infused songs – Jones, who turned 70 last month, said he had no qualms about being the oldest artist to top the charts.

"For me that would be the icing on the cake," he said. "It's great to see the album doing so well in the midweeks but if I don't get to number one, I don't get the record – and I do want it."

Jones previously held the record when his 1999 album, Reloaded, went to number one. But he lost the crown to Bob Dylan – just a year younger than Jones – when last year's Together Through Life took the top spot.

He is proud of the album – which some are calling his "Johnny Cash moment", a reference to the country star's late, reflective American recordings – although Jones rejects any suggestion that he might be on his last legs.

"I've always been a god-fearing person. This album is spiritual but it's not like I'm coming to the end and seeking redemption," he said.

His long-standing enthusiastic lady fans, some of whom may these days struggle to throw a pair of knickers any great distance, will be relieved to hear that he feels in good fettle. "Physically I'm fine. I don't have plastic hips or knees."

He does admit, however, that his performances have become less "frantic" as he has matured. "When I was young I was just exploding all the time, whenever there was an instrumental, I never thought of letting the guitar player take a solo – I used to hammer every song."

The advice to tone it down on stage was not given recently, but did come from a decent source. "I hate to namedrop," said Jones, in his luscious and still distinctly Welsh voice. "But Frank Sinatra told me that you didn't have to push that hard all the time. I've learnt to let the songs speak for themselves instead of ramming them down people's throats. Maybe I should have done that before, but I was full of vinegar or whatever."

Praise & Blame also gained column inches recently after David Sharpe, a vice president at his label Island Records reportedly criticised the album in a "leaked" email to colleagues, dismissing the songs as "hymns" and not the "upbeat tracks" the label had wanted.

The email began: "Imagine my surprise when I walked into the office this morning to hear hymns – it could have been Sunday morning. My initial pleasure came to an abrupt halt when I realised that Tom Jones was singing the hymns! I have just listened to the album in its entirety and want to know if this is some sick joke????"

But music writers and PR experts have questioned the veracity of the leaked email story, pointing out that the email handily came to light the same week as the record's release, not when it was written on 19 May. Jones insists that the first he heard of it was on a flight from LA to London. "I was frightened that it would put people off before they had even heard the album. I've still had no explanation."

Asked if he thought the email was a PR stunt he said: "It sounds like it, it could have been. Why would anyone say that about wanting their money back – I just don't understand it."

Island made no direct comment on the email yesterday, but in a statement Ted Cockle, co-president of Island records, made a nod to the brouhaha. "This was always the record that Island records and Sir Tom wanted to make," he said. "Its hugely satisfying that the album has been such a massive success with the critics and public alike. Island are delighted to part of the latest chapter of such a legends outstanding career."

The cool new Tom Jones record? - The Oregonain Review

Things I didn't expect about the new Tom Jones record: 1. There was going to be a new Tom Jones record.

2. It would be released on Lost Highway, label of Hayes Carll and Black Joe Lewis and Ryan Bingham and Ryan Adams and Lucinda Williams and on down that particular line of music.

3. That the new Tom Jones record on Lost Highway would be really cool.

I mean, does that sentence even make sense?

Because Jones is kind of a complicated figure. Some will read that and say, "Of course he does, he's Tom Jones." Then they'll throw their underwear and room keys before going back to the slot machines.

Others will read that sentence, brows furrowed, and say, "You might as well have just said, 'The duck and the cat are sharing a six pack on the Space Shuttle' -- and said it in Quechaua."

Anyone possessing even the smallest of the skepticism genes would have to think: Seriously? In 2010, the 70-year-old guy who did that cheesy "What's New Pussycat?" made a cool new record? No he didn't. Shut up.

But he did. He totally did.

"Praise and Blame" is 11 songs of classic American gospel and blues sung by a Welsh hero still in full possession of a big voice. It's sparse and hot and powerful. You can almost see a Southern heat coming off it as Jones (with much help from producer/guitarist Ethan Johns) runs through tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan and Billy Joe Shaver, John Lee Hooker and Rosetta Tharpe.

He covers "Ain't No Grave," the title track of the final Johnny Cash record (also on Lost Highway), and so lines are drawn between "Praise and Blame" and the work so-adored work Cash did with Rick Rubin.

Well, those were so adored because they were good and they were good because they showcased an icon aging gracefully. At 70, Jones needed to step away from sex symbol status. The guy's kept in shape, but a few years ago when he played the Schnitz, he popped the top couple buttons on his shirt, and women screamed and it was ridiculous.

But when he sang "Green, Green Grass of Home," it was moving. The one thing Jones has always been able to do is sing, if you could just focus on his voice. And his voice works these songs expertly. Seriously.

