There's not much convincing here -- you can ask the great Welsh-born singer Tom Jones to sing the phone book and he could succeed at doing so.
That's how legendary an artist Tom Jones -- born Thomas Jones Woodward on June 7, 1940 -- was when he was at the top of his game in the late 1960s and through the early 1970s.
And that legend got put to the test in early 1977 when, without a Top 40 hit for six years, Jones came back in a big way with a song far from familiar to his audience of devoted fans.
In 1965, Jones first hit the Top 40 with his iconic smash "It's Not Unusual," a No. 10 hit here, then followed it up with a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David called "What's New Pussycat?" the theme from the Peter Sellers movie. That got to No. 3 in the summer of '65.
There was a whole slew of hits that followed that up -- classics such as "Delilah," "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," "Without Love (There Is Nothing)," "Green Green Grass Of Home," "Thunderball" and in 1971, his last Top 10 hit and biggest hit ever, the Paul Anka-penned "She's A Lady," which peaked at No. 2 in March of that year.
While his hit-making status was hot, television executives thought he was something as well with his handsome face and steel blue eyes. So in 1969, ITV in England gave him a variety show that would be taped in London and shipped over to the United States where ABC would broadcast it. The show was This Is Tom Jones. And Jones landed quite a bit of variety over the three seasons and 57 shows he did, having everyone on from Sellers to Nancy Sinatra to Chet Atkins to Cass Elliott to Stevie Wonder to Janis Joplin to Sammy Davis Jr. to George Burns to Pat Paulsen to Liza Minnelli to Glen Campbell to Anka and to Dusty Springfield. And with the singers on the show, Jones was more than happy to showcase his powerful pipes in duets with the stars.
But the follow-up to "She's A Lady" was the double-sided "Puppet Man" and "Resurrection Man." It only got to No. 26 and No. 38, respectively, in the Top 40. There was no other Top 40 hits for years. Jones kept touring with different female backing acts behind him, but no set of panties thrown at him or girls throwing themselves on him could muster any Top 40 magic.
At 36 years old, there may have been a thought that Tom Jones was a "has-been."
And just when that happened to be the issue, along came songwriters Roger Greenaway and Barry Mason. Greenaway, a British songwriter, wrote "You've Got Your Troubles" for the Fortunes, a Top 10 hit in 1965, as well as Gary Lewis & The Playboys' "Green Grass" and the English Congregation's Top 40 smash from 1972, "Softly Whispering I Love You." Mason, another Brit, wrote "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" for Edison Lighthouse, as well as Englebert Humperdinck's "The Last Waltz" and Jones' smash, "Delilah." Together, the pair wrote a new composition titled "Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow." But their song was more country-leaning than pop-privy.
If it were any other pop act than Tom Jones, they may have balked at recording the single. But Jones was looking for a hit -- and so was his long-time producer, Gordon Mills. Plus Jones was one of the very few acts who never shied away from trying something different.
So into the studio in the late summer of 1976 Jones went with Mills producing this song, giving it the country twang the record deserved. Released on the country chart first, the song climbed into the country Top 40 chart in December 1976 and slowly it moved up the chart. Then it made its Hot 100 debut on January 8, 1977, at No. 90. It leaped up to No. 80 the next week, and the trek was on throughout January, going to No. 70, then No. 58, then to No. 48.
Then on the week it was No. 3 on the Billboard country music chart, "Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow" landed on the Top 40 at No. 40. That was February 12, 1977, giving Jones his long-awaited Top 40 comeback.
Two weeks later after the song had jumped from No. 40 to No. 36, then to No. 28, "Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow" moved from No. 3 to No. 2 on the country chart and finally, on February 26, 1977, to No. 1 -- his first No. 1 country hit. Jones had hit the jackpot and found an entirely different audience with his first country chart-topper.
But believe it or not, it wasn't Jones' first traipse with a country song. In 1966, he recorded Curly Putman's "Green Green Grass Of Home," which Porter Waggoner made into a country music classic first before Jones took his hand and made it a dramatic pop hit, peaking at No. 11 on the chart. Eventually, Jones continued to rise on the pop chart with his comeback single and peaked at No. 15 for two straight weeks starting March 26, 1977 before falling back.
And that would be it for Jones as a pop star for a while. But thanks to that song, Jones became a revived artist as a country music star, starting in 1980 with a remake of a hit called "Darlin'," which peaked at No. 16. Jones would score nine Top 40 country hits between 1980-86, his biggest hit in that time period being the 1983 No. 4 hit "Touch Me (I'll Be Your Fool Once More)."
Once that phase ended at the time Mills passed away from cancer and his son, Mark, took over as his manager, Jones went back to being a pop star and hit No. 2 in the UK in 1987 with "A Boy From Nowhere." And one year later in late 1988, 48-year-old Jones hit the Top 5 in the UK, teamed with The Art Of Noise on a remake of Prince's 1986 chart-topper "Kiss," which his version would land him back in the U.S. Top 40 here for the first time since "Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow," peaking at No. 31 in early January 1989.
Now in his mid-70s, Jones continues to work hard, touring, making new CDs and starring on TV where he was a coach on the UK's version of The Voice. And to this day, he's still not afraid to put down a good vocal for someone when asked.
Because that's what Tom Jones does -- taking any song and making it his by the end.
Even a country music song that he wasn't afraid to help resuscitate his career in 1977 and show him a door to another career path.
That's what legends do.
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