Free Tom Jones - the Life by Sean Smith Page A

music scene, decided to write about them. He recalls, ‘I thought he was a good singer, but back then I had nothing much to judge him against in terms of stars. He was a local singer and it was difficult to compare him to big stars.’ The paper published a small picture of the band on page three, with a caption that read: ‘The Pontypridd group who are making quite a name for themselves in modern music. Their soloist is popular Tommy Scott, Keith Davies on rhythm guitar, Alva Turner on drums, Vernon Hopkins on bass guitar and Mike Roberts on lead guitar.’
    Three days later, Tom and The Senators appeared on television for the first time, on a BBC Wales show called
Donald Peers Presents
– not the catchiest of titles by today’s standards. Peers was a self-made man from the small mining town of Ammanford. He ran away from home at sixteen and became one of the most popular singers in the country. His signature song, ‘In a Shady Nook by a Babbling Brook’, was perfect for a singalong at the Wood Road on a Saturday night.
    The TV show gave unknown local acts three minutes in the spotlight. Tom was firmly told that he had to tone down the gyrations for polite television. He chose to sing ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ – another Vaughn Monroe hit he had loved growing up. The producers were impressed and asked him to come back on a future show.
    Tom bought a new eight-guinea suit to wear; that was a lot of money then. Keith Davies recalls, ‘I thought he was going to sing “Sixteen Tons”, but of all the songs they could have chosen for him to do, they decided on a Cliff Richard song, ‘I’m Lookin’ Out the Window’. At least he had the suit, which he had been measured for and everything, but the wardrobe mistress said, “You are not dressing in a suit.” So she gave him a pair of jeans, a red shirt and a tartan dicky bow tie. He looked like Rupert Bear. And he said, “I’m not wearing that.” So they came to a compromise and he wore the jeans with a red open-necked shirt.
    ‘I shall never forget him trying to keep a straight face as he sang “I’m Lookin’ Out the Window” to a window made of plastic. And what you couldn’t see on TV was a man up a stepladder with a watering can, pouring the “rain” down the window. It was hilarious. I was laughing so much Tom told me that if I carried on like that, I was going to have to bugger off.’
    Tom didn’t add ‘I’m Lookin’ Out the Window’ to The Senators’ set list, but many of the songs, like ‘Sixteen Tons’, which he performed with them around the clubs of South Wales, would later feature on Tom’s albums. They used to open with the Ben E. King soul classic ‘Spanish Harlem’, which had been a hit in the UK charts in the summer of 1962 for Jimmy Justice and was another Tom would record in the future. The song let sceptical audiences know that they weren’t going to perform rock ’n’ roll exclusively.
    One song he introduced to the set list was the powerful Sophie Tucker lament ‘My Yiddishe Momme’, which his father had taught him when he was a little boy and became a crowd favourite during his later live performances. On one memorable evening at the Wood Road, he sang ‘My Yiddishe Momme’ a cappella to his mother Freda. She loved the song and was in heaven when her son sang it for her.
    Tom was very methodical about learning a new song. He played a disc over and over on the turntable until he had mastered the lyrics, then put his own phrasing on it in time for the Wednesday night rehearsal.
    The greater exposure that 1962 brought led to the formation of The Senators’ own concert party. They were the headline act of an evening’s entertainment that was like a small-scale summer season at a seaside resort. They had a piano player, a girl singer and a comedian called Bryn Phillips, who was known as Bryn the Fish, because he had a fish round in Abercynon and smelled of haddock.
    Tom’s stage presence was evolving more by luck than