Tom Jones, timeless sex symbol, is a family man

NEW YORK -- Casual fans know Tom Jones as one of the most unsubtle male sex symbols of the '60s and '70s. Here's a man who would appear in form-hugging attire -- painted-on slacks, shirt unbuttoned down to here -- while performing hits such as It's Not Unusual, Delilah and What's New, Pussycat? Some admirers, famously, tossed lingerie in his direction.

In Jones' new autobiography, Over the Top and Back (Blue Rider Press), he refers briefly to this tradition, tracing his status as "panty magnet" to one woman attending a 1969 concert. As the book's title suggests, 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, the former Melinda Rose Trenchard, for 58 years.

"My wife keeps me grounded, to start with," Jones says of Linda, as he calls her. The two met as teenagers in Cardiff, Wales, where Jones was born Thomas John Woodward, and called Tommy. Chatting in a Midtown hotel -- dressed in a simple, tasteful black suit -- the singer recalls inviting a new friend from New York to his new house in England after becoming a star: "I must have been getting quite large, drinking champagne, saying, 'Look at this house.'"

Jones chuckles. "My wife was sitting in a corner talking to some other people, and she said, 'You don't think you're Tom Jones, do you?' I answered that of course I was Tom Jones, and she said, 'It's Tommy Woodward I married.'"

Family and old friends play a central role in Over the Top, and on the new album Jones released in October as a companion piece, Long Lost Suitcase. Produced by Ethan Johns, who also worked with Jones on 2010's Praise & Blame and 2012's Spirit In the Room, Suitcase consists of "songs I've always wanted to do," including tunes by Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and the Rolling Stones, as well as younger artists. Several were inspired by specific people in his life, from childhood friend-turned-sometime bodyguard Dai Perry -- a key player in one typically warm, wry chapter of the book -- to Elvis Presley, who is also remembered with poignance and humor in Over the Top.

"I've always wanted to sing a song about Elvis," says Jones, who chose Gillian Welch's Elvis Presley Blues for Suitcase. Presley was a close friend for years, Jones says: "He would say to me, 'Tom, you're a lucky man, because you married your childhood sweetheart.'"

When the two singers met in 1965, Jones recalls, "Elvis said, 'How do you sing like that?' That's what he said, to me. I said, 'Well, you're partly to blame.' He said, 'Yeah, but I grew up in the South, listening to black gospel. How did you learn it?' I said, 'By listening to you, and people like you. By listening to Mahalia Jackson.' I was getting it on the radio, but we were both white boys listening to black singers."

Jones notes that, initially, "black people thought I was black" when they heard his throbbing high baritone and R&B-inflected phrasing. It's Not Unusual, his first fit, "was being played on black radio in New York" after its 1965 release, Jones recalls, and one disc jockey he met during that time refused to believe he was white. "He said, 'He may be passing for white, but he's not.' I took that as a huge compliment."

Just a few weeks ago, in fact, Jones declared he would undergo genetic testing to determine if he has black ancestors. "A reporter in England asked if I would be opposed to having a DNA test, and I said no. I'm an inquisitive person anyway." He hasn't scheduled a date yet, "but when I have time, I will do it."

Jones doesn't plan to be idle much in the years ahead. "At 75, I'm three-quarters of the way home, hopefully. But I still want to record more stuff, to continue doing shows."
He is currently managed by his son, Mark Woodward, and Mark's wife, Donna. Jones has a grown grandson and granddaughter, but they're not in the business: "He's an accountant, and she's an architect. They're very bright people."

Jones adds, "They can both sing, though. My grandson can sing and play guitar, and he looks like a male model. But he doesn't want to make a career of it, which I understand. It's like showing off when you're a kid. Some kids will hide; with me, I was always pulling on my mother's skirt, asking, 'When are they going to ask me to sing?'"