Episode 1219 - Tom Jones
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it today on the show tom jones is here tom jones i mean come on
Marc:Everybody knows Tom Jones.
Marc:There's not a person listening who doesn't know a Tom Jones song.
Marc:And he's still out there.
Marc:He's recording music.
Marc:And he's doing his thing at 80 years old.
Marc:And his new album is called Surrounded by Time.
Marc:And it's an album done by an artist who knows where he's at in his life, in his career.
Marc:But he's still swinging, man.
Marc:He's still swinging.
Marc:Is beer can chicken necessary?
Marc:Is shoving a...
Marc:an open can of beer into the cavity of a chicken and throwing it into the, into the, uh, grill, arranging it.
Marc:So it stands up straight to cook.
Marc:Is it necessary?
Marc:I didn't have a great experience with it.
Marc:And I bought a thing that you could put the beer can in and shove the chicken on too.
Marc:But maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm not, uh, adept enough or, or experienced enough at the barbecue.
Marc:How do you get the fucking can out of the chicken's ass?
Marc:Uh,
Marc:I mean, it's like you get this thing.
Marc:What do you got to carve it or cut it up, holding it upright?
Marc:I mean, you got this mess of a beer can in there.
Marc:Is there some trick?
Marc:There's got to be some fucking hillbilly trick to pull the can out of a chicken's ass after you make the beer can chicken.
Marc:I didn't know it.
Marc:It's sort of like not having a Valium connection when you're strung out on cocaine.
Marc:It's like now I'm frustrated.
Marc:I'm upset.
Marc:My heart is pounding.
Marc:I might die.
Marc:And I got no way to come down.
Marc:Now I got this chicken.
Marc:I was excited about it, but now I can't get the can out of its ass and I barely want to eat it.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:There's beer spilling everywhere.
Marc:Now what?
Marc:But buying beer?
Marc:buying beer like see the drug talk it's a little unnerving uh i got to talking about it well you know a few weeks ago i had hunter biden on and then we talked to you know the drug talk and then you know i got you know i got my own people in the uh you know in the secret society in the sober racket we do the drug talking then dino and me were talking about uh bay area drinking and druggy experiences from our youths it's weird it seems so far back can you imagine man
Marc:I'm so fucking relieved that I don't have the burden of needing drugs at this age.
Marc:Fuck, this coffee's good.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:So close, man.
Marc:I was so close to fucking doing some nicotine.
Marc:It's so stupid.
Marc:The persistence of the fucking bug.
Marc:The brain.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Oh, so buying beer as a sober person, like 22 years sober.
Marc:First of all, you get into that thing.
Marc:Like, I don't pay attention to the fucking liquor section.
Marc:I don't go shopping for liquor.
Marc:But I needed beer for putting a chicken butt.
Marc:I need beer to shove into the chicken.
Marc:One can, a regular size can of beer.
Marc:Nope.
Nope.
Marc:Only tall boys available.
Marc:No one's fucking around anymore.
Marc:It's like you want value?
Marc:You want to get a buzz on?
Marc:You ain't going to get it with one can.
Marc:You know it.
Marc:And two cans is a lot for lunch.
Marc:Why not just have a tall boy?
Marc:Just a bunch of tall boys.
Marc:So many brands I don't understand.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I spent like 25 minutes looking at fucking beers, wrestling with the idea.
Marc:Where I was like...
Marc:Well, if I want a small can, it looks like I got to get a six-pack or a 12-pack.
Marc:Do I want that in the house?
Marc:What's the excuse of that in the house?
Marc:Oh, for friends, for people to come over.
Marc:No one's coming over.
Marc:Do you want to have beer sitting in there for fucking a year?
Marc:It wouldn't bother me.
Marc:Is it necessary, though, dude?
Marc:Is it necessary?
Marc:Can't you just fucking taste it?
Marc:You get that little pull in your chest, that little weird hunger, the pang of the monster awakening, the pang of the monster, the pang of the demon going...
Marc:What do we do?
Marc:What's up?
Marc:I've been fucking sleeping for so long.
Marc:I am so thirsty.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:What have I been doing?
Marc:I've been like a coma.
Marc:I'm ready.
Marc:I'm ready.
Marc:I got to get out of this supermarket, man.
Marc:I got to get out with one fucking tall boy and I got to figure out how to put a tall boy into a chicken.
Marc:and not have a bunch of fucking demon food around the house.
Marc:So I got some Corona Premium Tallboy, and I poured it into a Zevia can, Zevia soda, which I'm addicted to.
Marc:Put it in the chicken, and it was fine, but it was unnecessary.
Marc:I figured out how to cook chicken.
Marc:These are not important issues.
Marc:There's fucking police killing people, systemic racism.
Marc:Tucker Carlson is a fucking Nazi.
Marc:You know, there's problems.
Marc:Problems persist.
Marc:And I'm hung up on beating myself up for not knowing how to extract a goddamn half-filled can of open beer out of a cooked chicken that's still hot.
Marc:People are dying, man.
Marc:What the fuck is wrong with me?
Marc:I'm so thirsty.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:The game is over.
Marc:I'm thirsty.
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:You don't need a life.
Marc:Feed me.
Marc:It's not happening.
Marc:Relax.
Marc:I'm acting.
Marc:Don't freak out.
Marc:Don't get too concerned.
Marc:But let's talk about something.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:I talked to my booking agent, and I guess this is relevant.
Marc:I'm kind of concerned all of a sudden that when we come out of this pandemic, if and when we ease out of it, just how paralyzed with fear I might be and how much perhaps unresolved grief I might have and how just fucked up my chops are.
Marc:Do I still have them?
Marc:How out of shape I am?
Marc:Now, what I learned before the pandemic and before Lynn's death and before, you know, whatever happened over the last year, monkey's gone, the fond is gone.
Marc:was that the audience I had built for myself were good people, grown-up people, nice people, good tippers, people who knew how to behave in a fucking theater.
Marc:And I want that.
Marc:And that's the space you carve out for yourself.
Marc:Now, I've got to kill the sort of more weirdly competitive, spite-driven part of me and just sort of embrace what I've built in the world for myself.
Marc:All this from saying, you know, as we ease out of this, I talked to my booking agent.
Marc:I know people are rushing out to book and people are excited to get out and do things, but I don't want to go out with anything half-baked.
Marc:I don't want to go out and do an hour of workshop material for big theaters.
Marc:So, like, I just told my booking agent, I said, look, man, if we're going to do a big theater run,
Marc:Let's do it in the spring next year.
Marc:Let me fucking ease back in.
Marc:Let's do a residency at a theater, you know, at Dynasty Typewriter someplace in town.
Marc:I'll start doing the comedy store.
Marc:We'll do some club dates over the few months in the fall.
Marc:Maybe I'll be able to showcase the whatever is becoming the hour at the New York Comedy Festival.
Marc:I don't take this shit lightly.
Marc:And I've got to figure out what is life or death for me now.
Marc:I've got to figure out what I need to resolve on stage as a funny man.
Marc:I've got to figure out what is funny to me at this juncture.
Marc:I guess all that to say that I'm probably not going to do a major tour until next year, but I'll be popping up places and I'll let you know where, you know, workshopping stuff, maybe at some clubs for four nights, you know, doing that kind of stuff.
Marc:Just trying to figure out what is life or death for me when it comes to comedy, because that's the only way I know how to do it.
Marc:But I got to engage.
Marc:And, you know, between you and me, seriously, maybe a little music.
Marc:I'm not saying I'm putting a band together.
Marc:I'm just saying maybe there's a show to do with some music.
Marc:I've been enjoying that.
Marc:Maybe I could do a show, a live show where I cook a bread
Marc:Maybe there's a live show where I roll out a Viking range and I do a live Irish soda bread with some slightly distorted, echoey blues tunes, riffing, then some observational comedy, and then some eating, and then some sober reflection, and then a big closer song.
Marc:with some large riffs.
Marc:That's the live show.
Marc:I just got to figure out how to tour with a professional-sized range and also the equipment and a refrigerator.
Marc:What's Mark doing?
Marc:Have you seen his show?
Marc:It's wild, man.
