September 28, 2021 • 48 mins
Tom Jones’ booming baritone has led him to sell over 100 million records in his nearly six-decade career. He had a string of hits in the mid-1960s including “It’s Not Unusual,” “What’s New Pussycat?” “She’s A Lady,” “Green, Green Grass Of Home,” “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again,” and “Delilah.” Now in his early 80s, Tom Jones is still going strong with a new album out and an upcoming tour. Tom Jones talks with Alec about growing up in a small town in Wales, how contracting tuberculosis changed his life and the secret to his nearly six-decade marriage to his middle-school sweetheart Linda and how he's been managing since her death in 2016.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart Radio. He always runs while of those walls,
(00:27):
she as while just talk us at this world. Al
sudo so he strikes Black and the boat. He always
(00:59):
runs while there's walk Yes, those walls. This is such
an anthem. This song is one of the most wonderful
and preposterous anthems to masculinity and chauvinism I've ever heard
in my life. My favorite is he knows the meaning
(01:19):
of success, meaning his needs are more, so he gives less.
He gives less exactly he don't. Black wrote the lyrics.
Oh my god, he said the song doesn't make any sense,
(01:43):
but it ripens, you know. He said, it's about a
guy who's a big fan of himself. All I know
is we got to get a guy that can sing
the ship song to make everybody forget that it's not
about anything, you know what I mean. Well, the thing was,
in those days with the James Bond, all those songs
were big songs, so they wanted a big singer that
(02:04):
could say that had a big voice, you will breathe
and a heart without regrets. Days are asking are all gone.
(02:28):
Just fight he goes on and on and on, but
he thinks for that the fight is re so he strikes.
(02:50):
Let them my guest today is perhaps the only singer
who could have made that song work, Tom Jones. Legend
(03:11):
has it, Jones nearly passed out holding that final note
in this song. Thunderball, the theme song from the fourth
James Bond film. Tom jones booming baritone has led him
to sell over one d million records in his nearly
six decade career. Thunderball was just one of a burst
(03:31):
of hits for Jones when he started out in the
mid nineteen sixties, including It's Not Unusual, What's New, Pussycat,
She's a Lady, Green Green Grass of Home, I'll Never
Fall in Love Again, and Delilah. After topping the UK
charts in xt Jones quickly crossed over to the US.
He won the Best New Artist Grammy Award in and
(03:54):
appeared regularly on The Ed Sullivan Show. He even hosted
his own the variety show This Is Tom Jones. Along
the way, Tom Jones perfected the Sexiest Man Alive look
and devoted himself to playing live shows. He headlined in
Las Vegas at least one week a year between nineteen
(04:16):
and two thousand eleven. Growing up in South Wales, Jones
assumed he'd work in the coal mines like his father,
but at age twelve, he contracted tuberculosis. He spent the
next two years convalescing, listening to American R and B music,
and dreaming of a very different life. I was always
(04:37):
interested in music. Music was always there since I was
a very young child. I was always listening to the
to the radio. And there's a lot of singers in
my family, you see. My uncle was really good. So
I would be listening to these singers growing up. And
then when I had t B they said just go
to bed and stay there. That's all it was in
(04:58):
those days, was rest, and they were going to send
me away. First of all, they said, you either got
to go to Switzerland or Scotland, you know, somewhere where
the air is is pure. But when they checked out
my house, we lived on a hill in South Wales,
not not near a coal mine, and so they said
we'll find if you're can have your own room, you
can stay home, which I was thrilled about because I
(05:20):
didn't want to really go anywhere at that age. Describe
when you decide you've got what it takes to get
up on stage and just start to perform. What your
early career is. Where where are you performing? Yeah, well
in school first of all, and then Chapel, Presbyterian Chapel.
I never I never liked being in a quiet though.
(05:40):
I wanted to shine. You know. I was a show
off as a kid. I think a lot of entertainers
are like that, you know, showing off. You you'll find
something that you're good at and you give it your
full attention. So that's that's what I was doing. So
I was it was more of listening to black gospel
music on the radio and then if I was going
saying the old Rugged Cross, you know, a hymn in Chapel.
(06:04):
I heard my Helia Jackson sing it on on the
radio and I thought, ship, you know, I mean I
want to sing it like that. They were playing black
gospel music on the radio in the South of Wales. Yeah.
The BBC would play a variety of things and that
was part of it. Sometimes you'd hear blues song, you know,
a black voice, you know, a gospel voice especially, I thought, wow,
(06:29):
what is you know, what is that? Why does that
woman sound different? To the way they were singing it
in the chapel. It was a difference in it, you know,
And that caught me. Many of the great singers that
we've had on the show, and we've had quite a few,
Roger Daltrey, we had all these guys on here, and
they all talked about the same thing, choir choruses, church
related singing when they were very young. But when do
(06:52):
you decide you're going to go professional? When do you
decide you're gonna get out there and will make a
stab at then? And what's your first pro gigs? Where
were you? Okay? First one was in a workingman's club locally.
It was on a Saturday night. I was seventeen, and
I shouldn't have been in there, You've got to be
it should have been eighteen. But I was in there,
(07:12):
of course with my father and his brothers, coal miners,
you know. So I couldn't wait to get in there,
you know, I couldn't wait to be a man. I
wanted to drink pints of beer with these fellas. So
I was there on a Saturday night and they booked
some concert party they used to call him, and and
they didn't show up. So the fellow that was running
it said, you know you've got a guitar, right, I
(07:34):
said yeah, yeah, And he said, do you want to
run home and get it and sing as a few songs?
I said sure. So I ran up the road, you know,
it wasn't that far away, grabbed my guitar, an acoustic guitar,
ran back there, and rock and roller just kicked in. Then.
You see, it was in the fifties, this is seven.
So there I was doing like Elvis Presley songs, you know,
(07:57):
stuff like that. So that was it, and they gave
me a pound. They gave you a beer, one pound,
one beer. Whether those days you could have a night
out on a pound, so I could have like five
or six points of beer and that was it. So
so I thought, wow, this is great. So then I
started going playing other pubs and clubs and stuff like that.
(08:20):
When does someone find you right, Well, I was. I
was in one of these workermen's clubs. I got a
band together. By this time, there was a local rock
band cover bands they call him. Now, how many guys
were in the band. Three? There were three guitars. That
was lead guitar, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar. And a druma.
(08:40):
So that was you and four guys. Yeah. By the
time I got with these fellas, they were playing a
y m c A on a Friday night, right, yeah,
So now a Friday was for me. I was like
twenty or something like that, and a Friday night was
a drinking night. You say that was? That? Was it?
I was out with the fellas. I was working on
(09:01):
construction by this time, and I'm out drinking in this pub.
So I knew the bass player from this band and
he came in and he said, look, I was singing
asn't shown. Could you come into the y m c
A and sing some tunes with us? And I said, oh,
come on, Ernon. His name was Vernon. I said, Vernon
is Friday. You know what I mean? This is? This
(09:22):
is drinking like come on, and I said, Saturday is
you know I do shows on Saturday. Well, he said
the singer didn't show. If you don't come, you know,
we won't be able to do the show. So I said, well,
they don't have any booze in a YMC. So he said,
well what about if we get to create a beer
and stick it behind the curtains there? Because they had
(09:43):
a stage and everything for dancing. So I said sure.
So I went able to this friend of mine and
I said, look, you know, when in doubt great balls
of fire, I mean, that's you know exactly. So he said,
do you know create was a fire in c and
they said sure. I said, well then let's do it,
(10:05):
so boom, you know. And then when I must say,
you've had on my brain exactly too much of Lords
out of a man saying you broke my way good exactly,
So so that was the standard you need to know
that song, yes exactly. So that was it. And then
(10:27):
I took this banton that we're already playing these y
m c a s you know, for kids, and I'd
already gone into these workingmen's clubs to sing to coal miners.
So I said, look, there's a whole world here in
South Wales in these workingmen's clubs. They've never had rock
and roll music in there before. So they said, well,
(10:49):
we don't know about I said, I've got a gig
right tomorrow night. I'll take you all in there. So
we get into this club as soon as we walk in.
In those days, electric guitars, you know, and amplifiers and
drums and all that ship. It was like, what the
you know is this? And I said, wait a minute,
fellas to the audience, and they said, oh, yes, we
(11:11):
know you taught me you were fine. But what about
all these other buss that you got with you. I said,
just give us some give us you know these are
coal miners and their girlfriends and that. So I said
to the boys, I said, look, keep the sound down right,
we'll do my mother's eyes will do. I believe, We'll
do some balance that they understand. And then when they're
(11:33):
not looking quit pausifier, right they We're going to clip
them exactly. That's exactly what we did. And by the
end of the night from pay them off, which we
got first of all, which means pay them not to play, right,
that's what they were showing. To pay them off, I said,
just a second, you know, give us a chance. By
(11:53):
the end of the night, the fellow that book the
show said, if I called the police station and get
an extension, could you play to midnight? You know, in
one night now, so someone finds you at one of
these places that professional find you in South Wales exactly
Who was that person? His name was Gordon Mills, and
(12:13):
he was a songwriter and he was all also in
a group then called the Viscounts, which were three fellas
doing three part harmonies. They had some hit records themselves.
They were covering American records. But I knew him. I'd
seen him on TV. He had come to visit his
mother in South Wales because he was He was Welsh
as well, so he came to see me in this
(12:35):
club and he said, you should be in London. I said,
I know that, you know I've been there. You've gone
there for what. I went to get a record deal
because they heard a tape that I did, and so
I already had a record contract with Decca, but that
was like three singles, you know, three strikes in here out,
That's what I had. So then as Gordon Mill shows
(12:57):
up and said I can write songs. I write songs,
and he had written some hit songs for other people,
so I knew that he knew what he was talking about.