Ryan White, The Oregonian

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'Praise & Blame' an A.V. Club B+ Review

By Jason Albert July 27, 2010 From a distance, Tom Jones’ new Praise & Blame seems like just another Johnny Cash-style comeback by an aging star. And in a sense, it is. But Jones is a pop artist, and as such, he has every right to latch onto whatever trend he likes. With Praise & Blame, however, he’s done more than shallowly recasting himself as a gospel-and-blues interpreter. He’s reached deep and tapped into the real stuff. Jones’ leap is less radical than it looks. He has been doing credible R&B covers—forget his kitschy rendition of Prince’s “Kiss”—since the ’60s, and his voice has always held a magisterial authority. In fact, the friction between his booming pipes and his often-lightweight material has long been his trademark. But Praise & Blame features no such disconnect. Jones’ thunderous baritone, eroded to perfection, is wedded to spectral folk hymns and skeletal gospel stompers—most of which are harrowingly fixated on death, hellfire, and Jesus. The disc’s production and arrangements are impeccably sympathetic. Haunting and rawboned, the backing music sweeps Jones closer to Nick Cave than to Johnny Cash, though like Cash’s American Recordings series, Praise & Blame is a stark, soul-probing study in imminent mortality. But amid its grim-yet-joyous ecstasy, Jones gives no hint that his reinvention is anything less than a legitimate bid for salvation—artistic, personal, and even eternal.

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Tom Jones' 'Praise & Blame' - LA Times 4/4* Review

Tom Jones turned 70 in June and one listen to "Praise & Blame" leaves no doubt that he's finally decided it's time to stop kidding around. Musically, he's checked out of Vegas and set up shop in Memphis, or maybe Muscle Shoals, for a revivifying excursion through American gospel and blues. Comparisons will be drawn to Johnny Cash's teaming with Rick Rubin on his series of "American" albums, and Jones and his producer, Ethan Johns, need make no apologies for charting a parallel path that brings out the best in this veteran singer's artistry.

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Praise & Blame: A Conversation With Tom Jones

Mike Ragogna, The Huffington Post - Posted: July 27, 2010 01:11 AM Mike Ragogna: Your new album Praise & Blame has a very stripped-down sound. What was your philosophy going into making this record?

Tom Jones: Well, I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, and some of the albums I've done in the past, one or two tracks sometimes have been like this--stripped down. I've always liked that...not for all songs, but for songs of this nature especially. I feel you don't need a lot on them musician-wise. I think this is the best way to approach it, for me anyway. And I think it shows the voice off, and you can hear the tonal quality of the vocals. We took a lot of time picking the keys to get them in the right keys. We wanted to do some of the slower songs low because my voice over the years has become lower and richer.

MR: Your very first track, "What Good Am I," seems to pull off its big message with even more emotion than the original.

TJ: First of all, to approach it the way we did, the only version I had heard before that was from Bob Dylan. I wanted to slow it down and give it more depth. The lyrics already had them. The depth was already there, but the tonal quality...

So, we did it in a low key, and Ethan Johns said, "Look if you think it will work, sing it as softly as you can. Don't push it at all, and let it come out very natural," and that's what I did. Normally, when I sing, if I start to go up in the register, I get louder. That's what happened. But with this, you try not to control it, so that's what I did, it's what we ended up with.

MR: Can you go into the recording process?

TJ: We recorded it in Peter Gabriel's studio in Wilshire, so we were trying it out in the afternoon. We broke for dinner, and normally, once we do that, we wait until the following day to have another go at it. So, when we were having dinner, we were talking about it and I had had a couple of glasses of wine and I said, "You know, I think I've got it now in my mind. Maybe we should go back and try it again." I think everybody felt more mellow--maybe it was due to the red wine. But I definitely felt more relaxed, and everybody seemed to be like that. We just let it flow...not to over do, over sing, or punch it too hard--just to sing it as quietly and as breathy as possible. And then when we listened to it back we realized that this was it. We had it. You know, normally I don't drink before I sing. I like to keep a clear mind, but it was just a glass of red wine that might have helped.

MR: That brings us to that mega-voice of yours. I was told you had to record quite a distance from the microphone for some of the rockers on this album.

TJ: Yeah. Well, I think the difference with my voice today is that it's richer than it used to be. So, I think if I had done it 30 years ago, it may not have had as much weight to it. So, I think this definitely benefits from experience and the tonal quality of my voice. But the material itself...

MR: What went into the song choices?

