Sir Tom Jones (A-side)

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Sir Tom Jones talks about 'Praise & Blame', his 2010 album that saw a return to his musical roots. Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side. In the A-side, Tom talks to John Wilson about 'Praise and Blame' - the first of a trilogy of albums that would take him back to his musical roots. Described as a musical "shape shifter" who could "slide from soulful rasp to pop croon, with a voice as husky as it was pretty" (The New York Times), Tom Jones' career has spanned six decades, selling over 100 million records. In 2010, he released an album of largely unknown gospel covers, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe's Strange Things, Pop Staples' Don't Knock and John Lee Hooker's Burning Hell. The album's stripped-down, live production (by Ethan Johns) led one critic to declare "at last Jones the artist is the match of Jones the entertainer" (The Guardian) A rare opportunity to hear Sir Tom together with Ethan Johns talk and play their way back to an album that "with its loose, spontaneous sound and... all-pervasive sense of artistic rebirth... is a revelation" (Daily Telegraph) In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions. Producer: Paul Kobrak First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2017.