And what did he write for you? Then he wrote,
it's not unusual. He wrote, it's not unusual. He wrote it, Yeah,
my god. He had written it for a girl called
Sandy Shaw who had had some hit records. She had
(13:18):
number ones like two or three number ones, and he said,
could you do the demo? So I said sure. So
we go into Regions Sound in Denmark Street and I
did this demo demo, a demonstration record for Sandy Show.
So I said, you know good, this is the fucking
song that we've been looking for. It he said, he said,
(13:42):
he said, you know what that song? I said, yes,
I do. You know this is a hit song and
he said yeah for Sandy Show. I said no. I said, look,
if I don't get this song, I'm going back to Wales.
I said, fuck this you you Oh. I knew as
soon as I heard it, I thought this is a
(14:02):
hit song. So then we went and recorded it properly,
you know, with the with the brass bomp, you know
like that, and then there we yeah, we're often running.
So that was at the end of six. Did you
run into Sandy Shore years later and she was drunk
at a club and said, you Boston, What happened to
Sandy Shore? No, she said, I met her and she
(14:24):
did my TV show later on right, I had a
TV show, so she came on there and she says,
you could do and she said, when I heard you
singing it, I said, whoever singing this song, that's his song.
I wouldn't be able to sing that like that now.
So that song comes out and things change, I assume overnight, overnight,
(14:45):
it's unbelievable, so so much so he went so fast
up the charts. Right, I'm in a pub. I'm doing
a tour now with my band from Wales, Silla Black,
who was a singer. Then she's passed on since she
had a tour and I was on there. I took
I took the place of a man called p J Proby.
(15:07):
He was busting his pants all the time and they said,
you keep doing that and when you're out the fucking door.
So he busted his pants one store off and you
keep sending a piece of cheesecake over his table. Cheesecake.
It's really good, have it trying this exactly. So I
was doing all that. So so there I am on
on this tour and it's not unusual starts going up
(15:29):
the chart and I didn't know. I didn't know it.
It was moving that fast. So I'm in a pub
in between shows with rock bands from a lot of
them from Liverpool at the time. Because the Beatles, you know,
like that, So I'm in this pub and all these
kids are screaming outside, and me like a schmuck. I
walked straight out into the crowd, thinking that they were
(15:51):
there for somebody else, not knowing that it's not unusual
of going up the chat so fast, and I walked
straight into this thing. Well, they ripped the ship out
of my This had one raincoat to my name, and
the thing we're flying all over the place. So I thought, well,
this is it. You know, I'm been tearing you limb
from limb exactly overnight. You know, like a week before
(16:12):
you couldn't get a place of a drink, you know.
Superstar crooner Tom Jones. Another staggeringly accomplished artist who rose
to fame in the sixties was Herb Albert. In addition
to his virtuosic trumpet playing, he was also the A
in A and M Records, the world's largest independent record label.
(16:36):
In our conversation, Albert talked about passing on a song
that became a hit for the Carpenters. As I'm marking
out of Hall's door, I said, how is there a
song that do you think I might be able to handle?
Or song that you have talked away in the Jordan
same yarn I gave bird. Two days later, he sent
me close to You, which was going to be the
follow up to this Guy's in Love with You. I
(16:59):
recorded it in the studio. I'm listening to the playback
and my engineer friend Larry Levine rested. So look to me,
says man, you sound terrible singing this. I don't forget it.
I lost my confidence. I put that thing in the
drawer when I signed the Carpenters in so a year later,
I gave him close to You. Here the rest of
(17:23):
my conversation with herb Albert at Here's the Thing dot org.
After the break, Tom Jones talks about how he developed
his on stage sex appeal. I'm Alec Baldwin and this
(17:47):
is Here's the thing. Tom Jones had a breakout hit
with It's Not Unusual in and he was eager to
get to the top of the charts again. But he
couldn't have been more surprised by the song that took
him there. And all of a sudden, my manager says,
look you know Bert Packer acas I said, of course,
I do you know how David was in houses exactly?
(18:11):
So they have written a song for a Woody Allen film. Right,
oh okay, and they want you to do the title
song and it's called What's New pussy Cat? I said,
oh great, okay, let me hear it. So we go
to this flat in London. Bert Back, like I said,
he was with Angie Dickinson then, who I was in
(18:32):
love with. And I'm just a you know, twenty four
year old fellow and I'm sitting there. I said, okay,
can I hear the song? And he said sure. So.
Now Bert Packer Rack can't sing, you know, I mean,
he admits to it himself. He can't. He's a great songwriter,
but he's not a singer. So he's at the piano
and he starts. Now I'm being listening to rhythm blues
(18:56):
records like that rock and roll, fifties rock and roll.
All of my sudden, Burt Back rocks on this piano,
going damn day damn Dana Bam Bam damn Danda bam
bah d that like Kurt Vile, and I'm thinking, what
the fund has this? So he finishes it right, and
I said, you're pulling my leg right, and he said,
(19:19):
what I said, You're trying to catch me out don't you.
I said, you're I am, you know, twenty four years
old from Wales, don't know anything. You're playing this piece
of ship and you're trying to say what do you think?
And I'm gonna go it's a it's a test. So
and then then you're gonna say, well, that's not the song.
This is And he said that's the song and I said,
(19:42):
so my managers there now you know this is Bert
back Iraq. You know it's behind Burt background looking at
going to stop stop. Yeah, I said, look, I said
I can't. I can't say this. And he said, what
of course you can't. I said, no, I can't. I said,
it doesn't make any sense to me, you know. So
fair play for Birt, you know. He said, I'll demo it.
(20:04):
I'll make a demonstration record of it so you can
live with it for at least a week and see
what do you think. So my manager is like, you know,
Golden Mills, he's gone white and the music publishers there,
you know, and he's like, oh ship, you know, Birt
back around? Wouldy Allen film? You know what I mean?
And they're schmuck from Wales. They say they can't do it.
(20:24):
So anyway, so I lived with the song, and until
I did it, I wasn't sure of it, you know,
I mean, when did you get it? Like when I
sang it. As soon as I got in the studio,
he was there, which was strange. He had four four
upright pianos in a square and he's banging away on
him right. He's got this full August for there, and
(20:46):
he goes, okay, you need to think of this as
like the Midnight Hour. Right you're Wilson Pickett. You do
a midnight Hour, sing the ship out of it. And
I said, all right, so what you hear is we
see pussy can't. You're delicious and if come true, yeah,
(21:08):
I'll soon be kiss kissing you act inside the song.
There's a performance inside the song. Super masculine. I mean,
like I told you, you look like you're the captain
of the rugby team. You look like you chopped down
the whole forest with an ax when you're a little boy.
You're so super masculine in your performance persona. And it
(21:29):
was so delightful to have you played through these playful words.
You know, a lot of these songs are very playful,
not just like like Green Green, Grass of Home is
a straight ahead, just killer ballad. I mean, there's one
of the great ballads of all time, and you sing
the ship out of it. But it's a very straight ahead, sentimental,
old school kind of ballad, whereas some of these other
songs you sang like Pussycats the best example and Thunderball,
(21:53):
it's very playful. There's a kind of a there's a
performance you have to give. Yes, yes, you've got to
treat it like you mean it. And even though it's
like a novelty song, really you know, you've got to
try and make this novel take it seriously, take it seriously,
and and I honestly, I mean you hit the name
right on the head when you say acting. You know,
I think singers actors. It's just that we put it
(22:15):
into into into song, but it's still acting. That's the
way I feel. You've got to get in the song
and live it. You make it your own or you
put your own self in that character. And that's what
I always what I always say about. You know, they say, oh,
you covered this record. No, No, I didn't cover it.
I gave you my interpretation of it, just like an
(22:37):
actor does with when he or she does a rule,
it's gonna be different, different than what somebody else would
do it now, when you know, during the sixties and
the seventies and beyond, everything just seems much more deliberate
in terms of packaging a star. You know, their albums,
and they're remember album artwork on the album covers and
(22:59):
the liner no oats, and it was such a presentation
of things that were so much deeper and richer than
they seemed to be now. And and one thing is,
of course, is uh costuming. I mean, you're a guy
who comes out there and you've got the jump suits
and everything. You're obviously very fit guy. Whose idea was
it to make you into the sex symbol in terms
of your styling? You're an unrepentant sex symbol in your styling.
(23:22):
Whose idea was that? Mine? Yours? Literally? Literally literally it
came from necessity. Really, I would start off in a suit, yes, right,
because I was told to you know what, I had
my TV show. They said, you gotta put a suit on,
you gotta put a tuxedo on, you know, you gotta
put a boat tie on. I said, this is not
(23:43):
natural for me. You know, I don't like that, you know,
so anyway, I would get rid of it as soon
as possible. So to tell you would come off, the
jacket would come off, the shoot would be open, you
know what I mean. Because I was sweating my bullocks
on an actual fact, you know what I mean. So
I had to strip down. I mean I did a
rehearsal once at a club in London and the same
(24:04):
thing happened. In rehearsal. I said, funk the court. You know,
I gotta get to get rid of his jacket, you know.
And I'm here and my shirt was open, and Gordon
Mills said to me, that's the look. I said, what
he said, as you are now without the jacket, with
the shirt open, you know, you look like you're gonna
you know, you're gonna conquer the bucket world. And I said, well,
(24:24):
that's on the ass. You're gonna take a bite out
of everything exactly. But anyway, so that's what it was.
