Tom Jones (singer)

• 1. Introduction

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  Tom Jones, the Welsh singer born Thomas John Woodward, was 12 years old when doctors diagnosed him with tuberculosis. He spent two years in bed, able to do little but listen to music and draw. Decades later he said of that time, "I spent two years in bed recovering. It was the worst time of my life." Nothing in that sickroom pointed toward the stages, screens and honours that followed. How did a boy from South Wales end up performing under a name borrowed from a film? Why did his career collapse and revive again and again, decade after decade? And what keeps audiences returning to a voice that first reached a mass audience in the 1960s?

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• 2. From Treforest to Decca

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  At 57 Kingsland Terrace in Treforest, Wales, Thomas John Woodward was born on the 7th of June 1940. His mother was Freda Jones, and his father, Thomas Woodward, worked as a coal miner. He attended Wood Road Infants School, Wood Road Junior School and Pontypridd Central Secondary Modern School. He disliked school and sports, but singing at family gatherings, at weddings and in the school choir gave him confidence.

  On the 2nd of March 1957, he married his school girlfriend, Melinda Rose Trenchard, who was known as Linda. They were both 16, and she was pregnant. Their son, Mark, was born shortly after the wedding. To support the young family, Jones worked in construction and at a glove factory.

  In 1963 he became frontman for Tommy Scott and the Senators, a Welsh beat group. The band soon built a following and a reputation across South Wales. In 1964 the producer Joe Meek recorded several tracks with the group and carried them to various record labels, without much success. Later that year, a Decca producer named Peter Sullivan saw the band in a club. He steered them toward the manager Phil Solomon, but that partnership was short-lived.

  The real turn came when Gordon Mills, who worked in the London music business, met Jones and became his manager. Mills gave the singer a new name, Tom Jones, to borrow the appeal of the Academy Award-winning 1963 film of that title. Mills then secured him a recording contract with Decca. The first single, "Chills and Fever", was released in late 1964, and it did not chart.

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• 3. Stage and Screen

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  In 1966 Jones's popularity began to slip, and Mills responded by reshaping him into a crooner. He also encouraged broader material. The change worked: "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", "I'm Coming Home" and "Delilah" each reached No. 2 in the UK.

  In 1967 Jones played Las Vegas for the first time, at the Flamingo. His shirts, often open and half-unbuttoned, and his tight trousers became part of the act. He soon chose to record less and concentrate on club performances. From then until 2011 he played Las Vegas for at least one week each year. In those years he and Elvis Presley spent late nights singing and carousing in Presley's private suite.

  Television made him a household face. From 1969 to 1971, Associated Television produced This Is Tom Jones, which ITV broadcast in the UK and the American Broadcasting Company aired in the US. The show was reportedly worth US$9000000 to Jones over three years, and it earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 1970. A second variety series, Tom Jones, was produced in Vancouver, Canada, and ran for 24 episodes between 1980 and 1981.

  The 1970s brought a mixed run. Jones toured with the female groups Quiet Elegance and the Blossoms as his backing singers. He had hits with "She's a Lady", "Till" and "The Young New Mexican Puppeteer", but his popularity declined in the middle of the decade. In 1972 he co-starred with Jennifer O'Neill in The Special London Bridge Special. He accepted because it let him stay on television without the confinement of a series.

  Some ventures stalled. In 1976 he was to make his film debut as a CIA assassin in Yockowald, but the production ran out of money three weeks into filming. That same year, "Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow" reached No. 1 on the US country chart, No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 40 in the UK. In 1979 he made his acting debut in the ABC television film Pleasure Cove, playing a suave conman named Raymond Gordon, alongside Constance Forslund, Tanya Roberts and David Hasselhoff. It was a pilot for a series that was never picked up. In 1984 he guest-starred on Fantasy Island as an accountant who dreams of living as Dick Turpin.

  In the early 1980s he turned to country music. From 1980 to 1986 he placed nine songs in the US country top 40, yet none cracked the top 100 in the UK or the Billboard Hot 100. On the 29th of July 1986, Mills died of cancer, and Jones's son Mark took over as his manager. In 1987 "A Boy from Nowhere" climbed to No. 2 in the UK. The following year, a Prince song would bring him an entirely new audience.

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• 4. Reinvention

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  With the band Art of Noise, Jones covered Prince's "Kiss", which reached No. 5 in the UK and No. 31 in the US. MTV and VH1 played the video frequently, and it won the MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Video in 1989. That same year he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6608 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Frederick's of Hollywood.

