![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Tom-Jones-then-x650.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBy Ray Bennett<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2013 Fans of \u201cThe Voice\u201d might not suspect that the venerable Sir Tom Jones, who turns \u00a085 \u00a0today, was censored on American television when he was younger.<\/p>\n
His show \u201cThis is Tom Jones\u201d aired on the ABC network for three seasons until 1971 and his electrifying performances made him a huge sex symbol that terrified his network TV bosses.<\/p>\n
When Jones first appeared on U.S. television \u2013 in 1965 on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d \u2013 the cameras moved to facial closeups when his pelvic thrusts began as they had when Elvis Presley appeared on the show.<\/p>\n
Later, on \u201cThis is Tom Jones\u201d, ABC sent a female censor to monitor his performances. He told me, \u201cShe used to sit there and watch me. I remember once singing \u2018Satisfaction\u2019 and she said, \u2018You can\u2019t move like that and sing that song, it\u2019s too suggestive.\u2019 I said OK, but I did sing it and I did move like that, and we got away with it it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones was always a genial interview. I was a fan from the days he used to jam on British TV shows with Little Richard, John Lennon and Jerry Lee Lewis and others, and demonstrated that he had the chops to stay with the best of them.<\/p>\n
He used to play at the Elmwood Casino, the nightclub in Windsor, Ontario, that was the biggest such venue in the Detroit area in the seventies. He had\u00a0 emerged in the sixties on the strength of the hit song \u201cIt\u2019s Not Unusual\u201d from the obscurity of Britain\u2019s workingmen\u2019s clubs. He told me, \u201cThat\u2019s where entertainers start there. It\u2019s a great training ground in front of a tough audience. If you can make fellas that are drinking beer listen to you then you\u2019re getting across.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones had developed his from-the-hip singing style even then and there would be the occasional over-excited woman in the audience with an annoyed husband. An occasional bottle would be thrown: \u201cI never got hit, though. If it got ugly, we\u2019d close the curtains and get the hell out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in his career, he would be bombarded by hotel-room keys and knickers thrown on stage by adoring female fans. When I interviewed him in 1981, he told me his style wasn’t really something he had much control over \u2013 \u201cI can\u2019t lay back on a song\u201d \u2013 and he viewed his macho strutting with humour: \u201cYou can\u2019t take it seriously. I laugh at myself a bit. If it\u2019s an up-tempo number, a sexy number, then you do it. People want to enjoy themselves but they don\u2019t want something thrust at them.\u201d<\/p>\n At that time, Jones was making a TV comeback after 16 years in a show taped in British Columbia. The TV series, \u201cTom Jones\u201d, was made in Canada for one simple reason, he said, \u201cWe wanted to do a series for syndication but it\u2019s difficult to get people to invest in this kind of show in Los Angeles because it\u2019s very expensive there.\u201d<\/p>\n Canada, however, offered tax-shelter investments and a favourable exchange rate on the U.S. dollar: \u201cOur producer, Clancy Grass, is a Canadian and he came up with the idea of doing it here. Canadians want people to come here and do shows, films or TV or whatever, so it\u2019s good for Canada and it\u2019s good for the entertainer.\u201d<\/p>\n The show sold steadily to nations in South America, the Phillipines and China, and was seen across the U.S. in 1982. He had remained popular in concert, playing at Caesars Palace two months a year in two-week stints, and he spent seven months on the road. He also continued to have hit records with releases such as \u201cDarlin\u2019\u201d and \u201cWhat in the World\u2019s Come Over You?\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking in 1981 when he was 40, Jones had been away from\u00a0Britain for seven years and he hadn\u2019t been back. He made no bones about why he lived in the United States: Promoters in Las Vegas and elsewhere in North America were eager to pay substantial sums to a man whose vigorous singing put new life into dwindling nightclub audiences \u2013 and the U.S. taxman let him keep more of it.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI daren\u2019t go home for a visit. I like living in Britain and if I go back for a short visit it would just be teasing me, so I\u2019d rather not. I\u2019d get homesick and would want to stay, it would tempt me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n He used to carry a little bit of Wales around with him wherever he went in the form of a bristle dartboard from Caerphilly, just down the road from Pontypridd, South Wales, where he was born Thomas Jones Woodward. There was a larger piece beside the pool at his home in Bel Air but it didn\u2019t travel well. It was the old red telephone box from his end of the street in Pontypridd.<\/p>\n Jones said, \u201cI heard that they were putting in new phone boxes and I thought, my God, I\u2019d love to have the one from the end of our street. That was our phone when I was a kid. It was the only one we had.\u201d<\/p>\n He had it shipped out complete with its lists of British exchanges and it sat in the shade of the Georgian-style home that he bought from Dean Martin. It was similar to the home he had for many years in England in the Surrey town of Weybridge, he said: \u201cI wanted a house that was nearly the same and this is \u2013 the red brick and everything. I had all my furniture brought over and all the fittings. I seldom go out when I\u2019m there so really it\u2019s like being in Britain \u2026 except that when I\u2019m out by the pool, the weather\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Fans of \u201cThe Voice\u201d might not suspect that the venerable Sir Tom Jones, who turns \u00a085 \u00a0today, was censored on American television when he was younger. His show \u201cThis is Tom Jones\u201d aired on the … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n