Ever since Johnny Cash started making sparse, acoustic recordings with producer Rick Rubin in the early ‘90s, a cottage industry has been created around recording the grand old men (and women) of popular music in more organic settings. In the last decade or so, we’ve had back-to-basics records by Loretta Lynn, Neil Diamond, Bettye LaVette, Tony Joe White, Gil Scott-Heron, Robert Plant and countless others. The notion behind many of these is to reposition the voice and persona in a more age-appropriate setting, with low-key instrumentation and songs that focus on mortality and the afterlife. When these albums work, they make the seemingly past-their-prime artists newly relevant.
The latest and perhaps most unlikely of these efforts is
“Praise & Blame” (Lost Highway) from Tom Jones – yes, the burly Welsh pop singer who once asked the musical questions “Why, why, why Delilah?” and “What’s new, Pussycat?” while women flung their underwear at him. Jones is what used to be known as a “belter,” the kind of hunky crooner who roared, often with a knowing wink. The sweat, smirks and testosterone may have been running amok, but Jones always implied he was in on the joke. When he reinvented himself in the late ‘80s, he fashioned a comeback by applying his robust voice and playful attitude to contemporary songs – encapsulated by his cover of Prince’s “Kiss”; the perfect title of his 1994 album, “The Lead and How to Swing It”; and a feisty collection of duets, “Reload” (1999).
But with “Praise & Blame” Jones dials down the camp and tries to act his age – he turned 70 in June. So what we get is a more refined, more serious Jones, and that’s no fun at all. One record-company executive dismissed the album as a “sick joke,” but were it only true. Jones plays it as straight as he ever has on a collection of blues and gospel covers, his beefy vocals reduced to a melancholy foghorn on Bob Dylan’s “What Good Am I?” He sounds almost ready to cry on “Did Trouble Me,” with a sad, little banjo plucking away, and he slogs his way through “If I Give My Soul” as if serving penance. How much of a hoot might it have been had he taken on the old blues standard “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” with Led Zeppelin-style bravado? Instead he sounds tethered to a ball and chain.
It’s telling that Jones covers the standard “Ain’t No Grave,” the title song of Cash’s 2009 album. The two versions share little in common – whereas Cash knew he was dying when he recorded his version, and sang with weathered dignity, Jones plays it smoother, lighter and less persuasively. He’s best when producer Ethan Johns (who has worked with Kings of Leon) lets him cut loose on John Lee Hooker’s “Burning Hell” and the Staple Singers’ “Don’t Knock.”
Don’t let the white-haired visage fool you -- there’s plenty of moxie left in Jones’ voice. But there’s too much reverence and not enough Delilah on most of “Praise & Blame.”