  Van Morrison wrote and produced four songs for the 1991 album Carrying A Torch, which included Jones's cover of the title track. In 1992 Jones made his first appearance at the Glastonbury Festival. In 1993 he played himself in episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Simpsons, in the episode "Marge Gets a Job".

  He signed with Interscope Records in 1993 and released The Lead and How to Swing It the following year. Its first single, "If I Only Knew", reached No. 11 in the UK, and he performed it at the 1994 MTV Europe Music Awards, which he also hosted. In Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! in 1996, he played himself on stage when aliens attack, and he escapes with a gun. In 1997 his cover of Randy Newman's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" appeared on the soundtrack of The Full Monty.

  The biggest surprise was Reload in 1999, a collection of cover duets with artists including the Cardigans, Natalie Imbruglia, Cerys Matthews, Portishead, Stereophonics and Robbie Williams. It went to No. 1 in the UK and sold over 4 million copies worldwide. "Sex Bomb", released in early 2000, became its biggest single, at No. 3 in the UK.

  US President Bill Clinton invited Jones to perform at the millennium celebrations in Washington, D.C., on New Year's Eve 2000. That year he also won a Brit Award for Best British Male, sang in an advertisement for Australia's National Rugby League, and voiced Theme Song Guy in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. He sang "Perfect World" in that film. In 2002 the rapper Wyclef Jean produced his album Mr. Jones. A Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music followed in 2003. In 2004 he teamed up with the pianist Jools Holland, and their album peaked at No. 5 in the UK.

  On the 28th of May 2005, he played Ynysangharad Park in Pontypridd for about 20,000 people, his first performance there since 1964. That year the BBC reported that he was Wales's wealthiest entertainer, with a fortune of £175,000,000. In 2006 the dance track "Stoned in Love", made with Chicane, went to No. 7 in the UK. Queen Elizabeth II knighted him at Buckingham Palace that year, after he had earlier been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He said, "When you first come into show business and get a hit record, it is the start of something. As time goes by it just gets better. This is the best thing I have had."

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• 5. Gospel and Grit

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  On the 1st of July 2007, Jones took the stage at Wembley Stadium for the Concert for Diana, joined by the guitarist Joe Perry and the soul singer Joss Stone. They covered the Arctic Monkeys song "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor". A boxing fan, Jones also sang national anthems before major fights. He performed "God Save the Queen" before Floyd Mayweather and Ricky Hatton in 2007, and the Welsh anthem "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" before Bernard Hopkins fought Joe Calzaghe in 2008. In 2009 he sang "God Save the Queen" again before Manny Pacquiao met Hatton.

  In 2008 he released 24 Hours, his first album of new material in the United States in over 15 years. He was still playing over 200 dates a year, and he said, "The fire is still in me. Not to be an oldie, but a goodie. I want to be a contender." Its debut single, "If He Should Ever Leave You", was ranked ninth-best song of 2008 by Spinner.

  In March 2009 a novelty record reached No. 1 in the UK. "(Barry) Islands in the Stream" paired Jones with Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon and Robin Gibb, who co-wrote the original song. It was inspired by the song's appearance in the BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey and was released for Comic Relief. It was his first UK chart-topper since "Green, Green Grass of Home" in 1967. That 42-year gap was a record, until Kate Bush's 44-year gap with "Running Up That Hill" in 2022.

  Then Jones took a risk. Praise & Blame, released on the 26th of July 2010, was made up mostly of gospel and blues songs, including covers of Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker and Billy Joe Shaver. Jones had moved to Island Records from EMI for £1.5m in October 2009. A vice-president there, David Sharpe, emailed colleagues to say "pull back this project immediately or get my money back", and asked if it was a "sick joke". The email leaked, and Jones said he was furious. The album debuted at No. 2 on the UK chart.

  It began a trilogy. Spirit in the Room followed in May 2012, with songs by Paul McCartney, Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen, among others. The same month, Jones played in the one-off drama King of the Teds for Sky Arts, his first dramatic acting role. On the 4th of June 2012, he performed "Delilah" and "Mama Told Me Not to Come" at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace.

  The trilogy closed with Long Lost Suitcase, released on the 9th of October 2015 and produced by Ethan Johns. Its track titles became chapter titles in his autobiography Over the Top and Back, published at the same time. The Daily Express reviewer Clair Woodward called the book a "riotously enjoyable story" that doubled as the story of British pop and light entertainment from the Sixties onwards.

