Well, this sure isn’t your mother’s Tom Jones, the one who made her swoon and throw various undergarments at him when he’d gyrate on stage in a way that made Elvis seem like a choir boy in comparison.
A few years ago the Welsh vocalist did a career reassessment and went from heart throb to heartache, from hunk to hunkering down by taking away the glitz and pop of his earlier career and turning into a sage. Here, he continues the trend from the previous Praise & Blame and releases another earthy collection of tunes from the likes of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Blind Willie Thompson, just to name a handful. His voice is the gravitas of a guy sitting alone in his flat, Solomon-like and reflecting back on what and what wasn’t “vanity of vanities.” His voice is foreboding on the slithering “Bad As Me,” and sounds like an old coot that you just picked up hitch-hiking near Needles on “Soul of a Man” and “Travelling Blues.” He even takes the old pop-psychedelic hit “Just Dropped In” and turns it into an ominous Mr Toad’s Wild Ride of soul searching WHEW!
This disc reminds me of something a friend told me years ago, “Always take advice from a guy who walks with a limp.” Jones here bares his soul in a way that is worth hearing.
Rounder Records