TJ: I used to do songs like this in Wales growing up. If I went to Sunday school at 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon, to the Presbyterian Chapel, we did a lot of gospel hymns which I didn't realize was gospel until later on. Not as much as they do in the Southern states, but the songs are definitely there with the gospel element.

For instance, when I was in Las Vegas with Elvis Presley--God bless him when he was still alive--we would hang out at night in his suite and we would sing mostly gospel songs because he loved gospel, and he would start to sing these songs and I would join in. He asked me, "How come you know these songs?" and I said, "Well, we sing them in Wales, not exactly as you do." Now I do, but not when I was a kid so much. But the songs were definitely there.

MR: Are there songs on this record that do come from your childhood?

TJ: I knew "Run On." Of course, I got that one from Elvis. But I got a lot of the gospel things I have done before. The Mahalia Jackson tunes were on BBC radio when I was growing up in the '40s and '50s. I think Mahalia Jackson was the biggest gospel singer that we had heard from the States...and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

MR: Praise & Blame also puts rock 'n' roll into the gospel mix.

TJ: Well, there you go. We heard songs that other people had done, like The Staple Singers. We had heard some of the things they had done and again. Getting back to "Run On" that Elvis had done, when we tried it the first time, we did it in the same key as Elvis did. It sounded very similar. I wasn't doing anything to this song that hadn't been done already. Elvis had already done it. I mean, Christ, I would have come off as a second hand Elvis here if I did it the same way. So, we had to change it. I said, "What about if we lift the key and put it in a higher key. I can put more effort into it in a higher key, and it won't sound so smooth.

So, Ethan Johns said yeah, and we started looking for a guitar riff by listening to a lot of other records that had been done, then Ethan came up with that guitar riff. So, between that riff and me singing in a higher key, we just let it rip. I rip into it as opposed to doing it the way Elvis and The Jordanaires did it. Actually, I am not sure if it was them, but it was definitely a choir doing the answer phrases.

So, I thought, "Let me just sing the whole thing, and I'll just sing the answers as well." Ethan said, "If you are going to do the whole thing, maybe you shouldn't do it as long because it goes on." So I said, "Lets do it and see where it ends up. I did the whole song because it was going so well, but I think that guitar riff had a lot to do with the pushing of the song.

We tried to get things, as you said, more rocky, more gospel, more old gospel, hot gospel like it would have been done in the South when some country blues players would do a gospel song. That's how I imagine it would have been done.

MR: How did you come up with the concept?

TJ: Well, I am always thinking what am I going to do next because I love so many different kinds of songs. There are certain areas in pop music that I wouldn't try and go into, but there are a lot of areas that I like and the way of recording them. The question is always there in terms of where do I go, what move do I make next musically.

But this one is very natural to me as I know these songs. These are the kind of songs that I sang in the pub in Wales growing up, so it was a natural thing. But the idea that gave us license was when Island Records asked me to do an album of hymns for last Christmas. I thought, "Now I wonder if I can really dig into this rather than just do hymns, although hymns would be very nice with an orchestra and a choir...very nice." I think that's what they wanted.

But it gave me the opportunity to dig deep, do some gospel stuff, and combine it with a Rock element. Hot Gospel--like that. Make it more raw, don't polish it up or smooth it out. Then I talked to Ethan Johns as we were thinking of who was going to produce it, and so he said he wanted to try a couple of tracks. Island Records didn't want to commit until they heard something first, and what kind of thing we were going to do. So, we cut two songs first: "Did Trouble Me" and "Run On." He presented them to Island Records, and they loved them so they said okay. So, that gave us the opportunity to look into gospel songs that I knew or that we felt would sound good.

MR: Then you recorded the rest of the album which ended up having a real live feel to it.

TJ: Setting the keys is a big thing because some songs don't need to be sung high. You need to get more warmth in them, so they don't always need to be set in a higher key. That's what we did...we tried to get the keys right and work on it from there. Then there was just the rhythm section and it was Ethan, the drummer, the bass player, and myself, and we just did it live. The other instruments you hear later on, Ethan overdubbed them. I just worked with Ethan Johns; Dave Bronze was on bass and Jeremy Stacey was on drums.

MR: It seems to be all about spontaneity, and everything functioned so tightly in this environment.

TJ: That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to get it as alive and natural as possible. The studio that we did it in...you know Peter Gabriel has quite a few studios there. He has a big proper studio, but we didn't want to use that because we wanted to just use the rhythm section. This room that we used, they brought the tape machines in because it's analog so there was no control booth. I have never recorded in a place quite like that before because there was always a control room.

MR: Where was the engineer's placement?