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• 6. The Voice UK

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  In March 2012, Jones joined the BBC talent show The Voice UK as a coach, alongside will.i.am, Jessie J and Danny O'Donoghue. He mentored Leanne Mitchell to victory in the first series, and he returned to coach in 2013-2014 and 2015. The show brought him a resurgence in popularity in the 2010s.

  In August 2015, it was announced that the BBC would not renew his contract and that Boy George would replace him. Jones criticised BBC executives for "sub-standard behaviour", saying he was told only 24 hours before the official announcement. He sat out 2016. In 2017 he came back for series 6, his fifth year on the programme.

  In series 7, Ruti Olajugbagbe chose Jones as her coach, and together they reached the finale, where she was announced as the winner. Series 11, during his tenth year on the show, opened with a four-chair turn for Anthonia Edwards, the first contestant of the blind auditions. She chose Jones, and on the 29th of October 2022 she was announced as the winner. That made him the first coach to mentor three winners on The Voice UK.

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• 7. Private Life

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  After the UK elected a Labour government in 1974, Jones became a tax exile to avoid a 98% income tax. In 1976 he bought a mansion at 363 Copa De Oro Road in Bel Air, Los Angeles, from Dean Martin for $500,000. He sold it to Nicolas Cage in 1998 for a reported $6.4 million.

  His marriage lasted until Linda's death from cancer on the 10th of April 2016, but it was not free of scandal. Jones stayed married despite many well-publicised infidelities, and he has said that at his peak he had sex with up to 250 groupies a year. One affair left him with a son. In October 1987, he had a brief relationship with the model Katherine Berkery. After a legal battle that included DNA testing, a US court ruled in 1989 that Jones was the father of Jonathan Berkery, who became a singer. Jones denied the ruling until 2008, then admitted it was true but expressed no interest in meeting his son.

  After his wife's death, he moved into an apartment in London, which had been her dying wish. A year later, rumours spread that he was dating Priscilla Presley. In 2021 he said they had known each other since the 1960s and simply enjoyed spending time together. People had seen them dining out and at Jeff Franklin's house. In 2021 he also credited inversion therapy for keeping him in good health.

  His grief surfaced publicly on The Voice UK on the 3rd of September 2022. He sang "I Won't Crumble With You If You Fall", from his album Surrounded by Time, and explained that his wife, who was dying of lung cancer, had told him, "you can't crumble with me, don't fall with me now, you've done everything you can, you must carry on and do what you do." Within 24 hours the song reached No. 1 on the UK iTunes chart, and it debuted at No. 3 on the UK Official Singles Downloads Chart on the 9th of September 2022.

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• 8. The Shapeshifter's Legacy

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  AllMusic called Jones's voice a "full-throated, robust baritone". Jones himself says his young voice was a tenor. "What you lose on the top end, you gain on the bottom end," he said. "I used to be able to hit a top C when I was young now it's a B flat." In 2008, the New York Times called him a "musical shapeshifter", and the range of his repertoire bears that out: pop, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, soul and gospel.

  His style grew out of American soul music. His early influences included Little Richard, Solomon Burke, Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. He has sold over 100 million records, with 36 Top 40 hits in the UK and 19 in the US. Honours include a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, an Ivor Novello Award for International Artist of the Year in 1970 and a Bambi Award in the category "legend" in 2017.

  He has also become a reference point for other artists. In 1998, Space and Cerys Matthews released "The Ballad of Tom Jones", about a fighting couple calmed by his music on the radio, and it reached No. 4 in the UK. A musical based on his life and recordings, Tom: A Story of Tom Jones, opened at the Wales Millennium Centre in March 2016. In October 2021, the jukebox musical What's New Pussycat? opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. It sets Henry Fielding's 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling in the 1960s, to Jones's songs. Like Presley, Jones has imitators around the world.

  In the 2006 film Flushed Away, the character Roddy is mistaken for Jones while singing "She's a Lady", and "What's New Pussycat?" plays over the end credits. The tie-in comics for Team Fortress 2 go further. Scout falsely believes Jones is his father, and a jealous Soldier murders Jones. In the final issue, Soldier collects a brick from Jones's former home so that his ghost can haunt it. Jones's ghost can be seen singing in the background of the closing Christmas dinner scene.

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