It was from necessity. So I mean, when when when
you're finding your look, when you're finding your thing to perform,
it's all you. You're calling the shots, yeah, more or less,
you know, I mean I had to tone it down
(24:44):
on Network TV. Yeah, Well, the first time I came
up against it was when I came to doing that
Sullivan Show in sixty five. But it's not unusual. And
they said, we've got to see you do it, you know,
let's watch you in in the rehearsal room. And I said, well,
play the record, you know you you know, we need
to hear you say it. You're going to do exactly.
(25:08):
So I started doing my thing, you know, and they said, whoa, whoa.
You know, they said, you can do that. You can't
do that on television on Sunday night, you know what
I mean? And I said why They said, because you can't.
And I thought shit, I thought America was like, you know,
wide open British television. I was doing it, and I thought,
(25:31):
what ship? If I could do it in England, how
come you know, in New York on the at Sullivan. God.
But they were telling me the same thing as they
told Elvis Presley in fifty six when he went on
there nine years before me. They were giving me the
same bullshit. They said, if you do that, we'll cut
the close ups. Did you tone it down or you didn't? Yeah,
(25:51):
a bit. I had to because my manager said, you know,
and the people around me and said, if you don't,
they won't let you on there. You know, they'll cut
you out of the show. So I thought, well, that's
no good. You know, I gotta I want to get
on the Ad Sullivan Show because Elvis Presley, you know,
that was his big break really at the beginning of
his career, and the same thing for the Beatles. As
(26:12):
far as America was concerned, that was it. So I thought, well,
you know, behave yourself to a certain extent and hopefully
get invited back. Yes, and he and thank god, he
liked me so much. I did like five ads all
of the shows, you know, within that year. It was tremendous. Yeah. Yeah,
Now describe for me if you would. I remember back
(26:32):
in I was going to do a film that had
a kind of a Vegas theme to it. So a
group of us in the cast went to Vegas for
a long weekend. And I wasn't much of a Vegas person,
but we go and he gets tickets for us to
go see Sinatra at Valleys and Sinatra comes out and
I'm I'm not exaggery. It was beyond belief how fantastic
he was. You couldn't even describe. And his one of
(26:55):
his assistance comes out. We looked at it and said,
oh my god, it's just we can believe. She said, yeah.
He laid off the booze, he laid off the cigarettes.
He ate really well. He really trained and got himself
ready to come back. He really wanted to pamper his
voice and come and really do this, and he sounded
like it was. He sounded so magical. What's that like
for you if you had to because you you had polyps? Correct? Yeah, yeah,
(27:18):
I had polyps because I was doing two shows a
night in Las Vegas for a month straight. Stranger voice. Yeah,
so I was over singing, and Frank Snazra God bless him,
said to me, you're giving too much. You don't have
to hit everything as hard as you are, you know.
He said, you've got to be able to light in shade.
You know, you won't last if you do this twice
(27:38):
a night, you're gonna be in trouble. And me, macho,
you know from Waal, like I could do this, you
know what I mean? But he was right. After a while,
he took its toll and then I had to see
a man in in in l A and he said,
you've got these nodules on your vocal cords because you're
overdoing it. You've got to learn to pull back doing
(27:59):
too shows a night exactly. So I had to learn that.
That's one thing I had to learn. Light and shade,
not to hammer, you know, all the time. And then
and then the when you would record, when you went
into the recording studio, was that something you love because
many artists I talked to they say that's their favorite
(28:21):
thing is to get in there and just and to
lay it down exactly the way they wanted to make
it perfect. Did you love recording? Yeah? Yeah, Well it's
to be honest with you, all roads lead to the stage.
That's what I feel. Everything I do is it all
leads to live performances. You're never happier than when you're
up there exactly. That's when I breathe, That's when I
(28:44):
come alive. So all the other things you know that
I do, like TV and promotion on records and you know,
everything that goes with it, it's all leads to when
I get up there and do it live to the
people you know, and that's when it shows. That's when
you think, ship, I thought this song would work better
than this or I wasn't prepared for this song to
(29:07):
work as well. You don't really know when you're in
the recording studio. There's a difference to when you're on stage,
when you've got to perform these songs. There's a differences
no feedback from the audience in the studio. Well, exactly,
so you're enjoy if I do plays, I enjoy that
feeling them out or I can feel them out there,
you know. Right as far as I'm concerned, that's where
(29:28):
I live. He's on the stage. Singer Tom Jones follow
Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review when we return. Tom Jones talks
about meeting Elvis Presley and playing with Jerry Lee Lewis.
(30:04):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Tom
Jones was married to his wife Linda for nearly sixty
years until her death in two thousand sixteen. They fell
in love at age twelve and had their son Mark
when Linda was just sixteen and Tom was seventeen. Even
from those early days singing in the local pubs, Tom
(30:25):
Jones had a family to support. You know. Some people say, well,
did it get in the way. No, it gave me
more determination. When I was a kid, I wanted to
be a man desperately, you know. I saw my cousins
going to the pubs with my father and his brothers.
You know, I desperately wanted to get in that world.
You know, So getting married was one of those things.
(30:47):
It was the rite of passage. Exactly, look at this
and I can I can do this, you know, I
can provide. I can provide for my wife and son.
And then my wife was always a fan of my
you know, we were in school. She loved the ways
and she knew what I wanted to do. Now, whether
I succeed or not, it was anybody's guests. But when
(31:08):
Gordon Mills came to see us, you know, see me
in this club, she knew she'd seen him on television
and she said, wow, you know they would be great
if Gordon Mills, if you could do that, that would
be wonderful, wouldn't it. I said, yeah. So it was
always like a family of fair you know. I had
the people in Wales all loved the way I sang,
(31:30):
all my family and I was like, yes, Tommy. You know,
Tommy can do it. Go on, tom You know. It
was all that and my wife was the same way,
you see. So she gave me strength, you know, she
reassured me that I could do it. So you were together.
You were married for how long? Fifty nine years? Fifty
nine years? Yes, we were married for fifty nine years.
(31:50):
We were together before that, but that t B thing
got in the way. I used to look at it
through the from the window of my room. You know,
she was becoming a woman and I wasn't out there. Yeah,
we just give her to this TV thing and I'll
be right over exactly. But let me ask you this,
which is, you're married for fifty years, but according to
(32:12):
other things I've read about you, that didn't prevent you
from becoming, shall we say, a good will ambassador around
the world, if you will, quite right to your quits,
you had many fans, you had many female fans, and
you felt the need to let the relationship with you
go to another, let them into your life a little bit.
Is that correct? Yes? Well, I tell you my wife.
(32:34):
You know, I made a statement once which she didn't
particularly like. I said, my wife keeps me single. She
prevents me from doing something stupid, you know, like marrying
some young girl, you know, and then putting her in
for a new model, you know, as time goes on,
as a lot of people do you know what I mean?
But my wife, you see, I always had this wonderful excuse,
(32:58):
always upfront, saying, excuse me, whatever we do is going
to be fun of games. My wife is number one.
She is there in this house, you know, as long
as she don't find out. You know, she didn't give
me the right of passage. She didn't say, oh I'm
gotta you know, put the put the blinders on. Oh no,
she said, just don't you dare embarrass me. And I said,
(33:18):
I will not ever, I won't do that, you know.
And I was true to my word. I never did.
She was always number one in my life, and she
gave me strength. She was. It wasn't until she passed away,
to be honest with you, that I realized I'm on
my own now, I know. I know. I always remember
that wonderful quote that I'm told was from Sophia loren
(33:40):
And they asked her, what would you think if you
found out your husband was with another woman? And she said,
if my husband slept with a thousand women, that would
hurt me, she was. But if my husband slept with
the same woman a thousand times, then I'd really be concerned.
She said, You know, that says in love. If he
was in love, if everything else was just uh sport,
(34:01):
if you will, you know exactly, that's that's you've hit
the name right on the head. You know. My wife,
God bless her, she would get out of out a
joint if if I had seen somebody, you know, and
she knew that there was more to it than a game. Now,
you see, for all of us when we're young, especially
if we come from a background. And my dad was
a public school teacher, he had no money. He had
(34:23):
six kids. Remember when I was leaving home, the mantra
was I gotta make money. Everything was a problem about money,
and all the friction, oh my household between my parents
was about the lack of money. Money. But at the
same time, you're out there and you're not even conscious,
you mean, you just work like an animal, performing and
performing and performing, and then you don't realize. I mean,
(34:44):
for me, it was probably early thirties and the mid
thirties I realized how lonely I was I was lonely,
and I was wondering if that was a part of
a few as well, which is you're on the road.
I mean, I'm sure it's about your libido on one level,
but on the other level, was it about being lonely
because you were traveling? U um? Now that question has
never been asked before. I've got to try and analyze it.
(35:06):
You remember being lonely during that period when you were
taken off. No, to be honest with you, I never was,
so I can't. You know, it doesn't apply. I was
like a kid in a candy I was just gonna say.
I was just gonna say you were a you were
the proverbial kid in a candy story. And it's still
I mean, and I never got still I still I've
(35:31):
just an eight year old version of what I was before.
But you know, it's a strange thing with time. You know,
when time goes on, things happened to you and you think,
I wonder what I'm going to be like if I
get to be old. You know, what would I be like?
And things do. Nature has a way of making you
accept certain things. You know with your life, you can't
(35:53):
be what you were. You can't. If you think you can,
you're a fool, you know, to yourself, You've got to
be what you are. And I've always tried to be
as honest as possible, you know, and and and that's
a fact on my life. And and I still feel
the same way now. You know, I'm an eight year
old man. Now. My wife has passed away five years ago.