TJ: Right there in the same room. It was a couple of tape machines and a couple of engineers, and they would be walking around putting little plastic partitions in, especially around the drums. But with me, we couldn't overdub anything because it would leak. So, I was singing into what looked to me like an old, square RCA microphone. I asked the engineer, "How old is this microphone?" and he said, "Oh, it's really old...like 1939 or 1940." Well, that's the same age as me, so he went on about how old this mic was.

MR: Good mic-ing is half the battle.

TJ: It was a reconditioned mic, of course, but it was fantastic. It picked up everything. That's why I can sing so lightly on some of them. Picked every breath up. It was tremendous, but then again, you have leakage from the other instruments. We recorded every one live, so you couldn't. If it didn't happen then, we would do it again.

MR: Nice, the way music was originally recorded.

TJ: This is it. It was like going into a rehearsal hall and trying songs out. Let's try it again and see what we can do with this, and the big and only difference with this is that it was being recorded.

MR: So if the vibe is just right and it jiggles just right, that's it.

TJ: That's right. We try it and listen, and if it's not ringing true, then we try it again. But it did all come together very well. Once the ball started to roll and we knew when all the musicians were with me and looking at me, they were facing me, and we were all looking at one another.

MR: And especially with faith at the root of where you started, you couldn't help but have miles and miles of feel.

TJ: Exactly. I don't think you could have laid a track down and then try to put a vocal on top of that, which I have done in the past and a lot of people do when they record. You set a key and they lay a track down and you put the voice on. With some stuff it works, you know, especially dance music. You've got to give the engineer time to overlay things. But with this, I felt that this one needed to be as live as possible.

MR: Right. Now, you've had a lot of different phases or styles in your career. For instance, a younger audience will associate you with your cover of Prince's "Kiss" while an older audience may associate you with "Green, Green Grass Of Home," "Delilah," "What's New Pussycat?" or "It's Not Unusual." It will be interesting to see who comes in on this.

TJ: I have made all kinds of records, but you can still go in there and do them stripped down, unplugged. Really, its just going in there and getting back to basics and not using any of the trickery. There is a lot that can be done today, but sometimes, you need those different sounds like on dance music like I was saying. But not on this one definitely, and it proves that you can do all kinds of stuff.

MR: For an artist, it's great to continue experimenting with music even after you've become successful doing one style over another.

TJ: With some bands and singers, they don't want to step too far to the left or to the right. Once they get success with something, they don't want to wonder away too far from where they are because they feel it's what people want. Well, it's to a certain extent people are like that, but I think people like other things as well. The feedback that I've gotten from audiences is, "Wow, we loved the show Tom, but we didn't expect that. And what a thing that you did on there," and nine times out of ten, it's acoustic. When it's just the guitar or myself or the rhythm section you know, it seems to me the stripped down version--especially when you have a full band on stage--it's good to change and strip it down. There is more impact to it than if you did it all like that.

MR: How can you hear somebody's soul if it's battling a lot of sonic clutter.

TJ: Well, this is it, and it's happened before when I have recorded with a rhythm section and then the producer will start overdubbing. My wife, God bless her, when I played her the roughs on this--just my voice and the rhythm section--she said my voice was fantastic and hoped the producer wouldn't mess it up. As far as she was concerned, this has happened to some of my records before. They just sometimes put too many instruments on, and then you lose the initial idea that was there to begin with. We didn't want to do that, and when Ethan started to overdub stuff, he said, "I want you to listen and see if I have gone too far or not." So then we had to start pulling stuff off or not using as much of it or don't start using the piano yet in the song or bring it in halfway to add color to it but not all at once. I think a lot of the time that Ethan spent was doing that. I didn't want to overdo this as it sounded so good, you know, just the rhythm section and myself. But it needed some coloring, some organ here and some vocals there, just a little bit. So, I think that was the tricky part for him, trying to figure out how far to go.

MR: Was there any other period in your life when you wanted to do a stripped-down project like this, but just did the regular record instead.

TJ: All the time. (laughs) Well, I shouldn't say all the time, but with record companies, I understand that once you get a hit with something, you want more of the same. And you say, "Hey, look, I have an idea for something," and they say, "Oh yeah, we will get to that." I did a live album once and it never came out. There was some live stuff on it, and I remember different record companies that I had been with. You know, I said, "Hey, I have this live album," and (they say), "Oh yeah, it sounds great, and we will put it out, but we need a studio album first before we get there." There is always that element that you are up against. Even with Island Records and this one, they wanted to hear something before they would commit. It's understandable. You can't just give people a free rein because they may take advantage of it. And sometimes it works, but a lot of the time, it doesn't, so you have to know what's going on. I understand that...unless you have your own record company, and you do the whole thing yourself. That is different.

