He’s famous for hit hits and hips and at 80, legendary singer Sir Tom Jones has almost too many to count!
To be precise, the Welshman has had 36 Top 40 hits spanning five decades and over 100 million record sales to his name.
Musical calling cards such as It’s Not Unusual, What’s New Pussycat, Delilah, If I Only Knew and Sex Bomb barely scratch the surface of a career in which also takes in countless Las Vegas residencies and a string of Grammy, Ivor Novello and Brit Awards.
At 80 years and 10 months old, Sir Tom became the oldest male to claim a Number 1 album on the Official Albums Chart, and the oldest artist ever to do so with an album of new material, overtaking Bob Dylan, who topped the chart at 79 years old last June.
His new album is Surrounded By Time and ironically it includes a cover of Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee”
We spoke about the new record, what keeps him going and his buddies, The Beatles.
Surrounded By Time out now from EMI records features Talking Reality Television Blues that catalogues the impact and changing role of television from its beginning to current times.
As Tom explains, ”I was there when TV started — didn’t know I’d become a part of it — but it could be that its power is to remind us how wonderful, crazy and inventive we are, but also how scary the reality it reflects can be.”
The full track-listing is:
- I Won’t Crumble With You If You Fall (Bernice Johnson Reagon)
- The Windmills Of Your Mind (Michel Legrand/Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
- Popstar (Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam)
- No Hole In My Head (Malvina Reynolds)
- Talking Reality Television Blues (Todd Snider)
- I Won’t Lie (Michael Kiwanuka & Paul Butler)
- This is the Sea (Michael Scott)
- One More Cup Of Coffee (Bob Dylan)
- Samson And Delilah (Tom Jones, Ethan Johns, Mark Woodward)
- Mother Earth (Tony Jo White)
- I’m Growing Old (Bobby Cole)
- Lazarus Man (Terry Callier)
