Sir Tom Jones on Songwriting

Sir Tom Jones just released a new album, 24 Hours, earlier this week in the UK. The new thing for Sir Tom (one of my wife's favourite singers, btw) is that he wrote/co-wrote songs for the first time...

You can find the article here, but I've quoted a few essentials below:

What difference has it made being so involved in the songwriting?

I think it will make a big difference because the songs come from me, rather than somebody else writing them and then me trying to put them into my own style.

When I started this CD off, songs were coming which were not very good, I didn't think. So then it was suggested, well, why don't you do it yourself? So that's what happened.

I needed a songwriter to put them into words, but the ideas came from me.

Are you trying to recapture a classic sound?

I liked what I did on Decca in the '60s and I wanted to get that same feeling again, sound-wise especially. There's a retro sound, but I feel that it's still modern though. You know it's not an old '60s record, but the feel of it is.

Is that style of music ripe for a return?

Yeah I think so, with the Amy Winehouse record. I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. And then I saw the video for the first [Amy Winehouse] track, I thought 'that's good'. So I got the CD and listened to it, and I thought 'yes it can be done'.

It's great to see somebody like Amy Winehouse doing it with those arrangements and with the sound. It's refreshing and it gives you confidence to go ahead and do it. It's working.

Bono wrote a song for Sir Tom too... Anywho, it's Tom being Tom and being a songwriter for the first time, which makes the album a winner in reviews... Now the Muse is with him...

Technorati : Songwriting