(36:14):
I took a hell of a time to get over
that because I realized I was on my own, which
I had never thought of before. And then when that's
taken away from you, you think, Jesus Christ. I've never
experienced this before in my life, and so that took
an adjustment. But my wife God blessed as she said, look,
you know, go back to London, go back to to
(36:35):
to Britain. Wanted that what you was at the dream
for you you missed him. Yes, my wife, you see,
was always homesick. Even though we had wonderful houses in
Los Angeles. She always had it in her mind that
we would eventually come home. Well, I noticed that for me.
I turned sixty three this year. You're the same age
(36:56):
as my son. It's true. Well you were impossibly young,
but got remarried and my wife and I had six
kids in seven years. Now, wait a minute, could I
just say this, did you did you come here to
confess or just a brag? A little of both. I
must say a little both. But but one thing I realized.
One thing I realized as is I'm getting older, is
(37:17):
that I used to be very political, and the older
I get, the less so I am. Because I'm like,
you know, there's a time when you're younger when you
want to go out in all affairs, your career, your advocacy,
whatever causes you want to support, and you go out
there and you bite it as hard as you can,
and you get in there and fight, and you're in
the scrum there with people. And then as I turned
(37:38):
sixty and have these kids, I thought, you know, I
think I'm done with that for the time being. I
only have the energy to raise my family and go
to work and all these answers. I mean, at the
at the end of the day, that's as you said
to begin with. You know, when you when you're coming
from a working class back around or a middle class
pack around, you want to go out and make money.
You want to get out and provide for your family.
(37:59):
If you and that's your first thing. And look now
that you're as old as you are and you've got
a family, you you're you're basically doing the same thing.
Right as my friends said when I turned sixty, we
still have plenty of time, but none to waste. And
I love that phrase. You know, when you're young, you
think you've got all the time in the world, and
(38:20):
you've got you're gonna do a lot, and you're gonna
do this and do that. You know, I was going
to make movies. I was gonna you know, I had
all these great ideas about what I was going to do,
and then before you know where you are, time is
sort of gone. So you've gotta you know, you you
come to realize, well, now my grandkids. You know that
my grandchildren are here, my son and my daughter and
all my grandkids. That's where I am. Now, what would
(38:43):
you say, especially since you turned fifty, fifty, sixty, sixty five,
as you were getting older, what's been your health regiment?
Because you sound like you're forty years old. You're so energetic,
you're so alert, you're so healthy. Are you a big
are you as a nutrition as an exercise? What's your thing? Yeah,
exercise I used to run a lot, you know. Uh,
(39:06):
then I got be the trouble on my knees, so
I don't, but i'd still. I got on a cross trainer,
you know, I'm on a bike. I do to get
the heart rate up. You've got to. You've got a faith. Yeah,
you've got to do cardio. You've got to. And of
course you've got to be careful with the demon drink,
you know. I mean I used to love to, you know,
have a few years ago. I know, if I want
to keep living, I've got to listen to what the
(39:29):
doctors say, you know, and be careful. And if you
do that, as long as you've got good health, which
I've been lucky enough to have, you know, there's never
everything really wrong with me. Is that you've got to
make the most of it. And as you say yourself,
time is getting, you know, more valuable. I feel now
when you were doing the TV show, I would imagine
(39:52):
you did five seasons of that show, correct, Yeah, And
when you did that, where did you shoot that? L
A We did most of it in London, just outside
north of London, and then some of it from Los
Angeles as well. And when you would do that show
or any performance as you've done. Who are people there
for you that when you were up there on stage
with them you really to s thought this is great
somebody you loved performing with. Well, first of all, the
(40:15):
one that jumps to mind is Jerry Lee Lewis, because
I bought a whole lot of shaking going on when
I was seventeen, you know, and I heard this record
and I thought, fuck me, who is that? You know,
because Elvis? You know, everybody said Elvis is a freak.
And I said, it can't be one. There can't just
be one guy, you know, some white guy that's been
(40:35):
listening to black singers in the South, and oh, yes
it is. It's a freak. And then I hear a
whole lot of shaking Jerry Lee Lewis, and I said,
Jesus Christ, you know this is the same thing. But
he's playing piano. You know, he's not standing up there
with a guitar. He's actually pounding the ship out of
this piano with another another flavor. So when I got
(40:56):
Jerry Lee on my show and I'm looking across the
the piano at him doing the songs with him, you know,
like I went back to when I was seventeen, you
know when I first heard a whole lot of shaking,
And here I am same thing with little Richard, you know,
the same thing. I was a big Little Richard fan,
had all his records, and that he is and I'm
doing good. Call him as molly with him, you know,
(41:17):
and send me some loving So that was my dream.
I was living my dream, you know, like that. And
the same when I met Elvis Presley. I used to
sing with him in his suite in Las Vegas, but
Parker wouldn't let him record with anybody, so we never
got to record together. But I did sing with him,
and I thought, this is fantastic. And then Sonatra, I
never got to sing with him, but I knew him.
(41:38):
I met him, you know, trunk with him. Oh you
were very close to was it Mary Wilson? Yeah, Mary
Wilson of the Supremes. And did you did you record
with her? Uh? No? I almost signed with Moretown. They
wanted me to sign. I would have been the only
white artist on the label at that time, but but
it didn't work out. But we we we out close.
(42:00):
But she met my wife afterwards. You know. Everything was
was cool. She was a good person and she's passed
away since, but she was really really lovely, lovely girl.
Nick Tashes wrote this very famous biography of Dean Martin,
and uh, there's a moment in the book when Elvis
is surging and Martin plays Elvis's song. Then he takes
(42:23):
it off the turntable, puts on a record of his
and plays a song that he takes that off the
turntable and he puts on Bing Crosby and plays a song,
and he says, what's the difference being to me to Elvis?
And then when he said crooning is crooning singing and singing?
Do you feel that way? Do you feel that you're
part of a line of great male vocalists? Yes, yes,
(42:44):
and and and as Dean Martin said, I think Ben
Crosby was maybe the first pop singer. You know that
when I was a kid, you know, my mother and
father listened to him. Ben Crosby was iconic. I can
never get tired of going on YouTube and watching those
shows of them together being with Frank and High Society.
(43:04):
They were in the movie together. They were in the
movie together, and then Frank would sing with Elvis. But
then there's that wonderful thing on YouTube where they switched
songs and Elvis sings Witchcraft Yes, and Frank sings what's
the song? Frank sings love Me Tender, love me Tell,
love me, love me Sweet? Yeah, never let me Go.
(43:25):
He's got the Frank rhythm to it. You know what
I mean. It's so funny. That video is so funny.
Let me ask you this, which is that you've sang
some very colorful songs and very kind of kitchy songs
like pussy Cat and so forth, but you've also sang
songs that are just beautiful pop like she's a lady
who wrote that song? She's a lady? Uh, paul Anka,
(43:45):
But paul Anka, paul Anca, And this is the truth.
Paul Anka was doing my TV show, right, and he
said to me, I've just written this song and you
would sing the ship out of it. It's called My Way,
right And I said really and he said yeah yeah,
And he had done a demo on it, so I listened.
I said, Wow, that sounds great that song. He said,
(44:06):
the only problem is my publisher has sent it to
Frank Sinatra. Now where Frank wants to do it? Frank
does it? You know, you know, but where Frank Sonatra
once he told me, because when I listened to the song,
I thought, have I lived long enough yet? You know,
because I was thirty years old at the time. You
need to have a few more rings on the tree
there to sing that song. Now I could do it, Yeah,
(44:28):
you could, well, let's hear it. But but I want
to ask you this there. This makes me a little
emotional because there's the Tom Jones we know, handsome is
the day is long powerful. But there's a boy in
a house in the south of Wales and he wants
to be a coal miner, he wants to be a man.
(44:48):
He's got tuberculosis. He's gonna go on to become one
of the most popular and the most famous male vocalists
in history. But when what's what's the song that Tom
Jones sings? That's the song for that boy? Is there
a song that really touches you? What's the ballad you
sang where sometimes you almost thought you might crack? It's
(45:10):
so about you. There's one that I did, a Bob
Dylan song that was called What good Am I? What
good am I? If I don't do this, you know,
if I let this happen and don't do anything about it.
That song is hard to sing for me now because
the last verses, what good am I? If I say
foolish things and I laugh in the face of what
(45:32):
sorrow brings? And I just turned my back while you
silently die, What good am I? And I think? Fuck?
You know? Did I could I have done? What? Could
I have done something? But I couldn't? But that song
is hard. What advice does the great Tom Jones have
for his successors, these the young Harry Styles and all
these performers. Just hold onto what you've got. I mean,
(45:54):
you've got to You've got to do it your own way.
You know, you've got to stick to your guns. Take advice,
you know, listen and take advice from people, or I
would never have recorded. Wasn't your pussy cat? You know?
I mean if I'd just gone on instinct. So you've
got to listen, and you've got to take advice. But
at the end of the day, it comes down to yourself,
and that's got to be you. You've got to be
(46:16):
able to look in the mirror and say, I've done
the best I can. I'm doing what I love to do.
If you can't talk to yourself like that, how can
you talk to anybody else. Well, let me just say
thank you, thank you so much. I'm glad you sound great,
you look fantastic. Oh, thank you very much. I thank
you all the best. The once and forever sexiest man alive,
(46:38):
Tom Jones. He had a hit with his cover of
this song, Green Green Grass of Home. INTI, I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing, has brought to you by my heart radio.
