Tom Jones went into Lillie's Bordello looking for a drink and found a new career as a consulting songwriter. It was about four years ago, and the Welsh singer was in Dublin for an award show when he headed over to Lillie's, the famed Grafton Street club.
"I saw Bono and said hello and asked him if he wanted to come upstairs for a drink and a chat. We got to drinking and talking there, and I asked him if he would write me a song. He said, 'What I'd love to do is write a song about you. And I want it to be a Tom Jones song, not a U2 song. Tell me about yourself. I remember what I saw on television, but tell me about before you got into show business . . . . How much of that did you bring with you and how much of you is still back there?' "
In the swirl of the club that night, the two stars, one born in 1940 and the other in 1960, talked about fame and rhythm, hard times and melody, and Bono was taking notes about his elder's previous life as a ditch digger and his youthful desire to have the right shirt and the right shoes to cover up the soot of his past as the son of a coal miner.
The conversation eventually led to "Sugar Daddy," a song of coiled funk and randy charm that would fit nicely on a mix tape between James Brown's "Sex Machine" and Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back." "Sugar Daddy" is the centerpiece on Jones' new album, "24 Hours," out today, but more than that, it set the template for the collection.
After finding nothing but frustration in the submissions of young songwriters, Jones decided to sit down with the more promising of the bunch and give them guidance in finding "the real Tom Jones and what he sounds like," as the star himself put it.
"That was the beginning of it, back with Bono, although I didn't know it at the time," said Jones, 68. "That was the start, that was the first one. The first time I talked to somebody about my ideas and they wrote it down. That was the key. I have ideas all the time, but I don't think to write them down. I suppose I should . . . It's been difficult getting good songs, the material I need. I should have put myself into it sooner."
The first single from the album, "If He Should Ever Leave You," has gotten airplay on KCRW-FM (89.9), and the earliest reviews for the album have been upbeat about its strongest moments and generally forgiving of its perceived missteps. All of this is welcome news to Jones, who in recent years had the sense that he was missing in action in the U.S.