Marc:He's got like a full kitchen up there and an amp and a guitar.
Marc:And he's kind of moving through those things.
Marc:Stand-up, amp, guitar, kitchen.
Marc:It's weird, but it's interesting.
Marc:I haven't seen it before.
Marc:Did you go see Marin live?
Marc:Yeah, dude.
Marc:He's got full, like a professional Viking grill up there and a .0 fridge.
Marc:Is that what they're called?
Marc:And he bakes a bread and he plays guitar and he's kind of narrating it and doing stand-up at the same time.
Marc:I've never seen anything like it.
Marc:Well, he bakes a bread?
Marc:Yeah, at the end of the show, there's bread.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Is it good?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:It needs a bigger closer.
Marc:I mean, the bread's good and the bit is.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, it's good, you know, but the closer is kind of the bread, you know, so there's a lot hanging on the bread.
Marc:Tom Jones, the new album, Surrounded by Time, comes out this Friday, April 23rd on S-Curve Records.
Marc:You get it wherever you get music.
Marc:He's 80 years old.
Marc:80!
Marc:And he's fucking firing on all cylinders.
Marc:Just listen to me and Tom Jones.
Marc:... ...
Marc:Hello, Sir Tom Jones.
Marc:How are you?
Guest:I'm all right.
Guest:I'm very good, thanks.
Guest:I've had my both shots, so I'm bulletproof.
Guest:Well, that's great.
Guest:I listened to the one you did with Hugh Grant.
Marc:Yeah, he's funny.
Guest:Oh, he's funny as fuck.
Guest:He is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Excuse my French.
Marc:Oh, you can fuck all you want.
Guest:Oh, because we always blame the French.
Guest:So we always say, excuse my French.
Guest:So we always blame the French, and so we should.
Marc:It's so funny, man, because it's nice to meet you.
Marc:Because when I was a kid, one of the first cassettes I had was, I think, a greatest hits record.
Marc:Because I was looking over the stuff about you, and it reminded me my parents had given me this cassette player they didn't use anymore.
Marc:And I had a box of fucking cassettes, and one of them...
Guest:was the green green grass of home yeah and and delilah i'm sitting there reading this thing and i'm like i can sing that song i was like 10 years old i don't remember the last time i heard it but i can sing delilah well if you could sing delilah in the same key as i recorded it in it must have been before your balls dropped because that's high you could belt it out man has your voice changed like now how is it sound
Guest:Well, it's lower now because like everybody else, even if you're not a singer, as you get older, your voice drops, your speaking voice.
Guest:If you listen to young people speak, most of them are up there.
Guest:And then as you get older, of course, you get more character.
Guest:In your voice.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's a nice way to say it.
Marc:I mean, that's how the agent talks to you as the work dries up.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Now that you're of a certain age, we have to look at life in a different light.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:But you don't seem to be worn down in any way.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:It's a strange thing because I'm 80 years old now, but my voice is still about 30.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's great.
Guest:And that's a big thing because with older singers, you see, your vibrato, you lose control more than anything else.
Guest:It's not so much volume.
Guest:It's the flexibility of the voice because the older you get, the less control you have over your vocal cords.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It's just a natural thing.
Guest:And you listen to old singers and they start, you know, they can't speed it up.
Guest:Well, it's all you've got to do really is push it harder, you see.
Guest:The harder you push, the faster the vibrato gets.
Guest:I mean, it's a fact.
Guest:But maybe some of those old people, they can't seem to get it.
Guest:And I feel very sorry for them, but thank God.
Guest:They don't have the Tom Jones push.
Guest:Well, this is it.
Guest:So you've got to be able to push the shit out of it.
Guest:And I can still do that, thank God.
Yeah.
Guest:How's everything else working with the pushing?
Guest:All right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So far, so good.
Guest:You know, there's always Viagra.
Guest:You know, I mean, that's...
Guest:A little help here and there is all right.
Guest:No shame in that at 80.
Guest:You got to do what you got to do.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I know a great joke about that, by the way.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:Well, this old fella goes to the doctors and he said, doctor, you know, I'm 90 years old.
Guest:He says, and he said, I got a problem here.
Guest:The doctor said, what's the matter?
Guest:He said, well, look, when I was 20, he said, I get a hard on.
Guest:He said, I used to grab a hold of it with both hands and I couldn't budge it.
Guest:He said, and then 30, the same thing.
Guest:He said, 40, a little bit.
Guest:And then he said, 50, I'm bending it over a little bit more.
Guest:He said, now that I'm 90, I can bend it all the way over.
Guest:Am I getting stronger?
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And the doctor said, yes, you are.
Guest:Yes, you are.
Guest:Whatever you say.
Marc:You're still alive.
Marc:You made it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But Jesus Christ, man, I mean, when you think back on the life, you know, because I just read about your life, but I mean, how far back do you go?
Marc:What are the great memories?
Guest:Do you do that much?
Guest:Oh, yeah, all the time.
Guest:I've got a lot of pictures in my hallway of the flat that I've got now in London.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:Because when I had a TV show in the late 60s, early 70s, I had a lot of great people on there.
Guest:So I've got a lot of pictures to prove it.
Guest:And I've got a great picture of Sonata and myself.
Guest:When I was walking at Caesars Palace and coming through the casino, I was going to see Sammy Davis.
Guest:And Sonata was sitting at the bar.
Guest:And he says, Thomas.
Guest:Well, I think he was the only guy that used to call me Thomas.
Guest:So anyway, I thought, oh, that's Frank.
Guest:So he says, come and sit down.
Guest:So I said, well, I'm going to see Sammy Davis.
Guest:And he said, he can wait.
Guest:And I said, well, he said, I'll send somebody to tell him, you know, put the show back 30 minutes or something.
Guest:And I said, okay.
Guest:So I sat there and we drank.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:There was a girl who wanted a picture, so she came up with a little, you know, a little camera, and she said, wow, you know, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones together, could I have a picture?
Guest:And he said, if you want to do it properly, let's get the camera girl over.
Guest:So we called the camera girl over, and we had this great shot together.
Guest:So I got to thank that girl, whoever she was, you know, that wanted that picture because I've got a 10 by 8.
Guest:It's a classic.
Guest:You know, I'm sitting at the bar and he's got his hand on my shoulder sort of, you know, looking over my shoulder.
Guest:It's fantastic.
Guest:So I've got a lot of those pictures with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and little Richard, you know, all my heroes.
Marc:Were they mostly in Vegas or were they at the TV show?
Guest:At the TV show.
Guest:I did some duets with Jerry Lee.
Guest:I did all his, you know, the hits that he had.
Guest:He's still at it.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:I talked to him last week.
Guest:I call him up regularly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But his accent, you know, he's got a southern accent.
Guest:And I said, hey, Jerry, how are you feeling?
Guest:I said, oh, great.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:As long as you're feeling good.
Yeah.
Guest:He seems to be talking.
Guest:You didn't make out what he said, but he seems to be talking.
Guest:Exactly, because he had a stroke.
Guest:So maybe that's had some effect on him.
Guest:But I saw just before, while we were on that subject, in 2019, I was doing a tour over there, and we were down south.
Guest:So my two heroes, you know, was always Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.
Guest:And they both, well, Little Richard then passed away, but they were both in Tennessee.
Guest:So I said, well, I don't know when I'm going to get this close.
Guest:another time.
Guest:So we still, we held the plane over, you know, we was using this plane.
Guest:So I flew to Memphis, saw Jerry Lee.
Guest:And as soon as I saw him, he was in hospital at the time.
Guest:And then I flew to Nashville and saw little Richard.
Guest:And I'm so glad that I saw little Richard because not long after that, he passed, you know?
Guest:So I've got, I think the last picture, because first of all, he said he didn't want a picture.
Guest:You know, no pictures.
Guest:I said, I just want to come and shake your hand.
Guest:You know, I've known him for years.
Guest:So then he says to his son, take a picture.
Guest:So I've got the pictures.
Marc:He was so great, man.
Marc:Like, I mean, when he died, you know, I've got this box set and I kind of started to go through it.
Marc:And it was just, there was just really nothing like that guy.
