Sir Tom Jones Talks Reality Television, New Album ‘Surrounded By Time’

For Welsh singer Tom Jones, 80, the goal heading into sessions for his 41st studio album was simple - to look ahead and push the music forward rather than reflecting upon what he’s accomplished.

Working with producer Ethan Johns for the fourth time in ten years, Jones reimagines twelve songs, experimenting occasionally with vocal delivery like spoken word as Johns takes an atmospheric approach to the instrumentation supporting him, cutting the new tracks live in the studio with Jones backed by a full band.

An almost Doors-like jazz underpinning drives Jones’ take on Terry Callier’s “Lazarus Man,” while indie rock resembling Radiohead percolates beneath the captivating “Talking Reality Television Blues,” a Todd Snider cut which looks back at the history of television and it’s impact on society, Jones revisiting televised cultural flash points ranging anywhere from the moon landing to the rise of reality TV.

Surrounded By Time is the first album for Jones since the death of his wife Linda, who passed away in 2016 following a bout with lung cancer after 59 years of marriage. “I Won’t Crumble With You if You Fall” opens the new record, a reference to his wife’s wish that he continue singing and performing.

From there, a narrative emerges throughout the 11 songs that follow, 80 plus years of life experience tying everything together. The singer addresses the idea of aging on Bobby Cole’s “I’m Growing Old,” a song he waited nearly 50 years for the right moment to sing, poignantly tackles the environment on Tony Joe White’s “Ol’ Mother Earth” and hits upon everyone from Cat Stevens (“Pop Star”) to Bob Dylan (“One More Cup of Coffee”) along the way.

I spoke with Sir Tom Jones about the singing and storytelling that guides Surrounded By Time (now available via EMI/S-Curve Records on CD, cassette, vinyl and via online streaming platforms), of the musical relationship with producer Ethan Johns that inspires him, growing up on American pop, gospel and R&B music in South Wales and the unlikely path to #1 for his biggest hit “It’s Not Unusual.” A transcript of our phone conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows below.

The songs you chose for this album really tell a story. A narrative emerges throughout the course of it between the first track and the last. Were you conscious of that in the selection of these songs?

SIR TOM JONES: Yes. The linking up of the songs - that sort of concerned me.

When Ethan and my son Mark said, “What do you think about recording?” I said, “Well, I’ve got songs in my head. But are they important to me?” And Ethan said, “Well, that’s all you really want. If they’re important to you at different times of your life, that’s the link. It’s like your life in song really.” And I said, “Well, yeah - that’s true.” He said, “Well, there it is.” 

And that’s the way I look at songs. If I could write songs - I’ve written a few things but nothing special - but if I could, I would write those songs. I would write what Bob Dylan writes. But of course I can’t. So I pick those songs like that. 

And the link between them is that it’s all to do with my life. Over 80 years of living should teach you something. And then to reflect in the way that you sing. I sing songs differently now than I did 50 years ago. 

I’ve heard that you had set a few of these songs aside decades ago waiting for an age at which you felt you could do them justice. How did you go about selecting the songs for Surrounded By Time?

TJ: Two of them, yes.

When my son said, “Don’t you think it’s about time you recorded an album?” we hadn’t done one since my wife passed away. I didn’t feel like it for a while first of all. But I said, “OK. Let’s see if we can get some songs that reflect my life - different parts of my life.”

So I had two songs. I had “I’m Growing Old,” which Bobby Cole gave me in the 70s in Vegas. I told him, “I don’t think I’m old enough to record that yet.” I said, “If I ever get there…” “Maybe 70,” I thought. But it turns out I’m 80. So I thought, “Well, now’s the time to do it.”

And the same thing with “Ol’ Mother Earth,” which was a Tony Joe White song. I got to know Tony Joe White and I love his stuff. I thought, “What a great song that is!” Ethan said, “The words are fantastic but the melody I don’t think is all that.” I said, “I’ve got to do this song. However we pull it off. We’ve got to work on it but I think it’s a very important message. What about if I speak it?” And he said, “I agree with you. Let’s try it.” So I spoke it - and it worked.

I realized that sometimes the spoken word is more important - sometimes - than singing it. Because there’s no melody. You see, when you sing something, people are listening to the melody of the song as you sing it. So it’s sometimes as important as the words. But, when the words are this important - like on “Ol’ Mother Earth” - that’s the most important thing about the song. The melody then is secondary.

So I spoke it as opposed to singing it. 

MORE FROM FORBESDion DiMucci On Discovering The Blues And Working With Artists Like Joe Bonamassa And Billy Gibbons On New Album Blues With FriendsBy Jim Ryan

Two of the more poignant and relevant songs on the album are delivered in spoken word: “Ol’ Mother Earth” and “Talking Reality Television Blues.” With those two songs in particular, how important was it to to take your time and really make sure the lyrical message in each song resonated? 