A smiling sweetly, It's good to touch the green green
(47:07):
grass of home. The old house is still standing, though
the paint is cracked and dry. And that that old
old tree that I used to play all down the lane,
(47:35):
when my sweet Mary care of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green green grass of home.
Then I awake and look around me, gray walls that
(48:01):
surround me, and I realized, Yes,
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart Radio. He always runs while of those walls,
(00:27):
she as while just talk us at this world. Al
sudo so he strikes Black and the boat. He always
(00:59):
runs while there's walk Yes, those walls. This is such
an anthem. This song is one of the most wonderful
and preposterous anthems to masculinity and chauvinism I've ever heard
in my life. My favorite is he knows the meaning
(01:19):
of success, meaning his needs are more, so he gives less.
He gives less exactly he don't. Black wrote the lyrics.
Oh my god, he said the song doesn't make any sense,
(01:43):
but it ripens, you know. He said, it's about a
guy who's a big fan of himself. All I know
is we got to get a guy that can sing
the ship song to make everybody forget that it's not
about anything, you know what I mean. Well, the thing was,
in those days with the James Bond, all those songs
were big songs, so they wanted a big singer that
(02:04):
could say that had a big voice, you will breathe
and a heart without regrets. Days are asking are all gone.
(02:28):
Just fight he goes on and on and on, but
he thinks for that the fight is re so he strikes.
(02:50):
Let them my guest today is perhaps the only singer
who could have made that song work, Tom Jones. Legend
(03:11):
has it, Jones nearly passed out holding that final note
in this song. Thunderball, the theme song from the fourth
James Bond film. Tom jones booming baritone has led him
to sell over one d million records in his nearly
six decade career. Thunderball was just one of a burst
(03:31):
of hits for Jones when he started out in the
mid nineteen sixties, including It's Not Unusual, What's New, Pussycat,
She's a Lady, Green Green Grass of Home, I'll Never
Fall in Love Again, and Delilah. After topping the UK
charts in xt Jones quickly crossed over to the US.
He won the Best New Artist Grammy Award in and
(03:54):
appeared regularly on The Ed Sullivan Show. He even hosted
his own the variety show This Is Tom Jones. Along
the way, Tom Jones perfected the Sexiest Man Alive look
and devoted himself to playing live shows. He headlined in
Las Vegas at least one week a year between nineteen
(04:16):
and two thousand eleven. Growing up in South Wales, Jones
assumed he'd work in the coal mines like his father,
but at age twelve, he contracted tuberculosis. He spent the
next two years convalescing, listening to American R and B music,
and dreaming of a very different life. I was always
(04:37):
interested in music. Music was always there since I was
a very young child. I was always listening to the
to the radio. And there's a lot of singers in
my family, you see. My uncle was really good. So
I would be listening to these singers growing up. And
then when I had t B they said just go
to bed and stay there. That's all it was in
(04:58):
those days, was rest, and they were going to send
me away. First of all, they said, you either got
to go to Switzerland or Scotland, you know, somewhere where
the air is is pure. But when they checked out
my house, we lived on a hill in South Wales,
not not near a coal mine, and so they said
we'll find if you're can have your own room, you
can stay home, which I was thrilled about because I
(05:20):
didn't want to really go anywhere at that age. Describe
when you decide you've got what it takes to get
up on stage and just start to perform. What your
early career is. Where where are you performing? Yeah, well
in school first of all, and then Chapel, Presbyterian Chapel.
I never I never liked being in a quiet though.
(05:40):
I wanted to shine. You know. I was a show
off as a kid. I think a lot of entertainers
are like that, you know, showing off. You you'll find
something that you're good at and you give it your
full attention. So that's that's what I was doing. So
I was it was more of listening to black gospel
music on the radio and then if I was going
saying the old Rugged Cross, you know, a hymn in Chapel.
(06:04):
I heard my Helia Jackson sing it on on the
radio and I thought, ship, you know, I mean I
want to sing it like that. They were playing black
gospel music on the radio in the South of Wales. Yeah.
The BBC would play a variety of things and that
was part of it. Sometimes you'd hear blues song, you know,
a black voice, you know, a gospel voice especially, I thought, wow,
(06:29):
what is you know, what is that? Why does that
woman sound different? To the way they were singing it
in the chapel. It was a difference in it, you know,
And that caught me. Many of the great singers that
we've had on the show, and we've had quite a few,
Roger Daltrey, we had all these guys on here, and
they all talked about the same thing, choir choruses, church
related singing when they were very young. But when do
(06:52):
you decide you're going to go professional? When do you
decide you're gonna get out there and will make a
stab at then? And what's your first pro gigs? Where
were you? Okay? First one was in a workingman's club locally.
It was on a Saturday night. I was seventeen, and
I shouldn't have been in there, You've got to be
it should have been eighteen. But I was in there,
(07:12):
of course with my father and his brothers, coal miners,
you know. So I couldn't wait to get in there,
you know, I couldn't wait to be a man. I
wanted to drink pints of beer with these fellas. So
I was there on a Saturday night and they booked
some concert party they used to call him, and and
they didn't show up. So the fellow that was running
it said, you know you've got a guitar, right, I
(07:34):
said yeah, yeah, And he said, do you want to
run home and get it and sing as a few songs?
I said sure. So I ran up the road, you know,
it wasn't that far away, grabbed my guitar, an acoustic guitar,
ran back there, and rock and roller just kicked in. Then.
You see, it was in the fifties, this is seven.
So there I was doing like Elvis Presley songs, you know,
(07:57):
stuff like that. So that was it, and they gave
me a pound. They gave you a beer, one pound,
one beer. Whether those days you could have a night
out on a pound, so I could have like five
or six points of beer and that was it. So
so I thought, wow, this is great. So then I
started going playing other pubs and clubs and stuff like that.
(08:20):
When does someone find you right, Well, I was. I
was in one of these workermen's clubs. I got a
band together. By this time, there was a local rock
band cover bands they call him. Now, how many guys
were in the band. Three? There were three guitars. That
was lead guitar, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar. And a druma.
(08:40):
So that was you and four guys. Yeah. By the
time I got with these fellas, they were playing a
y m c A on a Friday night, right, yeah,
So now a Friday was for me. I was like
twenty or something like that, and a Friday night was
a drinking night. You say that was? That? Was it?
I was out with the fellas. I was working on
(09:01):
construction by this time, and I'm out drinking in this pub.
So I knew the bass player from this band and
he came in and he said, look, I was singing
asn't shown. Could you come into the y m c
A and sing some tunes with us? And I said, oh,
come on, Ernon. His name was Vernon. I said, Vernon
is Friday. You know what I mean? This is? This
(09:22):
is drinking like come on, and I said, Saturday is
you know I do shows on Saturday. Well, he said
the singer didn't show. If you don't come, you know,
we won't be able to do the show. So I said, well,
they don't have any booze in a YMC. So he said,
well what about if we get to create a beer
and stick it behind the curtains there? Because they had
(09:43):
a stage and everything for dancing. So I said sure.
So I went able to this friend of mine and
I said, look, you know, when in doubt great balls
of fire, I mean, that's you know exactly. So he said,
do you know create was a fire in c and
they said sure. I said, well then let's do it,
(10:05):
so boom, you know. And then when I must say,
you've had on my brain exactly too much of Lords
out of a man saying you broke my way good exactly,
So so that was the standard you need to know
that song, yes exactly. So that was it. And then
(10:27):
I took this banton that we're already playing these y
m c a s you know, for kids, and I'd
already gone into these workingmen's clubs to sing to coal miners.
So I said, look, there's a whole world here in
South Wales in these workingmen's clubs. They've never had rock
and roll music in there before. So they said, well,
(10:49):
we don't know about I said, I've got a gig
right tomorrow night. I'll take you all in there. So
we get into this club as soon as we walk in.
In those days, electric guitars, you know, and amplifiers and
drums and all that ship. It was like, what the
you know is this? And I said, wait a minute,
fellas to the audience, and they said, oh, yes, we
(11:11):
know you taught me you were fine. But what about
all these other buss that you got with you. I said,
just give us some give us you know these are
coal miners and their girlfriends and that. So I said
to the boys, I said, look, keep the sound down right,
we'll do my mother's eyes will do. I believe, We'll
do some balance that they understand. And then when they're
(11:33):
not looking quit pausifier, right they We're going to clip
them exactly. That's exactly what we did. And by the
end of the night from pay them off, which we
got first of all, which means pay them not to play, right,
that's what they were showing. To pay them off, I said,
just a second, you know, give us a chance. By
(11:53):
the end of the night, the fellow that book the
show said, if I called the police station and get
an extension, could you play to midnight? You know, in
one night now, so someone finds you at one of
these places that professional find you in South Wales exactly
Who was that person? His name was Gordon Mills, and
(12:13):
he was a songwriter and he was all also in
a group then called the Viscounts, which were three fellas
doing three part harmonies. They had some hit records themselves.
They were covering American records. But I knew him. I'd
seen him on TV. He had come to visit his
mother in South Wales because he was He was Welsh
as well, so he came to see me in this
(12:35):
club and he said, you should be in London. I said,
I know that, you know I've been there. You've gone
there for what. I went to get a record deal
because they heard a tape that I did, and so
I already had a record contract with Decca, but that
was like three singles, you know, three strikes in here out,
That's what I had. So then as Gordon Mill shows
(12:57):
up and said I can write songs. I write songs,
and he had written some hit songs for other people,
so I knew that he knew what he was talking about.
