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The “biggest compliment” Tom Jones ever recieved
Tom Jones’ career has been full of breathtaking highs that have seen him conquer America, provide a soundtrack for a James Bond film, and score countless hit records, soundtracking a generation’s life. However, nothing means more to Jones than one comment by Otis Redding.
Since 1965, Jones has been a mainstay of popular culture, and in 2021, he became the oldest artist to land a number one album in the United Kingdom. Before he gained success with ‘It’s Not Unusual’, the Welshman spent years grinding away in pubs and clubs around his home country, which primed him for grander things.
After his commercial breakthrough, the boy from the Valleys began schmoozing with the A-listers of the entertainment business and became friends with artists he admired, such as Otis Redding. Famously, the pair’s friendship was at the heart of his cameo in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.
Jones appeared in the programme as Carlton Banks’ guardian angel in 1993, and hilarity ensues after he asks why his protector wasn’t Black, to which the singer explains it’s OK because he was friends with the late Otis Redding.
Speaking to NME, Jones recalled: “It was improvised because there was no response to [Carlton] in the script to explain why I was white. At first, we thought it would be funny if I said ‘well, it was either me or Michael Jackson!’ because his skin was famously getting lighter. But we thought that was too close to the bone, so instead I said: ‘Well, I knew Otis Redding!’.”
Jones then spoke about his relationship with Redding and revealed the words of encouragement he received from the soul sensation. “When I met Otis in ’67 at a club in London, he said to me: ‘All of us try to do what you do. You’re the greatest soul singer in the world’. That was the biggest compliment anybody could give me,” he added.
Those great Black American soul singers were who Jones greatly admired, and it meant the world to him to hear from Redding the love was reciprocated. Throughout his career, Jones has always given deserved credit to those who defined the sound he loves most, and Redding particularly has been paid homage to.
In 1969, Jones released a version of Redding’s hit-track ‘Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay’. He continues to sprinkle it into his sets today and most recently performed the classic soul number in 2018. Meanwhile, throughout the early 1990s, the Welsh native regularly reimagined Redding’s ‘I Can’t Turn You Loose’. and later integrated ‘Hard To Handle’ into his live performances. Although Redding has been deceased for over 50 years, his songs continue to live.