Guest:No, he was unbelievable.
Guest:And again, he did a gospel.
Guest:I don't know whether you know this, but there's a gospel album he did with Quincy Jones and
Guest:in 1962 is fantastic and you would never think it was little richard i play it you know i play that one and then nobody gets it and then i play his greatest hits you know and i said it's the same guy wow it's unbelievable so he must have found the i guess he always had the faith but maybe he was really feeling it changed him yeah
Guest:Well, he sang with a pure voice, you know, because when he did the rock and roll things, like as I'm saying with the vibrato, he used to push the shit out of it, you know, and sing in his throat.
Guest:But his normal voice was just a beautiful gospel voice.
Guest:So when you were coming up, I mean, like you grew up where?
Guest:In Wales, in South Wales.
Marc:Coal mining.
Marc:Oh, coal mining.
Marc:I don't even know.
Marc:I have no sense of that.
Marc:I have a sense of London and the countryside.
Guest:Well, I've noticed that.
Guest:I've noticed that with Americans, they don't know much outside America.
Marc:Well, no, I've been to London.
Marc:I've been to England.
Marc:I've been to Scotland.
Marc:I've been to Ireland.
Marc:I love Ireland.
Marc:I just haven't made it to Wales yet because I haven't felt the urge to go see the birthplace of Tom Jones yet.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:What about Dylan Thomas?
Guest:What about, you know, there's some great people that have come out of there.
Marc:All right, Dick.
Marc:I'm going.
Marc:As soon as we get through the plague.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Wales gets bypassed a lot.
Guest:I mean, I understand that.
Guest:One American said to me once, so where is Wales then?
Guest:In Scotland?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:It's the other end of the country.
Marc:They seem to use too many letters.
Marc:Am I wrong?
Guest:Well, it's a different language.
Guest:They don't know the origin of the language.
Marc:Of Welsh?
Guest:It doesn't...
Guest:Of Welsh.
Guest:It's a strange... It's a Celtic language, but it doesn't... It's not like Irish, and it's not like Scottish.
Guest:It's a different language.
Guest:It's the ancient British language.
Guest:When the Romans came, we all spoke what is now Welsh, and that's the ancient British language that they spoke then.
Guest:Did your parents speak Welsh?
Guest:My grandfather did, because he was...
Guest:My father's mother and father came from England.
Guest:They were immigrants.
Guest:They came into South Wales looking for work in the 1800s, you see, with the Industrial Revolution.
Guest:But before that, you know, my grandfather on my mother's side, Albert Rhys Jones, died in the First World War.
Guest:But he was all the way Welsh.
Guest:You know, he spoke.
Guest:But I never met him because he died in the First World War.
Guest:And you say it was a coal mining family?
Guest:Coal mining.
Guest:My father was a coal miner.
Guest:His two brothers were coal miners.
Guest:So everybody was covered in coal dust all the time?
Guest:Not all the time.
Guest:Once they had a bath.
Guest:But the thing was, we used to have a tin bath.
Guest:This is no word of a lie.
Guest:A tin bath hanging on a nail outside the kitchen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And before we had indoor plumbing, honestly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So my mother, she used to take this bloody tin bath off the nail, stick it in by the fireplace, because that was the only warm room in the house, because my father didn't believe in central heating, so he had a big fireplace.
Guest:And then he would have a bath by the fireplace when he would come home.
Guest:So he would come home black.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And, yeah, Elvis Presley once asked me, he said, are there any black people in Wales?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:When they come out of the coal mine, yes.
Guest:You know?
Guest:But then they have a wash and then they're not.
Guest:Then, of course, they had showers...
Guest:near the coal mine, you know, at the top of the pit.
Guest:The top of the pit, we used to call it.
Guest:And then they used to shower there.
Guest:But when I was a child, after the war, he used to bath in the house.
Guest:Did he get sick from the mine?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, he died of a chest problem.
Guest:But the doctor in Los Angeles, because I moved my parents to L.A., and...
Guest:The doctor there, Dr. Kibowitz, he said, your father's lungs, he's got what we call, or was that me?
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:Maybe it's Jerry Lee Lewis.
Marc:It could be.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:Yeah, that's him.
Guest:I still got a flip phone, by the way.
Marc:Yeah, well, you don't want to rush into the future.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There's certain things that I refuse to do.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, okay.
Guest:So the doc said the lungs were what?
Guest:Wet.
Guest:Because I said he's been a coal miner all his life.
Guest:He said, yeah, but he doesn't have black lung and he doesn't have silicosis, which one comes from coal dust and the other one from stone dust.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he said he has neither of those.
Guest:He smoked cigarettes all his life, right?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:He said, well, that's what's killing him.
Guest:It's the cigarettes.
Guest:Honestly, can you imagine that?
Guest:I mean, being a coal miner and no effect.
Guest:Cigarettes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so as soon as you made enough money, you got him out of there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I retired him.
Guest:I went home.
Guest:I bought this red Jaguar.
Guest:And in the 60s, you know, after I got my first hit record, which was It's Not Unusual.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I bought this red Jaguar, which I always wanted.
Guest:Drove back to, because I was living in London then, drove back to Wales.
Guest:And my mother was cutting sandwiches, making sandwiches for my father's box, you know, this lunchbox.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, where are you going?
Guest:He said, I'm going to work.
Guest:I said, you can't go down the coal mine now.
Guest:And he said, well, that's what I am.
Guest:I'm a coal miner.
Guest:I said, Dad, please.
Guest:I said, you know, I'm making a lot of money now.
Guest:Yeah, but how long is that going to last, he said.
Guest:You know, when are you going to get a real job?
Guest:So I said, look, dad, if I put the money in the bank tomorrow, how much money do you think you're going to make now until you're 65?
Guest:Because he was in his 50s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he said a roundabout, this, that, and the other.
Guest:I said, well, I can put that in the bank.
Guest:So that's the only way I could stop him from going to the coal mine.
Yeah.
Guest:Give him a guarantee that he'll be covered.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Well, that's sweet.
Marc:So that song, it's not unusual.
Marc:I don't think I've ever asked anybody this, who I talked to.
Marc:Because I talked to Steve Miller yesterday, guys who- Yeah, yeah, I know Steve Miller.
Marc:He's a great guy, actually.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, he is.
Guest:We were in Vegas.
Guest:He was in Vegas sometimes when I was there, yeah.
Marc:But, you know, it's like, do you like when you sing these songs and like we can talk about this with Elvis, too.
Marc:Do you still feel the songs every time you perform?
Marc:Is it still a unique experience?
Guest:Definitely, because now, especially for me being older, I've got a point to prove.
Guest:You know, when you're young, of course, you know, you're full of piss and vinegar, you know, and you want to get on with it.
Guest:But when you get older, the difference I feel is that I can still sing, you know, and I can prove it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And here it is, you know, so, yeah.
Guest:And that's why you're still doing it, to say, fuck you, I can still do this.
Guest:Exactly.
Exactly.
Marc:Why is he still doing it?
Marc:To tell you to go fuck yourselves and stop calling him an old man.
Guest:Well, yeah, but you can't piss off the audience.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:You can't do that.
Marc:They still love you.
Marc:I imagine that the size and style of panties coming up to the stage are a bit different now.
Guest:Well, thank God they don't throw them anymore.
Guest:Because that became a joke, to be quite honest with you.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It was sexy at the beginning.
Guest:In the Copacabana, a woman actually took them off and handed me them.
Guest:And I wiped my brow and I said, watch it don't catch cold.
Guest:when I handed him back.
Guest:So it was shtick.
Guest:You learn shtick.
Guest:You're a stand-up comedian, right?
Guest:So you've got to use whatever tools you have, you have to use them.
Guest:So that's how it started.
Guest:But then it caught on, and then I was bloody drowning in a sea of panties after a while.
LAUGHTER
Guest:See what you did?
Guest:You and your big ideas?
Guest:Well, there you go.
Guest:It backfired on me.
Guest:And room keys.
Guest:It was like room keys.
Guest:I was in Vegas, and somebody threw a room key up there, and I said, whose is this?
Guest:And she said, well, use it, and you'll find out.
