Tom Jones-Praise & Blame (2010)

“I’m going down to the church house, get down on a bended knee, deacon Jones, pray for me, deacon Jones, please, pray for me.”

 -Burnin Hell

You better grab your hymnals and get onboard or get out of the way because Sir Tom Jones is like a freight train headed straight for a revival tent on this, his 39th record since 1963.  Roughly half the record is made up of traditionally styled, old-time gospel hymns, the kind you might hear on a late night radio station out of Kentucky or Alabama.

The rest of the songs are drop down, jet fueled blues and rock and roll numbers that erupt with power, passion and conviction with THAT voice.  It’s taken Jones 51 years to record an album, with a band this good, that has knocked me out like this one. He stays true on this project with his knack of being able to interpret covers in his own unique way. There isn’t a singer on the planet  quite like Tom Jones. The album flagship for me, has got to be John Lee Hooker’s  “Burnin Hell”.  Jones slows the tempo down from the original and gives this song a much more direct focus with a single crunchy distorted slide guitar riff running throughout the  verses.  Just prior to the last go around of the chorus, there is a quiet part where Jones darkly asks:

“When I die, where will I go? Won’t someone please tell me, where will I go?” 

You better believe that his vocal performance in Burnin Hell, when the band comes back in force, features Jones in full voice, in total command of this lyric.

“Maybe there aint no heaven, maybe there aint no hell, no Burnin hell!” 

Another great cut is the Billy Joe Shaver song called  “If I Give My Soul”.  The song also appears on the Johnny Cash collection called Unearthed.  The song tells the story of a man close to the end of his life looking for some type of redemption as he grapples with the wreckage left behind from mistakes he’s made in life. These bad moves have ultimately cost him his wife, son and gainful employment. It takes a singer like Jones to lift those words off the page and present a picture of this character pleading with all he has left that he is a changed man. It’s a powerful song. The songs throughout Praise & Blame allow Jones to show us that he doesn’t have all the answers but rather he’s asking all the same questions as everyone else. I’m including a lot of the words to these songs as we go along because I think they’re important. Tracks like Run On, Aint No Grave and Strange Things Happen Everyday would have been just as at home on Dylans “Slow Train Comin” but they’re not, they’re here, so the planets are spinning as they should.

I can’t help but draw some comparisons of Praise & Blame to the Rick Rubin produced series of Johnny Cash records that he would end his career so successfully with a brand new audience.  Sometimes it takes a completely new vision to inspire an artist in a new direction.  Praise and Blame was produced by Ethan Johns, son of Glyn Johns who has produced many huge acts like Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and The Who. YouTube is just full of great performances by Tom Jones and the band of any number of these songs from Praise & Blame, and they’re all great. The Letterman performance of Burnin Hell is quite good.

Now that all the heavy talk of this album is done,  perhaps a quick light note about Tom Jones. You wanna hear one of the best Rock and Roll screams out there? It’s not Roger Daltry, It’s not Robert Plant. It’s Tom Jones in his single “If I Only Knew”.  Thanks to Shamus for that one.