Over the Top and Back: The Autobiography - Couverture souple

Jones, Sir Tom

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1405920483 ISBN 13 : 9781405920483

Editeur : Penguin Books Ltd, 2016

A propos du livre

Extrait :

INTRODUCTION

Let’s not begin at the beginning. Let’s start somewhere near the bottom.

Early 1983, say. Early 1983 finds me sitting in a drab-colored dressing room in Framingham, Massachusetts, twenty-two miles west of Boston. Once this strip of Route 9 was pig farms and the occasional gas station. Now it’s known as the Golden Mile—Marshalls’ Mall, a Holiday Inn, a Howard Johnson’s, a procession of neon signs along the roadside. “Framingham’s little touch of Vegas,” they call it.

And here I am on this Golden Mile, which isn’t particularly golden, if we’re being honest, nor actually a mile. Here I am backstage at the Chateau de Ville Dinner Theater, Framingham’s premier “function room,” home to weddings and sales conference parties and the annual Natick High prom—and tonight, home to Tom Jones, international singing superstar and globe-girdling sex symbol, who must remember not to go too far downstage in this venue or the spotlight at the back of the room won’t be able to reach him through the ornamental chandelier.

Here I am in the eighties in the dressing room of a drive-up dinner theater in the American suburbs. Bright lights round the mirror. Stage clothes in zippered covers hanging from a rail. Sandwiches and fruit under plastic wrap on a Formica table. Vase of flowers trying to make up for the lack of windows.

Two shows per night, to a predominantly white, middle-aged crowd, seated at tables, eating chicken or premium-plate surf-and-turf. Seven thirty until 8:30; shower and change; then 10:00 to 11:00, plus encores. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good night. And afterward a car back to Boston, moving fast to get there before the good restaurants shut. And then a meal and some drinks—quite a lot of drinks—and eventually a hotel bed.

I’m here again tomorrow.

After which the caravan will move on to more of the same. One hundred and thirty-four nights like these in 1983 alone: the Circle Star Theater, San Carlos, California; the Holiday Star Theater, Merrillville, Indiana; Pine Knob Music Theater, Clarkston, Michigan. Tom Jones: Live in Concert. Singing the songs that made him famous: “It’s Not Unusual,” “What’s New Pussycat?,” “Green, Green Grass of Home,” “Delilah,” “She’s a Lady.” Stringing them together in a show-closing medley, because that’s what you do in the dinner theaters. Also doing Kool and the Gang’s “Ladies Night”; maybe “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”—bringing it up to date, or thereabouts.

It’s 1983, and I haven’t had a hit for twelve years. Twelve years! Not just singers but entire musical movements have come and gone in that time: prog rock, glam rock, disco, punk rock, post-punk, new romanticism . . . The earth has shifted under popular music at least six times without noticeably impacting upon me or even causing me to break step or slightly change direction.

Who’s selling records, as a singer, in 1983? Who do you have to be? Luther Vandross? Lionel Richie? I’m neither of these people. I’m Tom Jones.

Not that anybody in the audience in Framingham will seem to mind. They love me here. I’ll only have to walk on, and the place will go up. And then I’ll sing, and it will really go up. And, yes, no doubt there will be some underpants. Because that’s become a ritual. Not peeled off and flung there and then, as in the beginning. But most likely brought in specially and lobbed into my hands or laid on the stage at my feet in tribute, because . . . well, because that’s what you do at a Tom Jones show, isn’t it? Same thing every night. And I’m not complaining, either. Paid to sing. Paid to make singing my life. Paid handsomely for it, too. And brought underpants, albeit now in a kind of low-key, heritage way, with an eye on the upholding of a time-honored tradition. There are far worse jobs. Proper jobs. I know because I’ve done some of them. There is no hardship here. Trust me, the meal after the Framingham show will be a good one. We will dine high, back in Boston: brandy, cigars, champagne. And then maybe on to a nightclub for more of the same. Don’t cry for me Argentina, is right. Don’t cry for me, anybody at all.

At the same time, though, here I am in the dressing-room mirror. Spangled bolero jacket. Slashed white shirt. Substantial silver neck-chain. Dark slacks fitting snug to the waist. Belt buckle the size of a manhole cover. Cuban heels. “Framingham’s little touch of Vegas.”

Twelve years without a hit. This wasn’t exactly the plan. Assuming there was a plan. Which, coming to think of it, there wasn’t.

But does anyone really plan these things? You can’t, can you? You can only do your best to scramble aboard a plane that’s taking off and then see what happens. And in 1983 the path of my flight looks roughly like this: in the beginning, blasted almost vertically into fame’s skies, higher than I even dared to imagine; but since then, cruising. Worse than that: cruising and gradually losing height—but slowly, gently, over the course of more than a decade, so that you don’t notice how close the ground has got until one day (say, in a dressing room, between shows, in a dinner theater in suburban Massachusetts) you turn your head and look down.

Two questions, then, in the Chateau de Ville Dinner Theater, Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1983. And two questions for this book.

Firstly, how did I get here?

And secondly, now that I’m here, how do I get out?

Revue de presse :

Praise for Over the Top and Back

"In Jones' new autobiograph...the singer recounts some other excesses of his glory days, and of the leaner years and more modest venues that followed before his resurgence in recent decades. But the lasting image is that of Jones, now 75, as a family man who has been married to the same woman...for 58 years."  —USA Today

"Packed with the kind of showbiz tales you don't get any more...Jones is a charming, matey voice and the book is a terrific, star-studded journey through the world of entertainment. Even after meeting some of the greats, such as Elvis and Sinatra, Jones still retains an innocence and freshness that is rare." — Daily Express

" Over the Top and Back is a great read and funny. It charts his youth in the coal mining town of Pontypridd. It captures his Welshness." — Sunday Telegraph

"Tom Jones really has had the most astonishing life, one which he recounts here with verve, energy and a vivid eye for detail - this is a hugely enjoyable read." —  The Daily Mail

"This lively, thoughtful and entertaining account does justice to a remarkable life and career." — Sunday Express

“A brilliant read full of charm and anecdote that captures the spirit of each decade as well as giving a great behind-the-scenes snapshot of the music world.”  — Fanny Blake, Woman & Home

"This book is bound to be of great interest to pop music fans, especially those who remember Jones’s glory days, when women threw their panties at this übermale superstar. The honesty and openness with which Jones shares his life and career make it a must-read."  — Library Journal, Starred Review
 
"In attitude and anecdote, his engaging and illuminating book backs him up...A remarkable memoir by a remarkable artist."  — Kirkus, Starred Review

“A story brilliantly told...Hold up your banners: ‘Sir Tom F****** Jones’. Yeah!” — Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times
 
“A book that gets to Jones's core.” — The Daily Mirror

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1405920483
• ISBN 13: 9781405920483
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 560