Guest:And did you?
Guest:No, me no.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Well, you know, at least you're discerning.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You won't just follow up on any key.
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, when you start singing, like what you sang when you were a kid, how does it start?
Marc:Were you in a band originally or what?
No.
Guest:No, I was singing as a child.
Guest:I was singing in school.
Guest:I sang in chapel.
Guest:I used to go to a Presbyterian chapel.
Guest:We sang gospel songs in chapel.
Guest:And I remember once I sang the Lord's Prayer in school,
Guest:As a child, and the teacher said to me, why are you singing this like a Negro spiritual?
Guest:But I didn't know what she was talking about.
Guest:I really didn't know what she was talking about.
Guest:But I must have heard Mahalia Jackson sing it or something on the radio, and it rubbed off on me.
Marc:So was that were those your influences?
Marc:I mean, I know you like a little Richard and Jerry Lee and the rockers, but like there seemed to be a bunch of British soul singers.
Marc:But you you're like the first really, it seems you you're before a lot of the ones I've I've I remember talking to.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, I always, musically, I always felt more American than I did British.
Guest:Because, you know, I loved 50s rock and roll music.
Guest:And before that, you see the gospel influence, the blues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Big Bill Brounsey.
Guest:I used to listen to Big Bill Brounsey.
Guest:And, you know, people like that.
Guest:And Muddy Waters a bit later.
Guest:But when I was a kid, after the war, see, I was born in 1940.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So after the war, it was the big band scene.
Guest:You know, it was Sinatra coming up to your ears, you know, or out of whatever else.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It was the crooners and the big band sound.
Marc:What about that skiffle music or whatever?
Guest:Well, that was later, you see.
Guest:That was Ronnie Donegan.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Ronnie Donegan.
Guest:But that's, again, is American roots music.
Guest:He was really doing lead belly songs, you know, and stuff like that.
Marc:Isn't that interesting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was a Rock Island line.
Guest:You know, you had a big hit with that.
Guest:And that's an old thing that they used to sing in jail.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, it's so interesting how much of American black music primarily, you know, didn't really become hugely popular until it went through England and come back around.
Guest:Quite right.
Guest:Well, a lot of blues singers that came to England, like Big Bill Brounsey, prime example, he couldn't believe it when Otterley Patterson, who was a white blues singer in England, she took him to lunch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he had never had lunch with a white woman in a restaurant.
Guest:Things like that.
Guest:So they would come over to England, a lot of the black performers, and up to this day, Will.i.am says, you know, Jennifer Hudson was doing The Voice with Will.i.am for two seasons, and both of them said, we feel more appreciated here than we do over there.
Guest:You know, we seem... I said, well, that's a nice thing.
Guest:I mean, I like that, you know, that you...
Guest:Because sometimes people say, oh, you're more prejudiced over here than you are over there.
Guest:I mean, hopefully not.
Guest:I mean, I would hate to think that British people are like that in general.
Guest:But in America, of course, the country is so much bigger.
Guest:And you've got the South.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Things get lost.
Marc:And it's, you know, I try to figure that out sometimes.
Marc:But it just seems that when, like, it seems to me in the UK that, you know, a country that size with sort of a, you know, it's possible for everyone to sort of know you and appreciate you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Somehow.
Guest:Yes, it's simpler.
Guest:I think it's more... I felt that when I went from England to America for the first time.
Marc:Didn't you work with Will.i.am?
Marc:Did he produce something for you, or did you do... No, no, he's on The Voice with me.
Guest:So I'm doing The Voice UK, and he is one of the coaches like I am.
Guest:So I've known him now for like 10 years.
Guest:So how do you make your break?
Guest:How did I make my break?
Guest:I was singing in...
Guest:pubs and working men's clubs.
Guest:Now, were you doing another job?
Guest:Did you have other jobs?
Guest:Were you working?
Guest:Oh, shit, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I worked in a factory because I got married young, and I was getting paid, so I had to hold the job down until I was 21.
Guest:Then I told them all to go fuck themselves.
Marc:You got married before you were 21?
Guest:Yeah, 16.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, my wife and myself.
Guest:But I had to hold this job down because the manager of the paper mill said, if you can run that machine, you got the job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I did.
Guest:And I was getting paid.
Guest:And my cousin, who was head of the union, tried to stop me getting a fucking wage.
Guest:So I said, excuse me, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I wasn't old enough.
Guest:But anyway, once I was 21... He tried to stop you?
Guest:He ratted you out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, you shouldn't be getting this money.
Guest:So they got the manager there, and the manager said, look, as long as I'm paying above...
Guest:The union rate, you can't say anything.
Guest:If I was paying below, then okay.
Guest:But he's getting paid above the union rate, so go fuck yourself.
Guest:So he was my cousin.
Guest:You know, he was my cousin, this schmuck.
Guest:So anyway, I love that word schmuck, by the way.
Marc:It's a good word.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The Jews have come up with some good things.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Well, I worked at Catskills.
Guest:I was up at the Catskills, you know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I got to hear about that.
Marc:But let's get to it.
Marc:So wait, how long before you talked to your cousin again?
Okay.
Guest:Never.
Guest:I said, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Guest:So anyway, so I came out of the paper mill.
Guest:I went on to the building sites, you know, construction, because it was only in the daytime so I could sing at night.
Guest:So that's when I really started to... I got a band in the Pontypris where I come from.
Guest:They were playing YMCA's and stuff like that.
Guest:And I took them into these working men's clubs that had never, ever seen rock and roll before.
Guest:You know, they'd never seen electric guitars and electric amplifiers and drums.
Guest:So as soon as we walk into this first club...
Guest:The first thing they said was, pay them off, which means pay them not to perform.
Guest:And I said, just a minute, fellas, you know, give us a chance here.
Guest:And they said, oh, not you, Tommy.
Guest:You know, you're a lovely boy, Tommy.
Guest:You know, you can sing.
Guest:But the rest of these pricks, you know, we don't know about them.
Guest:So I said to the band, I said, look, keep the volume down to start with.
Guest:We'll do My Mother's Eyes, you know, My Yiddish Mama, things like that, you know.
Guest:And then when they're not looking, Great Bowls of Fire, you know, like that, see?
Guest:So I brought these kids into workman's clubs, and then I was discovered by Gordon Mills,
Guest:who was already in show business, and he was one of a singing group called the Viscounts.
Guest:I'd seen him on TV.
Guest:He came to see me in one of these clubs, took me to London, wrote It's Not Unusual, and that's when we started.
Guest:What did you have to do with that dude, Meeks?
Guest:Joe Meek, he was the first one when we put some tapes, we made some tapes in Wales and sending them to different producers and record companies, you know, anybody that we could.
Guest:So he listened, he liked what we did, so we went up and did an audition for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But nothing came of it, you see.
Marc:Because he sort of became this weird father of kind of techno, you know, like... Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, like experimental music, electronic music.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:There was a song out called Telstar, which was an instrumental, big hit, number one in America and Britain in the 60s, because of the Telstar, you know, the satellite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was him?
Guest:Yeah, that was Joe Meek.
Guest:So I auditioned for him.
Guest:We did some songs with him.
Guest:And he said it was coming out on EMI.
Guest:We went there.
Guest:He didn't know I was.
Guest:Went to Decker.
Guest:Didn't know I was.
Guest:So I went and said, hey, let me have that contract back or I'll kill you, you bastard.
Marc:So you got it back.
Marc:And then the guy who wrote, it's not unusual, he was your guy.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then, of course, they put the bloody records out after the fact.
Guest:On Tower.
Guest:Yeah, it came out on Tower.
Guest:Tower Records in the States.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a hit with a song called Little Lonely One, which came out the same time as It's Not Unusual.
Guest:And then the music publishers came around to the hotel that I was staying at in New York.
Guest:I said, are you going to do Little Lonely One?
Guest:I said, no, I'm doing It's Not Unusual.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they bought me a case of scotch, which I don't drink.
Guest:I said, at least if you're going to give me something to drink, give me anything but scotch.
Marc:What do you drink?