And what did he write for you? Then he wrote,
it's not unusual. He wrote, it's not unusual. He wrote it, Yeah,
my god. He had written it for a girl called
Sandy Shaw who had had some hit records. She had
(13:18):
number ones like two or three number ones, and he said,
could you do the demo? So I said sure. So
we go into Regions Sound in Denmark Street and I
did this demo demo, a demonstration record for Sandy Show.
So I said, you know good, this is the fucking
song that we've been looking for. It he said, he said,
(13:42):
he said, you know what that song? I said, yes,
I do. You know this is a hit song and
he said yeah for Sandy Show. I said no. I said, look,
if I don't get this song, I'm going back to Wales.
I said, fuck this you you Oh. I knew as
soon as I heard it, I thought this is a
(14:02):
hit song. So then we went and recorded it properly,
you know, with the with the brass bomp, you know
like that, and then there we yeah, we're often running.
So that was at the end of six. Did you
run into Sandy Shore years later and she was drunk
at a club and said, you Boston, What happened to
Sandy Shore? No, she said, I met her and she
(14:24):
did my TV show later on right, I had a
TV show, so she came on there and she says,
you could do and she said, when I heard you
singing it, I said, whoever singing this song, that's his song.
I wouldn't be able to sing that like that now.
So that song comes out and things change, I assume overnight, overnight,
(14:45):
it's unbelievable, so so much so he went so fast
up the charts. Right, I'm in a pub. I'm doing
a tour now with my band from Wales, Silla Black,
who was a singer. Then she's passed on since she
had a tour and I was on there. I took
I took the place of a man called p J Proby.
(15:07):
He was busting his pants all the time and they said,
you keep doing that and when you're out the fucking door.
So he busted his pants one store off and you
keep sending a piece of cheesecake over his table. Cheesecake.
It's really good, have it trying this exactly. So I
was doing all that. So so there I am on
on this tour and it's not unusual starts going up
(15:29):
the chart and I didn't know. I didn't know it.
It was moving that fast. So I'm in a pub
in between shows with rock bands from a lot of
them from Liverpool at the time. Because the Beatles, you know,
like that, So I'm in this pub and all these
kids are screaming outside, and me like a schmuck. I
walked straight out into the crowd, thinking that they were
(15:51):
there for somebody else, not knowing that it's not unusual
of going up the chat so fast, and I walked
straight into this thing. Well, they ripped the ship out
of my This had one raincoat to my name, and
the thing we're flying all over the place. So I thought, well,
this is it. You know, I'm been tearing you limb
from limb exactly overnight. You know, like a week before
(16:12):
you couldn't get a place of a drink, you know.
Superstar crooner Tom Jones. Another staggeringly accomplished artist who rose
to fame in the sixties was Herb Albert. In addition
to his virtuosic trumpet playing, he was also the A
in A and M Records, the world's largest independent record label.
(16:36):
In our conversation, Albert talked about passing on a song
that became a hit for the Carpenters. As I'm marking
out of Hall's door, I said, how is there a
song that do you think I might be able to handle?
Or song that you have talked away in the Jordan
same yarn I gave bird. Two days later, he sent
me close to You, which was going to be the
follow up to this Guy's in Love with You. I
(16:59):
recorded it in the studio. I'm listening to the playback
and my engineer friend Larry Levine rested. So look to me,
says man, you sound terrible singing this. I don't forget it.
I lost my confidence. I put that thing in the
drawer when I signed the Carpenters in so a year later,
I gave him close to You. Here the rest of
(17:23):
my conversation with herb Albert at Here's the Thing dot org.
After the break, Tom Jones talks about how he developed
his on stage sex appeal. I'm Alec Baldwin and this
(17:47):
is Here's the thing. Tom Jones had a breakout hit
with It's Not Unusual in and he was eager to
get to the top of the charts again. But he
couldn't have been more surprised by the song that took
him there. And all of a sudden, my manager says,
look you know Bert Packer acas I said, of course,
I do you know how David was in houses exactly?
(18:11):
So they have written a song for a Woody Allen film. Right,
oh okay, and they want you to do the title
song and it's called What's New pussy Cat? I said,
oh great, okay, let me hear it. So we go
to this flat in London. Bert Back, like I said,
he was with Angie Dickinson then, who I was in
(18:32):
love with. And I'm just a you know, twenty four
year old fellow and I'm sitting there. I said, okay,
can I hear the song? And he said sure. So.
Now Bert Packer Rack can't sing, you know, I mean,
he admits to it himself. He can't. He's a great songwriter,
but he's not a singer. So he's at the piano
and he starts. Now I'm being listening to rhythm blues
(18:56):
records like that rock and roll, fifties rock and roll.
All of my sudden, Burt Back rocks on this piano,
going damn day damn Dana Bam Bam damn Danda bam
bah d that like Kurt Vile, and I'm thinking, what
the fund has this? So he finishes it right, and
I said, you're pulling my leg right, and he said,
(19:19):
what I said, You're trying to catch me out don't you.
I said, you're I am, you know, twenty four years
old from Wales, don't know anything. You're playing this piece
of ship and you're trying to say what do you think?
And I'm gonna go it's a it's a test. So
and then then you're gonna say, well, that's not the song.
This is And he said that's the song and I said,
(19:42):
so my managers there now you know this is Bert
back Iraq. You know it's behind Burt background looking at
going to stop stop. Yeah, I said, look, I said
I can't. I can't say this. And he said, what
of course you can't. I said, no, I can't. I said,
it doesn't make any sense to me, you know. So
fair play for Birt, you know. He said, I'll demo it.
(20:04):
I'll make a demonstration record of it so you can
live with it for at least a week and see
what do you think. So my manager is like, you know,
Golden Mills, he's gone white and the music publishers there,
you know, and he's like, oh ship, you know, Birt
back around? Wouldy Allen film? You know what I mean?
And they're schmuck from Wales. They say they can't do it.
(20:24):
So anyway, so I lived with the song, and until
I did it, I wasn't sure of it, you know,
I mean, when did you get it? Like when I
sang it. As soon as I got in the studio,
he was there, which was strange. He had four four
upright pianos in a square and he's banging away on
him right. He's got this full August for there, and
(20:46):
he goes, okay, you need to think of this as
like the Midnight Hour. Right you're Wilson Pickett. You do
a midnight Hour, sing the ship out of it. And
I said, all right, so what you hear is we
see pussy can't. You're delicious and if come true, yeah,
(21:08):
I'll soon be kiss kissing you act inside the song.
There's a performance inside the song. Super masculine. I mean,
like I told you, you look like you're the captain
of the rugby team. You look like you chopped down
the whole forest with an ax when you're a little boy.
You're so super masculine in your performance persona. And it
(21:29):
was so delightful to have you played through these playful words.
You know, a lot of these songs are very playful,
not just like like Green Green, Grass of Home is
a straight ahead, just killer ballad. I mean, there's one
of the great ballads of all time, and you sing
the ship out of it. But it's a very straight ahead, sentimental,
old school kind of ballad, whereas some of these other
songs you sang like Pussycats the best example and Thunderball,
(21:53):
it's very playful. There's a kind of a there's a
performance you have to give. Yes, yes, you've got to
treat it like you mean it. And even though it's
like a novelty song, really you know, you've got to
try and make this novel take it seriously, take it seriously,
and and I honestly, I mean you hit the name
right on the head when you say acting. You know,
I think singers actors. It's just that we put it
(22:15):
into into into song, but it's still acting. That's the
way I feel. You've got to get in the song
and live it. You make it your own or you
put your own self in that character. And that's what
I always what I always say about. You know, they say, oh,
you covered this record. No, No, I didn't cover it.
I gave you my interpretation of it, just like an
(22:37):
actor does with when he or she does a rule,
it's gonna be different, different than what somebody else would
do it now, when you know, during the sixties and
the seventies and beyond, everything just seems much more deliberate
in terms of packaging a star. You know, their albums,
and they're remember album artwork on the album covers and
(22:59):
the liner no oats, and it was such a presentation
of things that were so much deeper and richer than
they seemed to be now. And and one thing is,
of course, is uh costuming. I mean, you're a guy
who comes out there and you've got the jump suits
and everything. You're obviously very fit guy. Whose idea was
it to make you into the sex symbol in terms
of your styling? You're an unrepentant sex symbol in your styling.
(23:22):
Whose idea was that? Mine? Yours? Literally? Literally literally it
came from necessity. Really, I would start off in a suit, yes, right,
because I was told to you know what, I had
my TV show. They said, you gotta put a suit on,
you gotta put a tuxedo on, you know, you gotta
put a boat tie on. I said, this is not
(23:43):
natural for me. You know, I don't like that, you know,
so anyway, I would get rid of it as soon
as possible. So to tell you would come off, the
jacket would come off, the shoot would be open, you
know what I mean. Because I was sweating my bullocks
on an actual fact, you know what I mean. So
I had to strip down. I mean I did a
rehearsal once at a club in London and the same
(24:04):
thing happened. In rehearsal. I said, funk the court. You know,
I gotta get to get rid of his jacket, you know.
And I'm here and my shirt was open, and Gordon
Mills said to me, that's the look. I said, what
he said, as you are now without the jacket, with
the shirt open, you know, you look like you're gonna
you know, you're gonna conquer the bucket world. And I said, well,
(24:24):
that's on the ass. You're gonna take a bite out
of everything exactly. But anyway, so that's what it was.
It was from necessity. So I mean, when when when
you're finding your look, when you're finding your thing to perform,
it's all you. You're calling the shots, yeah, more or less,
you know, I mean I had to tone it down
(24:44):
on Network TV. Yeah, Well, the first time I came
up against it was when I came to doing that
Sullivan Show in sixty five. But it's not unusual. And
they said, we've got to see you do it, you know,
let's watch you in in the rehearsal room. And I said, well,
play the record, you know you you know, we need
to hear you say it. You're going to do exactly.
