Monday, May 04, 2015

Tom Jones, an icon of the Anglophone culture




Sir Thomas Jones Woodward also known as Tom Jones is a singer born on 7 June 1940 in Pontypridd, South Wales, Great Britain. He comes from a coal-mining family. He began to sing in the church choir at an early age. He was not very interested in school so he left at sixteen and he earned money by doing different jobs.
 In 1957, he married his high school girlfriend and had his son, Mark. In 1963, he became the lead singer of the group Tommy Scott and the Senators and during a performance, he was spotted by Gordon Mills, a London producer and songwriter, who became his manager.

His first single didn't catch on but his second one "It's Not Unusual"immediately achieved considerable success.



Since this song Jones has become increasingly famous. He won his first award in 1966 and, from then on, he won still more and more.
In 1967, Jones performed in Las Vegas for the first time: it has since then become part of his daily life. He met Elvis Presley in 1965 on a film stage but their friendship really began when they started to spend more time together in Las Vegas.
Then, Jones temporally left the front of the scene to focus on his career at television.
In 1969, he produced his own TV show, "This Is Tom Jones", which was broadcast in both the United States and Great Britain. This lasted three years.
Later, he decided to focus on his musical career again by releasing albums and touring internationally.
After Gordon Mills’s death in 1986, Jones's son, Mark, replaced him.
After signing with Interscope Records in 1993, he released some new songs which put him back on the charts again. A lot of collaboration projects followed with a lot of success in both television and music. For instance, he wrote several scores such as the famous "You Can Leave Your Hat On" in the film The Full Monty.
The 21st century got off to a good start with his single "Sex Bomb". 




After being awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1999, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 for his services to music.
Moreover, Jones has participated in several charity and ceremonial concerts such as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert.
Because of his status as a sex symbol, he has had many groupies, some of whom he cheated on his wife with. However, he and his wife have remained married since 1957. One of his numerous affairs resulted in the birth of a son for whom he has never shown any interest.
Despite the fact that his successful period is now over, he is still famous thanks to "The Voice UK", where he has been acting as a coach since 2012.
In conclusion, Jones is an icon of the Anglophone culture, selling over 100 million of records since 1965 hence he got the third position in the top 100 of “100 Welsh Heroes”, an opinion poll from 2003.
Marjorie Guadagnin, Margaux Savary, and Mélanie Vigneron


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice !

Unknown said...

I think all the information about Tom John's,was great.am glad he still alive.