Guest:Well, normally anything but scotch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you hook up with Gordon Mills.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But did you ever write anything, any songs?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, some B-sides, as we say.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, I wrote some things.
Guest:I did a song called Look It Out My Window, which I wrote myself.
Guest:And that was Will.i.am picked up on that lately.
Guest:You know, you said a lot of hip-hop people, you know, they'd sample.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, and I said, well, I wrote it.
Guest:You know, I wrote it on a crumbly road in the 60s.
Guest:I was driving down, and it was pissing down with rain, and I thought, oh, fuck.
Guest:And the windscreen wipers were, you know, ching, ching.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I was looking out the window, you know, looking out the thing.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Looking out my window.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Wrote the song.
Guest:So I wrote some things, but not any of the big ones that I've had hits with.
Marc:It's very interesting the time you came up because, like, so It's Not Unusual, you know, becomes a hit.
Marc:What is that, like 65, 66?
Marc:Yes, 65, exactly.
Marc:So that makes, like, you're right on the cusp of the whole thing changing, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you have these, you have a few hits.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, 1968, 67, everything, the whole idea of what pop music changes.
Guest:Well, it changed when the Beatles came out.
Guest:I mean, they opened the door because that was in 64, 64.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When they went on the Ed Sullivan show, that was like big deal.
Guest:You know, it knocked Elvis Presley out for a while.
Marc:But for you, Elvis being on the show, that was a big deal.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:And when I met Elvis Presley, he said, thank God for you.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:I said, why is that?
Guest:He said, well, because that's all we're getting from Britain normally are the Beatles and the Stones and all these other wankers, you know.
Guest:He didn't say wankers because all these other jerk-offs.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He said, here you are being influenced by Elvis Presley, you know, doing...
Guest:When I first came to London, they said, look, that Elvis Presley macho shit went out the window.
Marc:Who said that?
Guest:The record companies.
Guest:And they said, it's the Beatles.
Guest:You've got to look like a boy now.
Guest:You can't look like a man.
Guest:Curly hair doesn't work.
Guest:That busted nose, you've got to get it fixed.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I said, why don't you go fuck yourself?
Guest:I said, look.
Guest:What I was singing in South Wales, right?
Guest:I said, Cardiff is 160 miles from London.
Guest:You can't tell me that English people are that different to Welsh people.
Guest:They're not.
Guest:And, oh, well, it doesn't work, doesn't work.
Guest:Well, once I got the hit record, of course.
Guest:It works.
Guest:Told you so.
Marc:Well, it's funny because what happened is you held on to the generation of people, of men and women who saw masculinity a certain way.
Marc:Yes, definitely.
Marc:Yeah, because my dad used to think he looked like you for years.
Marc:And also the Elvis thing is interesting because the idea of one dude getting up there in front of a band that works for him and delivering the goods in a way that Elvis did.
Marc:So Elvis takes that from the older crooners
Marc:who were a lot less dynamic in a way.
Guest:Well, he got it from black gospel music.
Guest:One of the first things he said to me was, how come you sound, you know, like influenced by the same people?
Guest:I said, yeah, black gospel music.
Guest:He said, yeah, but are there any black people in Wales?
Guest:That's where he came from.
Guest:Right, the joke, yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So I said, no, the radio, you know, I listen to the radio.
Guest:And that's where I've gotten it from.
Guest:And because he said, I was born there, you know.
Guest:And he said, I went to these black gospel churches and, you know, loved what I was hearing and rhythm and blues, you see.
Guest:He was playing more black rhythm and blues records than he was white records.
Marc:Right, but like, you know, stylistically, I can see that, but it was still like, you know, it wasn't the band.
Marc:You know, it wasn't like, you know, no one was, there was no, you know, teeny boppers, you know, putting pictures up of, what's his name, the guitar player for Elvis.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, Scotty Moore.
Marc:Scotty Moore.
Marc:There's no teeny boppers who are like, I'm a Scotty Moore person.
Marc:I don't love Elvis, but Scotty.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You know, you're up there in the front, you know, and then you're driving it, and that's it.
Guest:And I remember when the Beatles split up, right, Elvis says to me, he says, is that right, the Beatles have split up?
Guest:I said, yeah, this was like 1970, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were in Vegas, and he said, wow, what a shame.
Guest:I said, yeah, well, they've done some great music.
Guest:He said, oh, no, I'm not talking about that.
Guest:He said, I thought it would be great if we had them as our backing band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All my life.
Guest:He said, wouldn't it be great to do a show, you know, and have the Beatles play for us?
Guest:You know, you could do some of your songs.
Guest:I do some of my songs.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:All my life.
Guest:And I said, well, I don't know whether that would happen, even if they were, you know, even if they were still together.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So after, you know, uh, uh, it's not unusual.
Marc:And then what's new pussycat is huge.
Marc:I mean, it's just like, but then like, you know, what, what struck me in reading about this stuff was there was a period there where, you know, obviously the cultural tastes were changing and, and, and I, like, I didn't really think about the, the, the idea of, of, of country hits like that, that the idea of country music that you could come in and it's the same like Ray Charles in a way that, you know, exactly.
Marc:That there was a tolerance and also an embracing that if you sang the songs in a certain way, the country songs, the country fans will accept you.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And you see, to black ears, they don't like listening to white country singers.
Guest:And I can understand why.
Guest:It's an alien sound.
Guest:It's, you know, they sing through their noses.
Guest:Well, they used to anyway.
Right.
Guest:So when Ray Charles did that first country album, it was fantastic.
Guest:But he heard in the songs more than just the way they were being delivered.
Guest:He heard the essence of the songs.
Guest:The stories, too.
Guest:And that's exactly what I do, yeah.
Guest:So when I did the Green, Green Grass of Home, it was more like if Ray Charles had done it, you know, as opposed to one of the country singers, you know, that did it.
Guest:You know, there were...
Guest:It was a country hit before I got a hold of it, you see.
Marc:But did the country people like your version?
Guest:Loved it.
Guest:I heard Jerry Lee Lewis.
Guest:See, he did an album called Country Songs for City Folk.
Guest:And I bought it in the Colony Record Shop 1965 in New York City.
Marc:In Times Square.
Marc:I remember that place.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Colony Record Shop.
Guest:So I said, you got anything by Jerry Lee?
Guest:They said, well, he's gone country.
Guest:He's got this country album.
Guest:I said, I'll buy it.
Guest:Took it back to the hotel.
Guest:Green, green grass of home was on there.
Guest:And so that was it.
Guest:I got back to England.
Guest:I said, I got to record this song.
Guest:And like you just said, you know, my recording manager, Peter Sullivan, at the time said, well, you want to go country?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, no, I want to sing country songs.
Guest:I don't necessarily want to go country.
Guest:So I tried.
Guest:Once the green, green grass of home, you see, once that hit...
Guest:Then he said, oh, we've opened the door here now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the second wave of Tom Jones, those hits.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Because the other ones were kind of like dynamic, big, orchestral pop tunes.
Marc:What's New Pussycat?
Marc:And then these ones were, they actually brought it down a notch, but your intensity stayed the same.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it's always stayed the same.
Guest:And it's still the same today.
Guest:Thank God.
Marc:A little lower, though, I hear.
Marc:A little lower.
Guest:It's lower now, yes.
Guest:I used to be a tenner.
Guest:I used to be a tenner.
Guest:Now I'm a baritone.
Marc:But everyone's saying you've still got the push.
Guest:You can still push it out there.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:And flexibility.
Guest:See, flexibility is the most important thing.
Guest:You know, the way you read songs as an older person, you see, I listen to songs differently now to when I was young.
Guest:You know, that's why I'm using the spoken word on two of the tracks.
Guest:On the new one.
Guest:Yeah, it's called Surrounded by Time.
Guest:The album is called Surrounded by Time.
Guest:And there's two songs on there that I spoke as opposed to sing, because sometimes the spoken word is more effective than the singing.
Guest:Because the melody doesn't get in the way, you see?
Marc:So the theme of this album seems not necessarily political, but definitely wise and a little, is it cynical or no?
Guest:No, it's basically the story of my life in song.
Guest:I picked songs that relate to different chapters of my life.
