It was 2016 and Tom Jones I was on tour. Together with the producer Ethan Johns I had been working on a series of very good cover albums –Praise & Blame, Spirit in the room and Long Lost Suitcase-, which prompted him to go out on the road again. His career had taken a new turn and enjoyed prestige and popularity in similar parts, two paths that had often circulated in parallel. When the health of his wife Linda, who was battling cancer, became critical. They had met at school, when they were fifteen years old, and since then they have not been separated. They enjoyed success together and navigated the twists and turns of fame, even more difficult for a man who always showed off his seduction.
Tom stopped the tour to be near his wife in her final days. Before he died, Linda begged him to continue singing despite everything. Perhaps to protect him, because what else could he do but what he had done all his life. What started as a child’s game, continued as a teenager’s prank and ended up being a very well-paid job, with sales of over one hundred million and audiences in every part of the planet.
With Mark, their son as support, she left her mansion in Los Angeles for a flat in London and started working on a new album. Surrounded by time It is a remarkable work that returned him to number one in the British rankings. It was a record for such a long-lived artist, who to make matters worse, visits the catalog of musicians contemporary or even before him. And the tour is built on that paradox of this time in the industry. Ages and Stages, which like few other times decisively defines the artist and his show. Because if the stages have been a constant in his life, the times changed and he knew how to adapt to each of them. To retreat when he saw fit. To be reborn when few expected it. And in that permanent resurrection he appears tonight in the Movistar Arena in Buenos Airesseven years after their last show in the country.
Thomas John Woodward was born on June 7, 1940 in Pontypridd, a mining town in south Wales. He grew up in a working family in which music captivated him as a child: he sang at his family gatherings, in the school choir, and on any occasion he found. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at 12, music was also a refuge, listening on the radio to what came to the stations in the area.
He had his formal beginnings entering the ’60s, as the leader of a beat group in his city called Tommy Scott and the Senators. In one of the many concerts the producer saw him Gordon Mills, which began his professional career. He proposed a name change.Tom Jones comes from the multiple Oscar-winning film of the same name in 1963 -, he took him to London as a soloist and signed him a contract with the famous Decca company, the same one that some time before had rejected The Beatles and signed the Rolling Stones.
In a short time the move bore fruit. In 1965, with his single “It’s not unusual” It reached the top of the charts in England for the first time and the top ten in the United States, where it was performed on the legendary Ed Sullivan show. The performance of “Thunderball”, the theme of the film James Bond , they put it in the tone of an effervescent scene. It was the springboard to his most fruitful period in terms of his presence in the rankings, with titles such as “Green Green Grass of Home”, “What’s New Pussycat”, “Help Yourself” and “Delilah”.
Tom had just passed the age of 25 and was in his prime, but he failed to take his popularity much beyond the British Isles. In the United States it was the time of the groups, and His crooner style did not match the power of groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or The Who.. “America didn’t want to hear about soloists. The guy from the record company told me when I arrived in London. ‘That Elvis-like macho thing is now history,’” he would reveal some time later in his biography. Paradoxes of fate, Elvis was a fan of Tom despite being a star when the Welshman was just starting out and they cultivated a friendship on and off stage.
Instead, he became a prophet in his homeland, where he was offered to host his own television program. With The Tom Jones Show, deepened his role as an entertainer, taking advantage of a medium in constant evolution. The most outstanding artists of his time passed through there, Peter Sellers to The Whoof Liza Minelli to a memorable performance with Janis Joplin shortly before his death.
The program was recorded in England and also seen in the United States, and his work earned him a nomination for the golden globe as best actor in a television series. And in some ways he set the stage for regrouping in the difficult years. Because when he managed to consolidate another hit like “She’s a Lady”, His career entered a downward spiral that seemed to have no bottom.
Far from despairing, he became strong in his physique du role suitable for concert e coffee He made Las Vegas his homeland. Sin City was not a bad plan after all. He made sure to perform at least once a week, and while the rest of the world turned its back on him, the neon lights and opulence around him allowed him to disguise the situation.
Until it started to rear its head. After the death of his manager and mentor, his son Mark took the reins of his career. In the early ’90s she appeared in The Simpsons and in The Prince of rap and he felt that there was a generation that could be interested in his work, and in addition to releasing albums, he began to make appearances. In 1996 she acted in the film Tim Burton Mars Attacks! and he showed off next to Robbie Williams at the Oscar ceremony. And entering the new millennium, he released the definitive resurrection album of it.
Already suggested from its title, Reload, He proposed a resurrection with a formula that with Monday’s newspaper seems unbeatable. An old glory of the song, in duets with artists of different styles and generations. He recorded everyone from INXS and Lenny Kravitz to his contemporaries Ray Davies and Randy Newman.. And he left him his great global hit, “Sexbomb”the only original song from the album recorded with the German producer Mousse Twhich entered the list at the last minute to remain in history.
The song brought him back to the forefront of the song, confirmed his credentials as a sex symbol and the electronic beat added one more detail to the record of a performer who before and after knew how to navigate between rhythm and blues, rock, pop, soul and country, all with his very personal crooner style, which reached the upper echelons of the United Kingdom.
In 2006, the Queen isabel II He was knighted at Buckingham Palace for his services to music and the following year he performed in a tribute concert to the music. Princess Diana of Wales. His popularity experienced a surge again in 2010, when he was summoned by the reality television show The Voice UK as one of the coaches. His team won the first edition and only missed one of the program that became a classic of the music industry of this era.
As I said, not even the death of his beloved school girlfriend managed to remove him from the recording studios or the stages. In the former, he seems to go through a moment of introspection and nostalgia, an exercise that was also visited by his peers such as Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and Rod Stewart A healthy practice for those who could rest in their respective catalogues. There are no major changes on the tables, beyond the inevitable passage of time. He maintains the energy, the seduction and the vocal register with an unmistakable seal, which will be confirmed tonight at the Movistar Arena.