TJ: The thing that got me interested in spoken word was Hank Williams. Hank Williams had this pseudonym called Luke the Drifter. He released an album called Luke the Drifter: Beyond the Sunset. He speaks all of these songs as opposed to singing them. Because he was so well known as Hank Williams the singer that he took on this other name, Luke the Drifter, and did these songs. I thought, “My god, they sound tremendous just being spoken like that.” He did a song called, “I’ve Been Down That Road Before” about a fella getting into fights. That registered with me! I will do that one one day. But listening to that Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter: Beyond the Sunset, that’s the thing that sparked me about maybe talking some songs.

With “Talking Reality Television Blues,” that is spoken because it was written that way [by Todd Snider]. “Ol’ Mother Earth” wasn’t. But I think with both of them, you don’t really have to do a melody. You’ve just got to get the point across. The words are more important on these two particular songs than trying to sing them. 

What really defines Surrounded By Time for me is how beautifully these songs are reimagined. Whether it’s Prince or Todd Snider, you’ve always done that so well. What’s the key to putting a unique spin on a tune and really making it your own?

TJ: You’ve got to get in it. You’ve got to get into the song. You’ve got to live it.

It’s like an actor. The closest I can get to explaining it is when an actor takes on a role. He or she reads a script and says, “I can do that. I can get into that.” It’s all on the paper. For actors, it’s all in the writing. They always say that.

So it’s an interpretation. Different actors do them in different ways. I look at songs in that light: This is my interpretation of something that somebody else has written. It’s my take on those songs.

One of the things that’s really amazed me in listening to music during the pandemic is the way in which songs have kind of taken on new meaning. I’ll listen to a song that’s 30 or 40 years old, hear a lyric and it hits me in a whole new way during quarantine. I know these songs were completed prior to COVID but have any of them taken on new meaning for you? 

TJ: Yes. Especially “Ol’ Mother Earth.” It makes you think. That song is like up to the minute. We’ve got to think about global warming and the bloody plastics in the ocean and sh-t like that. This thing is important. 

And when you think about them, now that we’ve had time over this pandemic period, I think about them, I think, more than before. You think, “My god, what are we doing?” We’ve got to keep a tight grip on things.

What are we doing to the earth? My father was a coal miner. And he said years ago, “How much coal can they take? How much coal is left in the earth?” And it’s a fact. What are we doing to the planet? We’ve got to think about it. Because the consequences are ridiculous. We’ve got to put a halt to a lot of stuff - emissions and stuff that’s going into the air. We’ve got to think about this!

And I’ve thought more about that since I’ve recorded “Ol’ Mother Earth” than before. It gets more important by the bloody day. 

This album is your fourth working with Ethan Johns. What’s that musical relationship between the two of you like now after more than 10 years?

TJ: We can speak honestly. We both feel the same way - we’re not chasing the charts. When we did Praise & Blame, the first album that we did together, he said, “Just be honest. Let’s just do things that are honest. You sing them the way you want to sing them and hopefully I can get the instrumentation to back you up.” And that’s what it’s been from day one. So the right musicians were needed for different tracks.

The instrumentation has changed - especially on this album. Because Ethan, and rightfully so, said, “This one should be more atmospheric. You should create an atmosphere even before you open your mouth. That’s what I’d like to do.” And I said, “Be my guest. As long as I sound like me, then we can play with the instrumentation.” So that’s what we did. 

With “I’m Growing Old,” there’s only a piano on it. And Neil Cowley, who played the piano, was perfect. He embellished on the chord structure of the song. That wasn’t there until he actually played it. Jeremy Stacey is the drummer on “Talking Reality Television Blues.” There’s a jazz thing that goes underneath it. And he can play that stuff.

So all of these things came into play. Ethan picks the musicians. He has an idea about who he wants to play on certain tracks. I just want to be moved by the track and sing it.

But that’s what he manages to do: he inspires me to sing the songs. 

MORE FROM FORBESRingo Starr On New 'Zoom In' EP And 30 Years Of The All Starr BandBy Jim Ryan

You’ve had your own TV and variety shows. You’re doing reality television with The Voice U.K. Did that give you a different perspective with which to approach a song like “Talking Reality Television Blues?”

TJ: The thing that I thought of more than anything else was that when I was 12 years old, I had tuberculosis. I was quarantined for two years from the time that I was 12 to the time that I was 14.

TV came out in Great Britain in 1952 - the same year that I had to go to bed. So my mother and father bought me a television to keep me happy. We saw the coronation for the first time on television in ‘53 [of Elizabeth II]. So there’s certain events that happened that we were really only privy to by watching it on television.

The moon landing. I was in Connecticut at the time. I was doing two shows at a theater-in-the-round. And I thought, “My god, there’s not going to be an audience here because they’re going to show the moon landing live on television!” I was wrong. Because they did show up. But I got a chance then, between shows, to run to my trailer and actually see it happen live on TV. So that was important.