Guest:Like there's one called Pop Star, which Cat Stevens wrote.
Guest:And so that's like the beginning for me.
Guest:You know, look at me, mom.
Guest:I'm on TV.
Guest:And when he wrote it, he was taking the piss out of the record company because I was with him at the time in the 60s.
Guest:And he said, the record company want me to be more a pop star.
Guest:He said, so I think I'll write a song called Pop Star and see what they think of that.
Marc:You knew him back then?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he had tuberculosis as a child like I did.
Guest:So we had a little connection.
Marc:Oh, you had tuberculosis, huh?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:From the time I was 12 till I was, yeah, it was 12 to 14.
Marc:Did you have to be like an iron lung or anything?
Guest:No, I was in the house.
Guest:I couldn't leave my house for two years.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's sort of like what kids are going through today, but they got a lot more toys.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But honestly, I feel sorry for kids of that age, especially going through puberty.
Guest:You see, from 12 to 14, things start happening.
Guest:You don't really know what it is.
Guest:So...
Guest:But in those days, everybody else was out in the street playing and I couldn't go out there.
Guest:Now, of course, nobody's out in the streets.
Marc:Yeah, but they're on Zoom playing.
Marc:They're doing what we're doing.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So, all right, so Cat Stevens and, okay, so the pop star is like your early years and you move through your whole life, huh?
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:With the song choices.
Marc:Did you do all the selections yourself or you got a guy that helps you look at things?
Yes.
Guest:No, no, basically myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My son, Mark, he co-produced this because he was always on the sessions with me because Ethan Johns, I don't know whether you know who Ethan Johns is.
Guest:I do know.
Guest:What is he?
Guest:Yeah, Glyn Johns is his father.
Guest:He was a big producer in the 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, Ethan Johns.
Guest:So he's done a lot of people.
Guest:So like the Kings of Leon, you know, people like that.
Guest:He's done a lot of...
Guest:different people.
Guest:So I started doing albums with him.
Guest:And I thought, well, I want to use Ethan because he knows me well.
Guest:And so he said, well, what songs do you want to do?
Guest:So there's a song that I did called I'm Growing Old.
Guest:which is by Bobby Cole.
Guest:He gave it to me in Vegas when I was in my 30s, and this was in the 70s.
Guest:And he said, I got this great song.
Guest:You know, do you want to have a go at it?
Guest:I said, well, I'm not old enough to sing it yet.
Guest:But I said, if I get there, you know, if I get that old, then I'll do it.
Guest:So I wanted to do that.
Guest:So there's some really important songs on this album from different parts of my life.
Marc:And when you were performing before the plague, I mean, like, you still do Vegas?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I haven't played Vegas for over 10 years now.
Guest:So I gave that up.
Guest:You know, been there, done that.
Guest:You know, it was like that.
Guest:So I concentrated more on Europe.
Guest:But still, I do shows in the States as well.
Marc:And what's your audience like?
Marc:Are they long-time Tom Jones fans?
Guest:Some are, but you see, because I'm on The Voice, you know, which is The Voice UK, a lot of kids watch it.
Guest:It's a Saturday night in Britain.
Guest:it's on saturday prime time so a lot of kids see me on there and they know who i am now and little kids come up to me you know and it's amazing this little girl i was walking in battersea park i live close to this park in london and um this little girl come up to me and she said oh i i watch you on the voice and i think you're wonderful and oh i said thanks very much i said you like the show she said no i like you on the show
Guest:She was 10, right?
Guest:So I said, oh.
Guest:And I thought, oh, maybe it's just a show.
Guest:And she said, my favorite song is The Green, Green Grass of Home.
Guest:And I thought, shit.
Guest:You know, a 10-year-old kid is being affected by this song.
Guest:So you never know.
Guest:You never know.
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:Who you're affecting.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Well, music's got this magic to it.
Marc:You know, long after anybody, you know, once it's out there, it's, you know, it has a life of its own.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:I mean, it's true.
Guest:What would life be like without music?
Guest:You know, could you imagine seeing a movie without music in it?
Marc:No, I can't.
Marc:I listen to music all the time.
Marc:You know, I'm constantly...
Marc:listening to stuff in new stuff.
Marc:There's never, there's never a shortage of new things.
Marc:You can never know all of it, you know?
Marc:And I got back into the records and like, it's just every day I listen, I learn new things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I do that on the, on the voice.
Guest:I'm listening to young singers and I think, shit, you know, that's it.
Guest:That phrasing is really something, you know, how did he or she come up with that?
Guest:So you all the time you're learning, you know, you're listening and learning about things.
Guest:That's the way I feel anyway.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So once you become big in Britain, so how did you end up?
Marc:Because I've talked to people because of your tenure in Vegas.
Marc:I talked to George Wallace a few weeks ago.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, George used to open my show.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:A lot of comics opened.
Marc:Before comedy clubs, you would open for guys like you.
Guest:Well, see, I went to Vegas in 1968.
Guest:And I stopped there 10 years ago.
Guest:But I played Vegas more than Sonato did in terms of years.
Guest:So, I mean, I thought, well, you know, I've done that.
Marc:So in 68, that's sort of like you were one of the new guys in 68, right?
Marc:So there's a whole generation that had owned the place for a decade already, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, Elvis Presley came to see me in 68.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, I've wanted to play Vegas since the 50s.
Guest:They didn't get him in the 50s, right?
Guest:In Vegas.
Guest:So he always wanted to get back into Vegas.
Guest:So he came to see me in 68 and said, I feel that we are similar than what we do.
Guest:And then he came back in 69.
Guest:But it was because he came on my life.
Guest:He came to see me and realized...
Guest:That, you know, vibrant, rock and roll, sexy, whatever you want to call it, music is alive and well, you know, as long as you get on with it.
Marc:Put on the show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Make it a big show.
Marc:Tell a few jokes.
Guest:Well, if something happens and you need a little humor, throw that in as well.
Guest:But I never did a Vegas show.
Guest:It was the same show as I would do in New York or London, you know, wherever.
Guest:I got a band and I do the songs, you know, so...
Marc:But you were like a personable guy.
Marc:I mean, when you did the television show, it's a variety show.
Marc:You got to do bits.
Marc:You got to act a little bit.
Marc:You've done a little act.
Marc:You're an entertainer on some level.
Marc:I mean, you're a singer, but as time went on, you got other chops.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And sense of humor, you see.
Guest:I've always believed in that.
Guest:If you have a natural sense of humor, like Hugh Grant, you know, when you were talking to him the other day, it's like, that's it.
Guest:It's a lot easier to go on, you know, with a smile on your face, you know, and sort of...
Guest:Look at it like that rather than say, this is serious music.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I don't want anybody, you know, like this.
Guest:No, shit.
Marc:Well, that Vegas was always about fun, it seems, with the entertainment.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, anyway, when I'm on stage, I love to do what I do, and hopefully people are going to get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Well, no one's going there going like, who is this guy Tom Jones?
Yeah.
Marc:Well, one time at the beginning they did.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:But not now.
Guest:No one's wandering in going, who's this new fella?
Marc:No.
No.
Marc:But, like, with Elvis, though, you guys stayed friends for this whole long time, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Right from 65 when I first met him.
Guest:My first year in show business, 1965, I met him in Los Angeles because I did a Ned Sullivan show from L.A.
Guest:because it went to color.
Right.
Guest:In 1965, it went from black and white to color and they couldn't transmit from New York.
Guest:So we had to do it from LA.
Guest:So that gave me an opportunity then to go to LA and I met Elvis on that trip in September, 65.
Guest:And it was tremendous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, like, you know, it sounds like you had a kind of a fun relationship and you respected him and he got a kick out of you and you were like minded.
Marc:So, like, I don't know if I've ever talked about this with anybody, really, but in terms of these friendships.
Marc:But I mean, you know, as you see a guy like Elvis kind of get insulated and go into some sort of mental or emotional decline or substance abuse or whatever.
Marc:I mean, what do you do?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, when we first started talking together in Vegas, he said, what do you take to stay sane?
Guest:What is your drug of choice?
Guest:I said, a pint of Welsh beer or maybe a bottle of champagne.
