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Sir Thomas Jones Woodward, OBE, (born 7 June 1940), known
by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Grammy Award-winning Welsh popular music singer particularly noted for his
powerful voice. He was born in Treforest, Pontypridd, near Cardiff in South Wales.
Tom Jones rose to fame in the mid-1960s, with an exuberant live act which included wearing
tight breeches and billowing shirts,
in an Edwardian
style popular amongst his peers at the time. He was known for his overt sexuality, before this
was as common as it has become in subsequent years.
In 1963 he became the frontman for Tommy Scott and The Senators, a local
beat group. Clad all in black leather, he soon gained a reputation in the South Wales area. The Senators
were still unheard of in London.
In 1964 they laid down seven tracks with
maverick Telstar producer Joe Meek, and took them to various labels in an
attempt to get a record deal, with no success. The plan was to release a single, Lonely
Joe/I Was A Fool, but the ever-flighty Meek refused to release the tapes.
Only after It's Not Unusual became a massive hit, Meek was able to sell
the tapes to Tower (USA) and Columbia (UK). The
group returned to South Wales and continued to play gigs at dance halls and
working men's clubs. One night, at the Top Hat in Cwmtillery, Jones was spotted
by Gordon Mills, a
London-based manager originally from South Wales. Mills became Jones' manager,
and took the young singer to London. He
also renamed him Tom Jones, an ingenious moniker which not only linked
the singer to the image of the title character - a good-looking, low-born stud -
portrayed in Tony Richardson's film of Fielding's Tom Jones which was a huge contemporary hit, but also
subtly emphasized his nationality. Gordon Mills gave many rock stars their stage
names, among them Engelbert Humperdinck (born
Arnold George Dorsey). The Senators became the Playboys, and later still the
Squires. It was the beginning of the second phase in Jones' career.
Record companies were finding his style and delivery to be too abrasive and
raw. Jones' vocals were considered to be too raucous, and he moved like Elvis. But eventually, Decca rekindled their early
interest, and Jones recorded his first single, Chills And Fever in late
1964.
The single didn't chart, but the follow-up, It's Not Unusual, (co-written by Les Reed), was an instant smash hit,
released in early 1965. Initially the BBC
refused to play it, but an offshore pirate station, Radio Caroline, picked it up. Its orchestrated
arrangement coupled with Jones' energetic delivery proved infectious, and by
March 1st the song reached number one in the UK and the top ten in America. In
the same year, Jones sang the theme tune to the James Bond film Thunderball. Jones was awarded the
Grammy Award for Best New
Artist for 1965. In 1966 Jones' popularity began to slip somewhat, causing
Mills to redesign the singer's image into a more respectable, mature tuxedoed crooner.
Inspired by long-time influence Jerry Lee Lewis' country version, Jones
released his most successful single ever, Green
Green Grass of Home (written by Claude "Curly" Putman Jr. in
1965), and began to sing material that appealed to a broad audience, as well as
a string of hit singles and albums including What's New Pussycat?,
Help Yourself and Delilah. The strategy worked, as he returned to
the top of the charts in the UK and began hitting the Top 40
again in the U.S.
In 1967 he performed for the first time
in Las Vegas,
at The Flamingo. In 1968, starting at New York's Copacabana night club, women would
swoon and scream, and some would throw their knickers on stage. Soon after, he began to play Las Vegas, where
he began recording less, choosing to concentrate on his lucrative club
performances. At Caesar's Palace his shows were traditionally
a knicker-hurling frenzy of raw sexual tension and good-time entertainment.
There, they started throwing hotel room keys. Jones and Elvis became good
friends, spending time together in Las Vegas. They had a friendship that would
endure until Presley's death in 1977.
Jones had an internationally successful television variety show from
1969-1971 titled This Is Tom Jones. This hit TV show aired
on ABC-TV (American Broadcasting Company) in
America and ITV in the UK. The 1970s saw Jones' popularity leveling off somewhat. But
the hits kept on coming: Daughter Of Darkness, She's A Lady, Till
and The New Mexican Puppeteer were all hits in the UK. On July 29, 1986,
Gordon Mills, Jones' long-time manager, died of cancer. Jones' son Mark became the singer's manager. In
April 1987 the singer re-entered the singles
chart again. With the hit A Boy From Nowhere Tom got back in
the public eye. A few months later he performed a version of Prince's Kiss, and recorded it
with The Art of
Noise, and it was an instant hit. In 1993 he signed to Interscope Records, releasing the album
The Lead And How To Swing It, and his profile was raised with a younger
audience by a powerful performance at the Glastonbury Festival. In 1998 he performed a medley of songs from the film The Full Monty with
Robbie Williams at
the BRIT Awards. That same
year, Space and Cerys Matthews released The Ballad Of Tom
Jones.
In 1999 he recorded the blockbuster album
Reload, a collection of duets
with some of the year's brightest stars, which brought him back into the
limelight. On New Year's Eve 2000 President
Bill Clinton invited him
to perform at the Millennium
Celebrations in Washington. Throughout 2000, Jones garnered
several honors for his work, including a BRIT Award for Best Male. In 2001 he toured throughout the Middle East and Europe. In subsequent years he recorded albums in
collaboration with such artists as Wyclef Jean and Jools Holland.
In celebration of his 65th birthday, on 28 May 2005 Jones
returned to his homeland to perform a spectacular concert in Ynysangharad Park,
Pontypridd. This was his first
performance in Pontypridd since 1964.
The son of coal miner Thomas Woodward (died 5 October 1981), and Freda Jones
(died 7 February 2003, of cancer), Jones began singing at an early age. He'd
regularly sing at family gatherings, weddings and also sang in his school choir.
He was struck down by tuberculosis and bedridden for almost a year. It
was a critical time for him, but he could do little else but listen to music and
draw. At the age of sixteen, Jones married Linda Trenchard on March 2, 1957 and had a son named Mark, long before
becoming a pop idol. Jones quit
school with no qualifications and took a variety of jobs including a builder's
laborer and a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.
In 1974, Jones moved to the United States, buying the
mansion formerly belonging to Dean Martin in Bel-Air, Los Angeles.
Despite publicized infidelities, including an affair with the dethroned Miss World of 1973, USA's Marjorie Wallace, and a one night stand with
Cassandra
Peterson a.k.a. Elvira, in
which he claimed her virginity, he
has remained married to the same woman for 50 years. One of his dalliances with
a fan produced a love child,
Jonathan Berkery born June 27th, 1988. He lost a paternity suit when DNA testing proved to be positive.
He has two grandchildren, Emma and Alexander Woodward. Alexander competed in
the 2006 Commonwealth Games, representing Wales as a Full-Bore marksman.
Jones lives in Los Angeles, California and continues to tour extensively.
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