When I see you out and about it's such a crime

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts.

08/12/68 : Live! At The Talk Of The Town - Tom Jones

This is another album I'd have seriously considered rejecting in other years, but I think the rule is going to have to be "only best-ofs to be rejected" - and even that might need to be revisited.  I'm expecting this to be super-cheesy and probably low quality sound-wise, but surprisingly enjoyable.

And yeah, I'm pretty much there with my expectations.  And yes, he mentions Wales a few times - and the "lovely ladies in the audience".  And we get "The Green Green Grass Of Home" and "It's Not Unusual" as well - it's like some things haven't moved on in my lifetime!  But it offers up an interesting window into some swinging Sixties night life - you can almost imagine everyone sat round in their suits listening to him.  No, I'll never listen to it again but it was interesting to visit it the once.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on his 78th (!) week of an 87 week run with it having peaked at #6 in its 72nd week.  It spent a particularly bizarre 35 weeks of that somewhere between #8 and #12 in the charts - non-consecutively, but it still seems very strange!  This is actually his most successful album in terms of weeks spent in the charts - no-one would ever get that in a pop quiz!  The top five this week were The Beatles, The Seekers best-of, TSOM, Simon & Garfunkel, and a Hollies best-of (which I steadfastedly ignored) and the highest new entry were The George Mitchell Minstrels (#33) - who you might know better as The Black & White Minstrels, and I'm particularly intrigued as to what my daughters would make of everything going on there.  They were different times and no mistake...

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for the album and we've spent more than enough time on Tom already (this is our third visit with the lad), so I looked up where The Talk Of The Town was and it was in The Hippodrome from '58-'82, so I must have walked past it at some point towards the end of its life.  And there's an interesting selection of people that have recorded live albums there - Stevie Wonder, Rolf Harris, Cliff Richard, Frankie Vaughan, Shirley Bassey and one other group who we'll be meeting surprisingly soon...

"Customers also listened to" John Barry (he wrote "Thunderball"), Jools Holland (no idea!), Engelbert Humperdinck (ditto) and Shirley Bassey (at least she makes some kind of sense!).  This was an enjoyable slice of nostalgia for a time I was alive but am somewhat lacking in memories - I imagine sections of Tom Jones gigs don't sound all that different these days but you have to credit the guy for moving with the times well enough that there are still Tom Jones gigs to go to!

01/12/68 - An interesting step back in time
15/12/68 - Our third soundtrack album in a row!