Take Milton Berle. In the song “Talking Reality Television Blues,” we said, “We all knew Milton Berle and we had a new escape from the world.” Well, we didn’t know who Milton Berle was in Great Britain in the 50s. But when I went to the States, I met him and got to know him very well. I used to ask him about what TV was like. Because they called him Uncle Miltie. He was Mr. Television in the 50s. So I wanted to know all about that. And he told me.

So I was enthralled with TV - the effect that television has had on the world. I don’t know about other countries but I know the effect it’s had on America and I know the effect it’s had in Great Britain. I’ve lived through it and I’ve seen things. And I’m part of it now with The Voice U.K. It’s a very important part of our culture. Good or bad, it’s there. You’ve got to try and take the good from the bad really. It’s entertainment. Of course you’ve also got news - which is very important.

Everything in this song, I experienced. I knew Donald Trump in Atlantic City. I sang at his hotels. He used to come to the shows... he wanted to be introduced. “The owner of the hotel is here tonight…” - they’d put the spotlight on him - “Donald Trump!” So he was the owner of the hotel I was singing at. I didn’t know he’d be going into politics. But then of course he did The Apprentice, you see. “This old guy with a comb-over came along and sold us the moon.” [I thought that lyric] was fantastic. 

Then of course Michael Jackson... The demise of Michael Jackson - which I witnessed. Quincy Jones lived around the corner from me in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Michael used to come around when he was recording with Quincy. So I knew Michael Jackson since he was a kid. And it was just a shame to see what happened to him. But that’s part of life - and it’s in the song. “Doing the moonwalk, walking backwards - eventually too far.” It’s like... it’s true.

I’ve frequently seen you reference growing up on the music of artists like Solomon Burke and Jackie Wilson. That fascinates me because when I was young, I wasn’t going to stumble into artists like that - they weren’t being played on American radio and they weren’t on MTV. Someone was going to have to take me by the hand and introduce me to that music. How were you discovering American R&B artists growing up prior to the dawn of rock and roll in Wales? 

TJ: The radio.

I heard Jackie Wilson doing “Reet Petite.” That was the first one I had heard. I was working in a glove factory in my teens. In that factory, they had the radio on all day to keep the workers happy. And they would play mostly American pop music. “Reet Petite” came on and I thought, “My god, who is that...” Then he did the great ballad “To Be Loved” that he wrote with Berry Gordy. He did a great take on “Danny Boy” as well, which I copied. I got to know Jackie Wilson when I came to the States. But I listened to him in the 50s.

Solomon Burke I heard in the 60s. I’d already moved to London when I first heard him. Brook Benton was a big influence on me. “It’s Just a Matter of Time” was a song that he did, which I loved, and I recorded it on my first album. I got to know him well and I was at his funeral when he died. I was also at Solomon Burke’s funeral. These people were very important to me. 

But I was surprised when I came to the States. When I had “It’s Not Unusual,” it was a young audience. Sometimes kids would say, “Who have you been influenced by?” And I remember saying Big Bill Broonzy. He was a blues singer. And they didn’t know who I was talking about. I thought, “Now wait a minute, how come I know?” But they played him on BBC Radio. I’d even seen a clip of him on the Six-Five Special, which was a rock and roll television show we used to have in the 50s. But we were getting information.

B.B. King has said this about the rock bands in England: “If it weren’t for the rock bands picking up on a lot of these R&B and blues songs, it might have died. Even in the black culture.” A lot of black people I knew didn’t really want to be reminded of the blues [experience], you know what I mean? They wanted to move on. Whereas in Britain, we were listening to Lead Belly. 

But I noticed that white kids in America did not know about their own black music as we did in Britain.

When I asked Ringo Starr that question, he singled out the importance of Radio Luxembourg. I just read an interview with Pete Townshend where he explained the significance of pirate radio. What radio were you listening to in Wales?

TJ: Well, mostly the BBC. But we were getting Radio Luxembourg. There was a big television mast in South Wales so we used to pick up Radio Luxembourg very strongly - stronger in South Wales than they were getting it in London. So we had that late night radio. Radio Luxembourg had the top 20 on and they would play music that the BBC wouldn’t. 

So we were hearing stuff that sometimes the BBC wouldn’t play. So much so that the BBC would not play “It’s Not Unusual.” They had seen me perform and said that I was too… raunchy. So they didn’t want anything to do with me - at the beginning.

But Radio Caroline - which was a pirate ship - they jumped on it. And they played the sh-t out of it! And it was #1 very quickly. We recorded it at the end of ‘64, put it out in February of ‘65 and it was #1 by March 1. And it was all thanks to Radio Caroline - because the BBC wouldn’t play it. So I was on Top of the Pops with a #1 record before the bloody BBC would play it!

It’s a strange thing. But it’s true!