Guest:I'm a drinker.
Guest:I wasn't interested in anything else, thank God.
Guest:I mean, you know, booze is a drug as well if you abuse it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:So I said, no, I don't.
Guest:So then one night I came in to see him and he thought that he was getting away with stuff, you see, by taking pills and drinking a lot of water and he wasn't getting hangovers the following day.
Guest:So one time I went to see him and he said, Tom Jones said tonight, you know, and keep drinking that champagne, Tom, you'll be all right.
Guest:You know, like, ha-ha.
Guest:And I said, yes, I will.
Guest:And I will be all right.
Marc:And here I am, you know.
Marc:Well, he got the food and everything else.
Marc:I guess, like, you know, it's hard to imagine.
Marc:Like, all you guys who can do the, you know, men and women who can do the performing on the level with the band and music and everything else, it's a real gift and it's a unique thing.
Marc:But I guess there's no way to really know the toll that it took on that guy, you know, being... No.
Marc:...have to carry that, the burden of being Elvis Presley into middle age, you know?
Marc:I don't think he could hack it.
Guest:No, I don't think that Elvis would have enjoyed growing old.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't think he would have liked it, no.
Guest:He's like Marilyn Monroe, you know, any of those icons...
Guest:that die when they're young, you know, they'll always be icons.
Guest:It's just a shame that they filmed him when he got heavy towards the end.
Guest:You know, that's a shame.
Guest:Priscilla says that because I'm friendly with Priscilla Presley and she said, I don't like it when I see those old footage of him when he got fat.
Guest:But he always sang.
Guest:You see, his voice was always there.
Guest:And yeah, it was a shame to what happened to him.
Guest:And I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen to anybody towards the end.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He fired all the guys.
Guest:Oh, the Memphis Mafia.
Guest:They came to me, Sonny West, one of his bodyguards.
Guest:He said, could you talk to Elvis?
Guest:Because he's falling apart and we can't save him.
Guest:So I said, I'll try.
Guest:I used to call him, you know, and at one time, anytime I called him, he would get back to me, you know, but like the last two years, I would say, of his life, he never returned any of my calls, you know, and then he was gone.
Guest:That's sad, huh?
Guest:Yeah, it is sad.
Guest:Because, you know, when it happens, it's always after the fact, of course.
Guest:But you think, shit, if I'd really pushed, I wondered if I could have gotten through to him, you know, and I could have straightened him up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Well, usually not.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's what they said.
Guest:How do you save somebody from yourself?
Marc:Yeah, if they don't want to do it, what are you going to do?
Guest:I know.
Marc:Well, you're fortunate in that whatever your compulsions were, they weren't going to kill you.
Guest:No, exactly.
Guest:Not yet.
Marc:But it's interesting, you know, these people that, you know, like in your business, and you've met a lot of these people where, you know, they're all in in terms of like somehow or another becomes they're risking their life to do with this music.
Marc:You know, the lifestyle they believe fuels it or they just can't get out of it and they get known for it.
Marc:Like, you know, you met Janis Joplin.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you had respect for her.
Marc:But did you feel when you talked to some of these people that they were going to not last that long?
Guest:Not really, because there was a lot of people that did last.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, that were heavy into shit, you know, in the 60s.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And Eddie Clapton said, if you remember the 60s, you weren't there.
Guest:Well, I don't believe that.
Guest:But there's a lot of people got messed up, but they're still here.
Guest:Eddie Clapton is still here.
Marc:Yeah, I think you Brits seem to be built for something that some of us aren't.
Guest:I mean, Christ, Keith Richards, you know, you look at Keith Richards, he looked like he should have died 10 years ago, but he's still there.
Guest:So a lot of us came through it.
Guest:Now, Jimi Hendrix, I knew.
Guest:And he, you know, he went.
Guest:And Janis Joplin did my TV show.
Marc:The Jimi, I just listened to this box set, Jimi at Winterland.
Marc:You know, it's like three nights of shows.
Marc:You know, I just like he was from another planet, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I knew the two guys that made up the experience.
Marc:Oh, the British guys, Noel and Mitch?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Well, they were licking around, you know, in Ladbroke Grove in 1964 when I first came to London.
Guest:We were all there, you know, trying to get...
Marc:Now, what about like the sort of was there a period where there was sort of, you know, a tension between like you and like the Stones or, you know, the Beatles or anything like that?
Marc:Like, I mean, did did they see you in a certain way and you see them in a certain way?
Marc:Did you have a relationship with any of them?
Guest:Yeah, we had a relationship.
Guest:Who?
Guest:We used to be in the clubs.
Guest:You see, in London in the 60s, you knew that you were in the middle of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Before that, it was always American.
Guest:We always listened to American acts, American singers.
Guest:But then when the Beatles kicked the door down... Yeah.
Guest:We thought we're in it, you know, right there with hit records, all these different clubs we would hang out in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All together.
Guest:You know, we were all in it together.
Guest:Eric Clapton, I remember talking to him outside of a club and he said, look, you know, I put this band together and we're going to put a record out, Cream.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he said the first one didn't make it.
Guest:If the second one don't, I'll play guitar for you.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, sure.
Guest:All my life.
Guest:And that's a fact.
Guest:So we were all there at the time.
Guest:We just sort of went separate ways because of the music that we were recording.
Guest:I was doing available material at the time.
Guest:And it took me on a different path.
Guest:But we were all there in London, in these clubs, in the 60s.
Guest:And it was fantastic.
Marc:So when was the Catskill period?
Marc:Was that like before Vegas?
Yeah.
Guest:No, no, that was later.
Guest:That was when I became a Vegas act, as they say.
Guest:Oh, so then they're like, come play for the Jews.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I did that in the talk of the town in London in 67 because I sang my Yiddish mama.
Guest:My father used to sing when I was a kid.
Guest:I didn't know it meant Jewish, mother.
Guest:I just thought it was mother.
Marc:Where'd he get it, your father?
Guest:He learned it as a kid.
Guest:See, we used to be a Shabbos Goy.
Guest:You know what a Shabbos Goy is?
Guest:A Goy who knows Jews?
Guest:Well, Shabbos, as you know, and the guy, of course, is non-Jews.
Guest:Well, we would hang about outside synagogue.
Guest:There was a synagogue in Pontypris, and on the Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath, of course, we would be hanging around because one of us would be picked to go and put the lights on and stoke the boiler like that.
Marc:Right, right, to do the work that you can't do.
Guest:Shabbos, guy.
Guest:Got it.
Guest:That's what we would call it.
Marc:Was there money in it?
Guest:My father did it.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:My father did it before me.
Guest:You know, he used to do it when he was a kid.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:So we lived in the same area.
Guest:So, yeah, that was it.
Guest:You'd be out in the street playing marbles or whatever the fuck, you know, like this, hoping that one of these Jewish fellas, the rabbi, you know, would come and say, excuse me, sonny, could you come and do the work, shut the lights off.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:For a few bucks or what?
Guest:I used to box when I was a kid.
Marc:No, like for a few dollars they give you a coupon?
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Guest:I thought you said, did you box?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, it was shillings.
Guest:Yeah, shillings, sure.
Marc:Yeah, shillings.
Marc:And you boxed too?
Marc:Is that how you broke your nose?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Were you good?
Guest:Not good enough, but by all accounts.
Guest:Did you know Bob Hoskins?
Guest:No, not well.
Guest:I'd say hi on the street because he lived in London.
Guest:But I didn't know him well, no, no.
Marc:Seems like you two would get along for some reason.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:When I tell you who I did meet was an American, Robert Mitchum.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Now, when I was doing the TV shows in the late 60s, there's an actor called Ronnie Fraser, who's a character actor, British character actor.
Guest:And he said, if you ever get a chance to meet Robert Mitchum, he said, you two will get on like a fucking house on fire.
Guest:Well, I was doing a TV show.
Guest:movie up in Santa Barbara.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I walked, and I was down on the beach, walked back into the hotel, and Robert Mitchum, Robert Mitchum was sitting in the bar.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And as I'm passing, he said, hey, Tom, like Sinatra said, you know, come here.
