When Sir Tom Jones returned to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on November 4, the audience heard a story he could tell only because he was standing there. The 86-year-old Welsh singer had spent a week in the hospital after struggling to breathe, and at one point he feared he was dying. “You’ve had a wonderful life, Tommy, but it’s over right now,” he recalled thinking. Back in front of the crowd, he had a chance to say something he’d had no reason to expect he’d be saying that soon: thank you to the medical team that had looked after him. people.com
The first sign fans had that something was wrong came in late October, when Jones postponed his Los Angeles and San Diego concerts on medical advice. At the time, he described the illness as a bad case of the flu. When he got back to the Greek Theatre, he told the audience it had turned out to be pneumonia and that paramedics had been called when he had trouble breathing. He said he spent a week at UCLA Medical Center. Some accounts also describe two days in intensive care, a detail that remains unconfirmed in the coverage of his onstage remarks. Nederlander Concerts
There’s something intimate about the way Jones remembered addressing himself. To the people waiting for him at the Greek, he was Sir Tom, the singer whose voice they could recognize before he’d finished a line. In the moment he described, he was Tommy, trying to make sense of what was happening to him. He remembered thinking he’d had a wonderful life even as he feared it might be ending. That detail gave his account a tenderness that a description of the illness alone could never convey. people.com
His gratitude to the staff at UCLA was just as direct. He credited them for the care he received, then explained what he wanted to do when he was able to leave the hospital: get back onstage. “This is where I belong,” he told the crowd. After six decades of singing for an audience, the prospect of another evening at work still meant enough for him to single it out. On that night, the chance to tell the story in person was part of what made returning so meaningful. people.com
For anyone who’s listened to Jones for years, it’s easy to hear why he speaks about performing that way. “It’s Not Unusual” has the kind of opening that can change the mood of a room in seconds. “Green, Green Grass of Home” asks for a different kind of attention, taking its time with a story whose meaning changes as you listen. A live audience gives him people to tell those stories to. It also gives listeners the pleasure of hearing how a familiar song comes out on a particular night, in the company of everyone else who knows it.
The rescheduled concert gave that exchange a new dimension. Fans who’d rearranged their plans to be there learned what had happened between the original date and the night he finally walked out. Jones could acknowledge how frightening those days had been, name the people who helped him, and return to the work he’d missed. For someone in the audience who had only seen the postponement notice, the man at the microphone was the most reassuring sight of the evening. Nederlander Concerts
The detail worth remembering is that Jones used some of his first night back in Los Angeles to thank the people who had cared for him. Then he got to do the thing he’d wanted to do from the hospital: sing to a room full of people. After the week he’d described, getting to spend another evening that way was something to be grateful for.
