Tommy Woodward was a young man going nowhere when he was discovered singing Jerry Lee Lewis songs in a South Wales club. Tom Jones: The Life follows his remarkable journey from the humble terraced streets of a small mining village to an iconic position as the greatest male vocalist of modern times...

Tom Jones: The Life is a gentle, not very probing, biography that follows Jones's life from his early battle with tuberculosis to struggling on the breadline for seven years to support his childhood sweetheart, Linda, and their son,

When he finally got his big break with ‘It’s Not Unusual’, his powerful voice and rugged charisma took both Britain and America by storm. The greatest stars of the day including Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick and Frank Sinatra became friends. Worldwide acclaim and great wealth led to a champagne lifestyle and tales of affairs and one night stands, but he always returned to the wife who stood by him.

By the eighties, Tom’s star was in decline, but the lad from Treforest could not be kept down. His son Mark help to reinvigorate a career that today is stronger than ever with a younger generation of top musicians clamouring to work with him. Now a judge on The Voice, Sir Tom is a bona fide music legend and this is the story of the real man behind the larger-than-life image.

Sean Smith does his research down to the last detail... In fact, he even had me discover a "fact" that I, along with the majority of the population, may have had wrong all these year. John Barry, who Jones would work with for the theme of Thunderball, may have been the composer of the James Bond theme tune. It's always been credited to Monty Norman, but there's been a dispute raging for years. However, Harper Collins might like to ready their lawyers, as Norman has successfully sued, twice in the past, publishers who credit Barry as the theme's composer.

It's an interesting book that does explore Jones's life in full, but it's very much on the soft side, presumably because the majority of Jones's fans are in their 60+ (although, he obviously has fans of all ages) and kiss and tell stories are not what they're after.

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Nick Smithson