How Tom Jones became an oligarch’s 80th birthday gift
The phrase ‘beating a dead horse’ exists for a reason: Time and time again, artists spend an entire musical career trying to shirk away from the consensus that their best song was, to them, their worst. Tom Jones knows this better than anyone.
Unfortunately, it’s an objective fact that simple, catchy, and often dumb songs are much more likely to capture the heart of the nation than something experimental, something an artist can genuinely be proud of, and this is the exact story of the 1965 Jones hit ‘What’s New Pussycat?’
The happy-go-lucky song peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, and reached number one in Canada and New Zealand. Turns out, it had plenty of fans in Russia too, notably, one unnamed Russian oligarch’s 80-year-old mother was uproariously obsessed with the track. There was one thing above all that would make this woman happy: to see Sir Jones perform this track in the flesh.
The request came by way of Bob Van Ronkel, who has spent some three decades with one of the most curious jobs in the music industry. In 2001, Van Ronkel founded Doors to Hollywood, a company that specialises in booking Hollywood actors, bands, models, and athletes for international clients. Their type of clientele is the type of no-bullshit magnate, used to getting exactly what they want.
By 2022, the Telegraph reported that the media mogul had taken around 130 famous bands and A-list actors across to the likes of Russia, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet Union countries to perform at parties or attend events. Requests flew in, and came in for every genre, from Kanye West to A-ha. On one occasion, Kiss entertained a seven-day party in Jamaica fit with famous faces, island go-kart racing, and helicopters flying for no other function than to look sleek, expensive, and cool.
Some celebrities were quick to jump on board. After all, it’s a simple, easy way to make a bucket load of cash, and all you need to do is what you’ve always done, which is show up, look famous, flash a few smiles, take a few pictures, and enjoy the sunshine. Of course, the more introspective a person is, the more they might consider this a form of selling themselves beyond their artistry or their usual mission in the industry.
Sir Tom Jones fell into this category, and it took a staggering six months to convince him to perform at the woman’s birthday party.
It’s not like he wasn’t used to attention from older women; his 13-year stint (and counting) on the television show The Voice UK is an obvious grab for the viewership numbers of the older generation. Watch the women with their handbags and their knitting swoon from the comfort of their living room.
Van Ronkel was thanking his lucky stars when the performer said yes. Should he have failed at the strange mission, his best bet might have been contacting The Flying Lizards, the experimental new wave and post-punk band formed in London in 1976, whose cover of the track included robotic synthesisers and an off-putting usage of sprechsgang. I wonder if the grandma would’ve liked that?
