In 1965, a young Welsh singer walked onto a film set at Paramount Studios in Hollywood and got the shock of his life. He was 25 years old, had been famous for about a year, and had exactly three singles to his name. His name was Tom Jones, and he had grown up in a small town in Wales worshipping Elvis Presley.
He had told his friends back home, over and over, that one day he’d meet Elvis. Now somebody had told him Elvis was on set and wanted to meet him.
Jones couldn’t believe Elvis even knew he existed. He was led onto the set, the doors closed behind him, and he found himself standing with the Memphis Mafia while Elvis filmed a scene in a mock helicopter for the movie Paradise, Hawaiian Style. Then the director called cut. Elvis looked over and waved. Jones froze and glanced around at the men beside him, wondering who the wave was for. They told him: “Elvis is waving at you. Wave back!”
Tom Jones’ Elvis Presley Bromance
Then came the moment. Elvis climbed out of the helicopter and started walking straight toward him — singing. And what he was singing was “With These Hands,” Tom Jones’s own third single. Not a Presley song. Not a standard. Elvis knew the words to a ballad by a Welsh newcomer with three records out, and he sang it to his face as he crossed the floor. Jones’s reaction was pure Pontypridd: “My God, if the boys back home could see me now.”
When Elvis reached him, his first question was “How the hell do you sing like that?” Jones’s answer was perfect: “Well, you’re partly to blame.” He explained he’d spent the fifties listening to Elvis records in Wales. Then Elvis asked, in complete seriousness, whether everyone in Wales sang like that.
There’s one more thing they discovered they had in common, and it’s remarkable. When Jones’s records first played on American radio, plenty of listeners assumed he was Black. Elvis told him he’d made exactly that assumption himself the first time he heard “What’s New Pussycat.” Which, as Jones pointed out, is a strange thing for Elvis of all people to say — because when he started, people had thought the same about him.
Elvis Presley Tom Jones Duet I’ll never fall in Love again
They stayed friends until Elvis died. They worked Las Vegas at the same time, went to each other’s shows, and sat around at friends’ houses at the end of the night singing gospel together — the music they both loved most.
Elvis started performing Tom’s song “Delilah” in his own stage shows. Tom liked to sing Elvis’s “One Night.” And there’s a detail that says how much Elvis respected him: in 1968, when Elvis was thinking about returning to live performance after years away, he went to see Tom Jones at the Flamingo — because, in Jones’s words, Elvis felt he was the closest thing to him on a stage. Elvis’s own friend Jerry Schilling put it plainly: Elvis was cautious about letting anyone close, but Tom inspired him.