(25:08):
So I started doing my thing, you know, and they said, whoa, whoa.
You know, they said, you can do that. You can't
do that on television on Sunday night, you know what
I mean? And I said why They said, because you can't.
And I thought shit, I thought America was like, you know,
wide open British television. I was doing it, and I thought,
(25:31):
what ship? If I could do it in England, how
come you know, in New York on the at Sullivan. God.
But they were telling me the same thing as they
told Elvis Presley in fifty six when he went on
there nine years before me. They were giving me the
same bullshit. They said, if you do that, we'll cut
the close ups. Did you tone it down or you didn't? Yeah,
(25:51):
a bit. I had to because my manager said, you know,
and the people around me and said, if you don't,
they won't let you on there. You know, they'll cut
you out of the show. So I thought, well, that's
no good. You know, I gotta I want to get
on the Ad Sullivan Show because Elvis Presley, you know,
that was his big break really at the beginning of
his career, and the same thing for the Beatles. As
(26:12):
far as America was concerned, that was it. So I thought, well,
you know, behave yourself to a certain extent and hopefully
get invited back. Yes, and he and thank god, he
liked me so much. I did like five ads all
of the shows, you know, within that year. It was tremendous. Yeah. Yeah,
Now describe for me if you would. I remember back
(26:32):
in I was going to do a film that had
a kind of a Vegas theme to it. So a
group of us in the cast went to Vegas for
a long weekend. And I wasn't much of a Vegas person,
but we go and he gets tickets for us to
go see Sinatra at Valleys and Sinatra comes out and
I'm I'm not exaggery. It was beyond belief how fantastic
he was. You couldn't even describe. And his one of
(26:55):
his assistance comes out. We looked at it and said,
oh my god, it's just we can believe. She said, yeah.
He laid off the booze, he laid off the cigarettes.
He ate really well. He really trained and got himself
ready to come back. He really wanted to pamper his
voice and come and really do this, and he sounded
like it was. He sounded so magical. What's that like
for you if you had to because you you had polyps? Correct? Yeah, yeah,
(27:18):
I had polyps because I was doing two shows a
night in Las Vegas for a month straight. Stranger voice. Yeah,
so I was over singing, and Frank Snazra God bless him,
said to me, you're giving too much. You don't have
to hit everything as hard as you are, you know.
He said, you've got to be able to light in shade.
You know, you won't last if you do this twice
(27:38):
a night, you're gonna be in trouble. And me, macho,
you know from Waal, like I could do this, you
know what I mean? But he was right. After a while,
he took its toll and then I had to see
a man in in in l A and he said,
you've got these nodules on your vocal cords because you're
overdoing it. You've got to learn to pull back doing
(27:59):
too shows a night exactly. So I had to learn that.
That's one thing I had to learn. Light and shade,
not to hammer, you know, all the time. And then
and then the when you would record, when you went
into the recording studio, was that something you love because
many artists I talked to they say that's their favorite
(28:21):
thing is to get in there and just and to
lay it down exactly the way they wanted to make
it perfect. Did you love recording? Yeah? Yeah, Well it's
to be honest with you, all roads lead to the stage.
That's what I feel. Everything I do is it all
leads to live performances. You're never happier than when you're
up there exactly. That's when I breathe, That's when I
(28:44):
come alive. So all the other things you know that
I do, like TV and promotion on records and you know,
everything that goes with it, it's all leads to when
I get up there and do it live to the
people you know, and that's when it shows. That's when
you think, ship, I thought this song would work better
than this or I wasn't prepared for this song to
(29:07):
work as well. You don't really know when you're in
the recording studio. There's a difference to when you're on stage,
when you've got to perform these songs. There's a differences
no feedback from the audience in the studio. Well, exactly,
so you're enjoy if I do plays, I enjoy that
feeling them out or I can feel them out there,
you know. Right as far as I'm concerned, that's where
(29:28):
I live. He's on the stage. Singer Tom Jones follow
Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review when we return. Tom Jones talks
about meeting Elvis Presley and playing with Jerry Lee Lewis.
(30:04):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. Tom
Jones was married to his wife Linda for nearly sixty
years until her death in two thousand sixteen. They fell
in love at age twelve and had their son Mark
when Linda was just sixteen and Tom was seventeen. Even
from those early days singing in the local pubs, Tom
(30:25):
Jones had a family to support. You know. Some people say, well,
did it get in the way. No, it gave me
more determination. When I was a kid, I wanted to
be a man desperately, you know. I saw my cousins
going to the pubs with my father and his brothers.
You know, I desperately wanted to get in that world.
You know, So getting married was one of those things.
(30:47):
It was the rite of passage. Exactly, look at this
and I can I can do this, you know, I
can provide. I can provide for my wife and son.
And then my wife was always a fan of my
you know, we were in school. She loved the ways
and she knew what I wanted to do. Now, whether
I succeed or not, it was anybody's guests. But when
(31:08):
Gordon Mills came to see us, you know, see me
in this club, she knew she'd seen him on television
and she said, wow, you know they would be great
if Gordon Mills, if you could do that, that would
be wonderful, wouldn't it. I said, yeah. So it was
always like a family of fair you know. I had
the people in Wales all loved the way I sang,
(31:30):
all my family and I was like, yes, Tommy. You know,
Tommy can do it. Go on, tom You know. It
was all that and my wife was the same way,
you see. So she gave me strength, you know, she
reassured me that I could do it. So you were together.
You were married for how long? Fifty nine years? Fifty
nine years? Yes, we were married for fifty nine years.
(31:50):
We were together before that, but that t B thing
got in the way. I used to look at it
through the from the window of my room. You know,
she was becoming a woman and I wasn't out there. Yeah,
we just give her to this TV thing and I'll
be right over exactly. But let me ask you this,
which is, you're married for fifty years, but according to
(32:12):
other things I've read about you, that didn't prevent you
from becoming, shall we say, a good will ambassador around
the world, if you will, quite right to your quits,
you had many fans, you had many female fans, and
you felt the need to let the relationship with you
go to another, let them into your life a little bit.
Is that correct? Yes? Well, I tell you my wife.
(32:34):
You know, I made a statement once which she didn't
particularly like. I said, my wife keeps me single. She
prevents me from doing something stupid, you know, like marrying
some young girl, you know, and then putting her in
for a new model, you know, as time goes on,
as a lot of people do you know what I mean?
But my wife, you see, I always had this wonderful excuse,
(32:58):
always upfront, saying, excuse me, whatever we do is going
to be fun of games. My wife is number one.
She is there in this house, you know, as long
as she don't find out. You know, she didn't give
me the right of passage. She didn't say, oh I'm
gotta you know, put the put the blinders on. Oh no,
she said, just don't you dare embarrass me. And I said,
(33:18):
I will not ever, I won't do that, you know.
And I was true to my word. I never did.
She was always number one in my life, and she
gave me strength. She was. It wasn't until she passed away,
to be honest with you, that I realized I'm on
my own now, I know. I know. I always remember
that wonderful quote that I'm told was from Sophia loren
(33:40):
And they asked her, what would you think if you
found out your husband was with another woman? And she said,
if my husband slept with a thousand women, that would
hurt me, she was. But if my husband slept with
the same woman a thousand times, then I'd really be concerned.
She said, You know, that says in love. If he
was in love, if everything else was just uh sport,
(34:01):
if you will, you know exactly, that's that's you've hit
the name right on the head. You know. My wife,
God bless her, she would get out of out a
joint if if I had seen somebody, you know, and
she knew that there was more to it than a game. Now,
you see, for all of us when we're young, especially
if we come from a background. And my dad was
a public school teacher, he had no money. He had
(34:23):
six kids. Remember when I was leaving home, the mantra
was I gotta make money. Everything was a problem about money,
and all the friction, oh my household between my parents
was about the lack of money. Money. But at the
same time, you're out there and you're not even conscious,
you mean, you just work like an animal, performing and
performing and performing, and then you don't realize. I mean,
(34:44):
for me, it was probably early thirties and the mid
thirties I realized how lonely I was I was lonely,
and I was wondering if that was a part of
a few as well, which is you're on the road.
I mean, I'm sure it's about your libido on one level,
but on the other level, was it about being lonely
because you were traveling? U um? Now that question has
never been asked before. I've got to try and analyze it.
(35:06):
You remember being lonely during that period when you were
taken off. No, to be honest with you, I never was,
so I can't. You know, it doesn't apply. I was
like a kid in a candy I was just gonna say.
I was just gonna say you were a you were
the proverbial kid in a candy story. And it's still
I mean, and I never got still I still I've
(35:31):
just an eight year old version of what I was before.
But you know, it's a strange thing with time. You know,
when time goes on, things happened to you and you think,
I wonder what I'm going to be like if I
get to be old. You know, what would I be like?
And things do. Nature has a way of making you
accept certain things. You know with your life, you can't
(35:53):
be what you were. You can't. If you think you can,
you're a fool, you know, to yourself, You've got to
be what you are. And I've always tried to be
as honest as possible, you know, and and and that's
a fact on my life. And and I still feel
the same way now. You know, I'm an eight year
old man. Now. My wife has passed away five years ago.
