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Tom Jones

I remember as a child, my Mom loved this album, and would play it even when she was vacuuming. Here are some facts I never knew...

Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas is a live album recorded at The Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the summer of 1969, and released in November 1969.

Performed and recorded during one of the peaks of his popularity, due to his TV series, This is Tom Jones (from 1969 to 1971)[1] and several hit singles in the late 1960s ("It's Not Unusual", "What's New Pussycat?", "Green, Green Grass of Home", "Love Me Tonight"),[2] Tom Jones and his accompanying band, led by Johnnie Spence, gave a tight and highly energetic performance. Jones' band featured some of the top studio musicians of the day, including Big Jim Sullivan on guitar and Chris Slade (The Firm, AC/DC) on drums. Jones acknowledged these musicians to the audience at the beginning of the sixth track, "Danny Boy" - stating "I brought with me from England three of the finest musicians that we have there...on drums, we have Chris, on bass, we have John, and on lead guitar, we have Jimmy." Typically a harsh critic of inferior music, Buddy Rich, on The Mike Douglas Show in 1971, stated "The band that plays behind Tom Jones is one of the great bands of all time."[3]

voodoolounge
9 responses Add your response
rpeluso
1,016 posts
 

And he still makes great recordings.

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tablejockey
3,793 posts
 

My mom was one of the ladies that had it for Tom. Although I haven’t heard it for 50+ years, I’m sure it would bring back fond memories of the big Grundig that played it.

This is some interesting trivia. More on Chris Slade

 

tylermunns
598 posts
 

Tom Jones.  One amazing vocalist.  His live duets with the likes of Stevie Wonder and Dusty Springfield (available on YouTube - WELL worth watching) and a whole host of recordings and live performances speak to his vocal prowess being all-time elite.

Perfect pitch, great control, awesome power, fantastic range, very satisfying timbre, tone, he is the whole package.

Because he made few good records (if he ever did at all - this is not extraordinary as titanic-talent vocalists like Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston also made very few, if any, good records) and pop culture mythology labeled him as pure shlock, he is historically disrespected as a vocalist.

robert53
418 posts
 

Check out Janis Joplin on the Tom Jones Show ( youtube). Also, check out his Praise and Blame cd. Personally, I think he's a great vocalist and entertainer.

frogman
7,366 posts
 

This thread and mention of YouTube caused me to poke around there a bit.  Putting aside the cheesiness of this type of show, check out his singing at 80 yrs old (!!!).  I hope I can still pick my nose at 80.  Pretty incredible.

 

 

voodoolounge OP
207 posts
 

Wow! That is an amazing performance at 80! A toast to Sir Tom 🍻

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lonemountain
415 posts
 

I was friends with his music director and saw a few shows a few years back in Vegas. He has quite an entertaining show, most of the people there were over 70. The band was indeed very good. Tom and artists like him know that the fans must be impressed with the band as well as the artist. Many artists work like this, its their show and they hire a Music Director to hire a band- play the parts as written.

If an artist doesn’t dig someone in the band for any reason, the music director will change people out, hires a new drummer or whatever to make his boss happy. If the artist gets unhappy about the Music Director, the artist fires the MD and the entire band is fired too. A new Music Director is hired and new band is recruited by them to their liking. They must to learn all the parts verbatim and most fans would never know the entire band was changed out.

Brad

 

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