Surrounded By Time

Product Information

Surrounded by Time is the 41st studio album by Welsh singer Tom Jones, released on 23 April 2021 through EMI Records internationally and S-Curve Records in the United States.

He performed the song live on The Graham Norton Show two days later and was briefly interviewed by Norton after the performance. He gathered his son, Mark Woodward, along with Johns and a group of session musicians to begin recording a new album in 2019. He additionally praised Jones' desire to freely record whatever he pleases despite being primarily known for "belting out ' It's Not Unusual' at Hampton Court Palace and the Rhyl Events Arena". For the Japanese CD release, Jones' 1965 recording of " It's Not Unusual" was included as a bonus track.The album begins with a pared-back take on “I Won’t Crumble With You if You Fall”, written in 1997 by civil rights activist Bernice Johnson Reagon. Afterward, Jones followed Woodward's advice and sold their Los Angeles mansion, subsequently moving to a flat in London. Prior to her death, Woodward encouraged Jones to continue recording and performing music after her passing. But he growls such a conversational, experienced, Welsh truth into it that I suspect people who don’t know Snider might think he’d just freestyled those cleverly turned lyrics live at the mic. The album's second single, "No Hole in My Head", originally written by Malvina Reynolds, was released roughly two weeks later on 27 January alongside a music video.

Johns had told Island Records that he wanted to work with Jones the most, and the label eventually brought the two together. Jones has sold over 100million records with thirty-six Top 40 hits in the United Kingdom, twenty-two in Canada, and nineteen in the United States, including " It's Not Unusual", " What's New Pussycat", " Delilah", " Green, Green Grass of Home", " She's a Lady", " Kiss", and " Sex Bomb". Surrounded by Time is the fourth album Jones has made with Ethan Johns, the producer who resurrected the Welshman’s career with a trio of rootsy Americana records. But it’s also powerfully about the miracle of the life we have when our desire and ability to sing can seem impossible.Jones’s thrill at scaling the charts is captured in a fantastic, staccato piano take on Cat Stevens’ 1970 song “Pop Star”.

Writing for musicOMH, Ben Hogwood praised Jones' vocals, saying that he is "expressing more emotion than he probably has at any point in his career," as well as Ethan Johns' production and the instrumental performances by the session musicians. Additional recording took place at Johns' Three Crows East studio in Wiltshire and the Bert Jansch Studio in Frome.I’ve never heard him sounds so vulnerable as when he tremulously promises: “I will wake with you in the morning/ And I’ll stand beside you as long as I can/ I will hold back the evening of your sun/ But I won’t crumble with you if you fall. A repackaged expanded edition of Surrounded by Time, named The Hourglass Edition, was announced on 19 October 2021. The recording sessions saw changes in the way some songs were originally planned to turn out; "I'm Growing Old" eventually turned out to be only Jones accompanied by a piano player and "Ol' Mother Earth" was done in a spoken word manner as opposed to being sung. The album received positive reviews from critics, with much praise being directed towards Jones' vocals at 80 years of age as well as the selection of songs for the album. Jones received a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, an MTV Video Music Award in 1989, and two Brit Awards: Best British Male in 2000 and the Outstanding Contribution to Music award in 2003.

The third single from the album, " One More Cup of Coffee", originally written by Bob Dylan, was released on 18 March. Surrounded by Time was released through EMI Records internationally and S-Curve Records in the United States. On the same day, Jones' cover version of "Talking Reality Television Blues", originally written by Todd Snider, was released as the album's lead single, with a music video for the song being released in conjunction. It debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, making Jones the oldest male to earn a number-one UK album, and charted within the top 25 in five other countries.Jones was awarded an OBE in 1999 and in 2006 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to music.