(36:14):
I took a hell of a time to get over
that because I realized I was on my own, which
I had never thought of before. And then when that's
taken away from you, you think, Jesus Christ. I've never
experienced this before in my life, and so that took
an adjustment. But my wife God blessed as she said, look,
you know, go back to London, go back to to
(36:35):
to Britain. Wanted that what you was at the dream
for you you missed him. Yes, my wife, you see,
was always homesick. Even though we had wonderful houses in
Los Angeles. She always had it in her mind that
we would eventually come home. Well, I noticed that for me.
I turned sixty three this year. You're the same age
(36:56):
as my son. It's true. Well you were impossibly young,
but got remarried and my wife and I had six
kids in seven years. Now, wait a minute, could I
just say this, did you did you come here to
confess or just a brag? A little of both. I
must say a little both. But but one thing I realized.
One thing I realized as is I'm getting older, is
(37:17):
that I used to be very political, and the older
I get, the less so I am. Because I'm like,
you know, there's a time when you're younger when you
want to go out in all affairs, your career, your advocacy,
whatever causes you want to support, and you go out
there and you bite it as hard as you can,
and you get in there and fight, and you're in
the scrum there with people. And then as I turned
(37:38):
sixty and have these kids, I thought, you know, I
think I'm done with that for the time being. I
only have the energy to raise my family and go
to work and all these answers. I mean, at the
at the end of the day, that's as you said
to begin with. You know, when you when you're coming
from a working class back around or a middle class
pack around, you want to go out and make money.
You want to get out and provide for your family.
(37:59):
If you and that's your first thing. And look now
that you're as old as you are and you've got
a family, you you're you're basically doing the same thing.
Right as my friends said when I turned sixty, we
still have plenty of time, but none to waste. And
I love that phrase. You know, when you're young, you
think you've got all the time in the world, and
(38:20):
you've got you're gonna do a lot, and you're gonna
do this and do that. You know, I was going
to make movies. I was gonna you know, I had
all these great ideas about what I was going to do,
and then before you know where you are, time is
sort of gone. So you've gotta you know, you you
come to realize, well, now my grandkids. You know that
my grandchildren are here, my son and my daughter and
all my grandkids. That's where I am. Now, what would
(38:43):
you say, especially since you turned fifty, fifty, sixty, sixty five,
as you were getting older, what's been your health regiment?
Because you sound like you're forty years old. You're so energetic,
you're so alert, you're so healthy. Are you a big
are you as a nutrition as an exercise? What's your thing? Yeah,
exercise I used to run a lot, you know. Uh,
(39:06):
then I got be the trouble on my knees, so
I don't, but i'd still. I got on a cross trainer,
you know, I'm on a bike. I do to get
the heart rate up. You've got to. You've got a faith. Yeah,
you've got to do cardio. You've got to. And of
course you've got to be careful with the demon drink,
you know. I mean I used to love to, you know,
have a few years ago. I know, if I want
to keep living, I've got to listen to what the
(39:29):
doctors say, you know, and be careful. And if you
do that, as long as you've got good health, which
I've been lucky enough to have, you know, there's never
everything really wrong with me. Is that you've got to
make the most of it. And as you say yourself,
time is getting, you know, more valuable. I feel now
when you were doing the TV show, I would imagine
(39:52):
you did five seasons of that show, correct, Yeah, And
when you did that, where did you shoot that? L
A We did most of it in London, just outside
north of London, and then some of it from Los
Angeles as well. And when you would do that show
or any performance as you've done. Who are people there
for you that when you were up there on stage
with them you really to s thought this is great
somebody you loved performing with. Well, first of all, the
(40:15):
one that jumps to mind is Jerry Lee Lewis, because
I bought a whole lot of shaking going on when
I was seventeen, you know, and I heard this record
and I thought, fuck me, who is that? You know,
because Elvis? You know, everybody said Elvis is a freak.
And I said, it can't be one. There can't just
be one guy, you know, some white guy that's been
(40:35):
listening to black singers in the South, and oh, yes
it is. It's a freak. And then I hear a
whole lot of shaking Jerry Lee Lewis, and I said,
Jesus Christ, you know this is the same thing. But
he's playing piano. You know, he's not standing up there
with a guitar. He's actually pounding the ship out of
this piano with another another flavor. So when I got
(40:56):
Jerry Lee on my show and I'm looking across the
the piano at him doing the songs with him, you know,
like I went back to when I was seventeen, you
know when I first heard a whole lot of shaking,
And here I am same thing with little Richard, you know,
the same thing. I was a big Little Richard fan,
had all his records, and that he is and I'm
doing good. Call him as molly with him, you know,
(41:17):
and send me some loving So that was my dream.
I was living my dream, you know, like that. And
the same when I met Elvis Presley. I used to
sing with him in his suite in Las Vegas, but
Parker wouldn't let him record with anybody, so we never
got to record together. But I did sing with him,
and I thought, this is fantastic. And then Sonatra, I
never got to sing with him, but I knew him.
(41:38):
I met him, you know, trunk with him. Oh you
were very close to was it Mary Wilson? Yeah, Mary
Wilson of the Supremes. And did you did you record
with her? Uh? No? I almost signed with Moretown. They
wanted me to sign. I would have been the only
white artist on the label at that time, but but
it didn't work out. But we we we out close.
(42:00):
But she met my wife afterwards. You know. Everything was
was cool. She was a good person and she's passed
away since, but she was really really lovely, lovely girl.
Nick Tashes wrote this very famous biography of Dean Martin,
and uh, there's a moment in the book when Elvis
is surging and Martin plays Elvis's song. Then he takes
(42:23):
it off the turntable, puts on a record of his
and plays a song that he takes that off the
turntable and he puts on Bing Crosby and plays a song,
and he says, what's the difference being to me to Elvis?
And then when he said crooning is crooning singing and singing?
Do you feel that way? Do you feel that you're
part of a line of great male vocalists? Yes, yes,
(42:44):
and and and as Dean Martin said, I think Ben
Crosby was maybe the first pop singer. You know that
when I was a kid, you know, my mother and
father listened to him. Ben Crosby was iconic. I can
never get tired of going on YouTube and watching those
shows of them together being with Frank and High Society.
(43:04):
They were in the movie together. They were in the
movie together, and then Frank would sing with Elvis. But
then there's that wonderful thing on YouTube where they switched
songs and Elvis sings Witchcraft Yes, and Frank sings what's
the song? Frank sings love Me Tender, love me Tell,
love me, love me Sweet? Yeah, never let me Go.
(43:25):
He's got the Frank rhythm to it. You know what
I mean. It's so funny. That video is so funny.
Let me ask you this, which is that you've sang
some very colorful songs and very kind of kitchy songs
like pussy Cat and so forth, but you've also sang
songs that are just beautiful pop like she's a lady
who wrote that song? She's a lady? Uh, paul Anka,
(43:45):
But paul Anka, paul Anca, And this is the truth.
Paul Anka was doing my TV show, right, and he
said to me, I've just written this song and you
would sing the ship out of it. It's called My Way,
right And I said really and he said yeah yeah,
And he had done a demo on it, so I listened.
I said, Wow, that sounds great that song. He said,
(44:06):
the only problem is my publisher has sent it to
Frank Sinatra. Now where Frank wants to do it? Frank
does it? You know, you know, but where Frank Sonatra
once he told me, because when I listened to the song,
I thought, have I lived long enough yet? You know,
because I was thirty years old at the time. You
need to have a few more rings on the tree
there to sing that song. Now I could do it, Yeah,
(44:28):
you could, well, let's hear it. But but I want
to ask you this there. This makes me a little
emotional because there's the Tom Jones we know, handsome is
the day is long powerful. But there's a boy in
a house in the south of Wales and he wants
to be a coal miner, he wants to be a man.
(44:48):
He's got tuberculosis. He's gonna go on to become one
of the most popular and the most famous male vocalists
in history. But when what's what's the song that Tom
Jones sings? That's the song for that boy? Is there
a song that really touches you? What's the ballad you
sang where sometimes you almost thought you might crack? It's
(45:10):
so about you. There's one that I did, a Bob
Dylan song that was called What good Am I? What
good am I? If I don't do this, you know,
if I let this happen and don't do anything about it.
That song is hard to sing for me now because
the last verses, what good am I? If I say
foolish things and I laugh in the face of what
(45:32):
sorrow brings? And I just turned my back while you
silently die, What good am I? And I think? Fuck?
You know? Did I could I have done? What? Could
I have done something? But I couldn't? But that song
is hard. What advice does the great Tom Jones have
for his successors, these the young Harry Styles and all
these performers. Just hold onto what you've got. I mean,
(45:54):
you've got to You've got to do it your own way.
You know, you've got to stick to your guns. Take advice,
you know, listen and take advice from people, or I
would never have recorded. Wasn't your pussy cat? You know?
I mean if I'd just gone on instinct. So you've
got to listen, and you've got to take advice. But
at the end of the day, it comes down to yourself,
and that's got to be you. You've got to be
(46:16):
able to look in the mirror and say, I've done
the best I can. I'm doing what I love to do.
If you can't talk to yourself like that, how can
you talk to anybody else. Well, let me just say
thank you, thank you so much. I'm glad you sound great,
you look fantastic. Oh, thank you very much. I thank
you all the best. The once and forever sexiest man alive,
(46:38):
Tom Jones. He had a hit with his cover of
this song, Green Green Grass of Home. INTI, I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing, has brought to you by my heart radio.
A smiling sweetly, It's good to touch the green green
(47:07):
grass of home. The old house is still standing, though
the paint is cracked and dry. And that that old
old tree that I used to play all down the lane,
(47:35):
when my sweet Mary care of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green green grass of home.
Then I awake and look around me, gray walls that
(48:01):
surround me, and I realized, Yes,
Host
Alec Baldwin
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