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Praise and Blame and Tom Jones

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Posted by Chris on Nov 29, 2010 in Main, Music | 0 comments

Tom Jones
Praise & Blame
Island Records 2010

An initial listening to Praise & Blame, Tom Jones’ collection of blues and gospel, might remind you of the first time you browsed the writings of St Teresa of Avila. Just as it would have struck you as slightly creepy to read of St Teresa moaning with sweet pain as God’s angel pierced her with his ‘long spear of gold’, it’s slightly jarring to hear the lewdly honeyed voice of the man who brought us “Sex Bomb” singing “If I give my soul to Jesus, will she take me back again?” (“If I give my soul”.)

Many will see those lyrics as a metaphor for a possible transactional rationale behind this album – Jones dabbling in Gospel to try and achieve a different kind of audience. After all, the appeal of 70-year-old sex symbols must be vanishingly small, except in a very specialised market.

The PR around this album seems to give credence to that theory. The hype included the vice-president of the record company, who signed Jones on for 1.5 million pounds in the hope of some charting hits, apparently emailing his colleagues demanding that they cancel the project immediately or “get my money back”.

It’s the kind of cosmological tale that would appeal to those who lapped up Rick Rubin’s Johnny Cash reinventions. And there’s a lot to like about Praise & Blame, especially a strangely appealing MOR version of John Lee Hooker’s “Burning Hell”. Essentially, people who’ve never heard of Tom Jones, and people who are rabid fans, will both find this album appealing. Those of us who have only dipped into his oeuvre will have to work a little harder to make sense of it.

(First published in the Mail & Guardian)

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