Label Exec Apologizes To Tom Jones For Trashing His Album

Iconic Welsh singer-songwriter Tom Jones (that’s “Sir” to you) has received an apology from his label, Island Records U.K., who’s SVP David Sharpe wrote a disparaging e-mail about Jones’ upcoming album, which is ironically titled Praise and Blame.

Sharpe wrote that the label should “pull back this project immediately or get my money back,” and that Jones’ big comeback was “a sick joke.”

Jones, 70, fired back in an interview with the Western Mail.

“When I questioned them and said, ‘What the hell is this all about? Who is this fella? I don’t even know who he is,’ I found out that he’s some fella who signs checks or something. But he’s not in the creative side of it and they’re 100% behind it, but people don’t know that.”

“People tell me that all publicity is good publicity, that’s what I’ve been told,” he continued. “People say to me, ‘Well it’s being talked about,’ but to me it’s being talked about in a negative way. Hopefully, if there’s any good that comes out of it, it’s that people will wonder about [the new album]. But it isn’t the way I would handle it by going and making a stupid statement. That’s not going to help it. They’ve apologized, they can’t apologize enough – and they’ve said, ‘We’ll make good on this.’”

Read our review of Praise And Blame here.