MR: Was there any other time in your career that you wanted to do an album about faith?

TJ: Yeah. When Island Records asked me about hymns for Christmas, and I thought I wanted to go deeper...

MR: When you were having hits with your earlier singles, were there periods when you were thinking, "You know, I just want to make a record of songs of faith that inspired me in my youth"?

TJ: Oh yes. When I was telling you about Elvis Presley, and he was surprised to find out that I knew so many gospel songs when we were in Vegas. We would sing gospel songs at night, and I said, "Yeah, we used to sing these songs in Wales." And he would say, "Well, why don't you record a gospel album?" as he had success with it. I said, "Yeah, I will," but I was then saying what record companies were saying to me--"Oh yeah, we'll get to it, don't worry." (laughs)

So, it's always been in the back of my mind to do it. But like I said, record companies are a little shy of concept albums sometimes. They look at the outlets right away in terms of who is going to play this and what radio stations will play that, and I understand that. If you're going to make a record, you are going to want people to hear it.

MR: For those starting out today wanting to have a great pop music career, what is your advice?

TJ: Well, when you start off, you have to try and get as much experience as possible. I don't think you can make records in the front room of your house and then go on TV with it and think you have an act together. My advice is to get up in front of people as often as you can, whenever you have a chance to sing--whether it's in a club or Karaoke, wherever--get up and get experience wherever you can get people to hear you sing live so that you get experience. Hopefully, when the time comes and you get a hit record, you are prepared to go on the road. I think you need that experience first. It will put you in good stead later on if you have had experience singing in dance halls and clubs. I have heard a lot of young people saying they didn't realize it was going to be so hard.

(Transcribed by Erika Richards)

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Tom Jones, 'Praise and Blame' 4* Metromix Review

The Welsh singer shines on stripped-down, blues/gospel covers set The buzz: Welsh crooner Tom Jones has been many things: the hip-swiveling, blue-eyed soul shouter of his “It’s Not Unusual” heyday; the quintessential, sequin-shirted Vegas lounge act; the unlikely reinterpreter of modern pop hits like “Kiss” and “Burning Down the House.” Now he’s apparently ready to enter the elder statesman phase of his career, with this collection of stripped-down, spiritually charged covers.

The verdict: The old-fashioned covers album has become something of a cliché these days, with everyone from Robert Plant to Cyndi Lauper mining the great American songbook in search of a little late-career gravitas. But “Praise and Blame,” with its spare versions of classic blues and gospel tunes, sounds fresh—Jones’ booming baritone is well-suited to this material, and producer/guitarist Ethan Johns, best-known for his work with Kings of Leon and Ray LaMontagne, keeps the arrangements lean and hungry, often accompanying Jones’ weathered vocals with little more than guitar, bass and drums. Jones shows remarkable restraint on quieter numbers like Bob Dylan’s soul-searching “What Good Am I?”, but his most inspired moments come on grittier tracks like John Lee Hooker’s “Burning Hell,” which finds the singer wrestling his existential demons (“When I die, where will I go?”) over a swampy Delta blues stomp.

Did you know? Americana stars Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings lay down some backing vocals on a couple of tracks, and Memphis soul legend Booker T. Jones’ inimitable Hammond B-3 organ enlivens the juke-joint sermon, “Lord Help.”

Sir Tom Jones Knocks Eminem off Top Spot

The Legendary Sir Tom Jones who recently celebrated his 70th birthday and is entering his 6th decade in music, has leapt ahead of Eminem to top the UK album chart in today’s mid-weeks. “Praise & Blame” looks set to stop Eminem from claiming his 5th week at number 1. Sir Tom, who has worked with many of the greats, including Elvis, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and many more,  has released what the critics are calling the album of his career. “I couldn’t be more proud of this album and I’m really blown away by the response from everyone. It’s great to be top of the charts with Eminem, maybe next time we could be top together”

“Praise & Blame” is Jones’ most successful release since he last entered the UK chart at no. 1 in 1999 with “Reload”.

“Praise & Blame is clearly one the best albums of Jones’s entire career.” The Independent  5*****

“…the album even has something of his old pal Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback about it.Either way, it’s a revelation.” Daily Telegraph 5*****

“…the arrangements are crisp, earthy and a perfect vehicle for that still most powerful of voices.” The Sun 4.5****

It’s grand, and at last Jones the artist is the match for Jones the entertainer.” The Guardian 4****

“The verdict? All Praise and no blame.” Sunday Times 4****

Listen To Tom Jones on The Chris Moyles Breakfast Show

Tom chats to Chris Moyles and the team about Praise & Blame and all things Mr. Jones!

Listen to the interview here