Guest:So it's the same thing.
Guest:So I sat down.
Guest:I said, can I take off my Speedos at least?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I mean, on the beach.
Guest:No.
Guest:I said, let me go up and change.
Guest:I'll be right back.
Guest:Just sit down.
Guest:You know, okay, great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:Robert Mitchell.
Guest:And he was, you know, Roddy Fraser said we'd hit it off.
Guest:And he was right.
Guest:I drank with him all day in this bar.
Guest:And we were drinking Bloody Mary's, right?
Guest:So we said, what are you drinking?
Guest:I said, what are you drinking?
Guest:He said, Bloody Mary.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Bloody Mary.
Guest:So I'm drinking.
Guest:So after about six or seven or eight or nine or whatever we were, I said, there's something wrong with this one.
Guest:He said, what's wrong with it?
Guest:I said, I don't know.
Guest:It's not tasting right.
Guest:He said, let me try it.
Guest:He went, oh, sorry, it's mine.
Guest:I used tequila instead of vodka.
Guest:I said, well, what happened to mine that had vodka in it?
Guest:Gone.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He drank it.
Guest:But he was great.
Guest:I had a whole day with him, and it was like a lifetime with anybody else.
Marc:Oh, well, that's a sweet memory, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So when you're up in the Borscht Belt, so you're playing Vegas.
Marc:They're like, come play the hotels.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, I was at Caesar's Palace for a long time.
Guest:And so they said, nightclubs.
Guest:Where's the biggest nightclub?
Guest:Now, up in the Catskills, what was the name of that hotel?
Guest:The Concord?
Guest:The Concorde.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had the biggest showroom in the world at one time.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't know that.
Guest:Huge.
Guest:And the only thing that I came up against was they used to use knockers on the table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, bang.
Guest:They said, now, do you want, because they normally, instead of clapping, they use these knockers.
Guest:But it's not like they don't like you.
Guest:It's that they like you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But some people don't like the knockers on the table.
Guest:I said, well...
Guest:I'm not used to that.
Guest:You know, I mean, I'd rather if they could clap.
Guest:But if they don't like me, then don't clap.
Guest:You don't have to clap.
Guest:But, you know, I don't know anything about those knockers hitting the wooden, you know, on the table.
Guest:So they said, OK, it doesn't have to be like that.
Guest:But, you know, I played them many times, so they must have liked me.
Marc:And did you work with any comics up there?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Steve Allen.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:He was up there, yeah.
Guest:But there was a lot of... Well, a lot of the comics that I used were Jewish, you see.
Guest:It was Jackie Gale.
Marc:Oh, Jackie Gale, sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, he toured with me.
Guest:He was on...
Guest:I mean, he was hilarious.
Guest:We'd be in a bloody limousine, right?
Guest:And I used to wear the cross and chain.
Guest:Well, I still do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, you know what?
Guest:He said, I love the fact that you wear that cross and chain.
Guest:I said, why is that then?
Guest:He said, it keeps the bats away from the limousine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, I've realized I'm working with Dracula.
Guest:He said, you don't get up in the daytime.
Guest:He said, I can't get any towels.
Guest:You know, we don't use hotels.
Guest:And I called them for towels.
Guest:And he said, well, Mr. Jones doesn't want to be disturbed until you have to do.
Guest:He said, fuck Mr. Jones.
Guest:What about me?
Marc:So what was the process of being knighted?
Marc:Is that a big day for you?
Guest:That was the biggest day of my life.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Because, oh, when you're a kid, right, you think, oh, I'd love to be a professional singer, first of all.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I'd love to be able to get a hit record.
Guest:I'd love to be on TV, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a big deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But if somebody had told me that I was, first of all, going to get the OBE record,
Guest:which is the order of the British Empire.
Guest:That was the first medal that I got.
Guest:And then the queen will knight you one day.
Guest:Well, I mean, I would have said you're full of shit when I was a kid.
Guest:Because knights in those days, you see, they weren't entertainers years ago.
Guest:You'd have to kill somebody or be brave like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:And I used to look at, my mother had a medal picture of my grandfather who died in the First World War.
Guest:And I thought, I'll never be able to have a medal like that because he had a lot of them.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I thought, because I never went to the army.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I thought, how can I compete with that?
Guest:Well...
Guest:I've got the OBE medal and I've got the Knight's Bachelor medal.
Guest:And I thought, shit, if my grandfather could only see me now, you know, he wouldn't believe it.
Guest:He would have said, what did you do for that?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:How many Germans did you have to kill for that?
Marc:So was it exciting to meet the queen and everything?
Guest:Oh, I started doing the royal show, you see, in the 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Early, you know, they got me on there in like 66 or 67 maybe.
Guest:And so, you know, I used to go and do a lot of these royal shows.
Guest:And one time we lined up, you know, when the queen comes along, she says, are you still living in America?
Yeah.
Guest:And straight away, without thinking, I said, yes, but only for convenience sake, your majesty.
Guest:It was like shot out, you know, oh, fuck, I'm going to be in the tower if I don't.
Guest:Yeah, she's lovely, though, the queen.
Guest:The queen is unbelievable, honestly.
Guest:She's an unbelievable person.
Marc:I mean, her husband just died, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I got a story about him if you want to hear it.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:How much time we got?
Marc:You got as much time as you want.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I was doing a thing for the Wildlife Association, which he was head of.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:We went to this club called The Talk of the Town.
Guest:in London, where they were holding this thing.
Guest:So I agreed to go and do it.
Guest:And so we were in the palace, first of all, before we went over there to do the show.
Guest:So he came up to me.
Guest:Now, in the newspaper prior to this, he said, Tom Jones sounds like he gargles with pebbles.
Huh.
Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I read it, I thought, what the fuck?
Guest:So he came up to me, which he never had to do, and he said, I'd like to explain something.
Guest:And I said, yes, okay.
Guest:And he said, you know, your royal highness, yes, sir.
Guest:And he said, look, he said, I was at a small businessman's meeting.
Guest:And he said they were all pissing and moaning about... Well, he didn't say pissing.
Guest:But he said they were moaning about, you know, they don't have enough from the government.
Guest:They're not getting enough help.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, I used you as an example.
Guest:He said, I said, look, if a coal miner's son...
Guest:from a little town in South Wales can become a fucking multimillionaire.
Guest:What are you pricks all about?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Words to that effect.
Guest:And he said, and then I was quoted as saying, you must gargle with pebbles.
Guest:He said, I mean that your voice is so powerful that
Guest:You know, and so strong that you must argue with pebbles because he used to like to say things like that, you know.
Guest:And I said, well, thank you very much, sir.
Guest:And he didn't have to explain anything like that to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, he could have told me to go fuck myself.
Guest:You know, I would have said yes, sir.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Thank you, sir.
Guest:Thank you very much, sir.
Guest:Yes, but he did.
Guest:He took the time, and I'll never forget that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, you know, even with that spin, Tom, I'm wondering if he was just covering his ass.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:He was very diplomatic.
Guest:Because, I mean, it's hard to make that into a compliment.
Guest:That's just from an outside listener here.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I felt the same way at the time, but I didn't want to say anything.
Marc:Hey, man, it was great talking to you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Because my son, by the way, listens to you all the time.
Guest:So he knows exactly what you had Obama on and, you know, like that.
Guest:But he said it's going to be good.
Guest:So I'm glad I did it.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Did you have a good time?
Guest:Wonderful time.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Marc:I'm glad you're doing so well, and I'm excited about the new record.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:All right, take it easy.
Guest:All the best.
Marc:That was Tom Jones, the new record, Surrounded by Time, out this Friday, April 23rd on S-Curve Records.
Marc:Get it where you get music.
Marc:It's weird, man.
Marc:The closer is basically the bread.
Marc:So if that doesn't, yeah.
Marc:And he doesn't have enough to share.
Marc:So I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe it's good.
Marc:It seems like a lot driving around the country with a Viking range.
Marc:Here's some guitar.
Marc:Enjoy your day, your week.
Marc:I'll talk to you Thursday.
.
.
.
.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey.
Guest:La Fonda.
Guest:All of them.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.