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one that would very soon have ruined his remarkable voice. ‘I did once think that I would be a miner like Dad,’ he said in an interview. ‘It’s a Welsh tradition, or it was when I was eighteen, that a lad would follow his family down the pits. My dad, Tom Senior, spent his life, until I could afford to get him out, digging coal and he paid the ultimate price that many miners do: his lungs were affected.’

      It was a harsh life, although courtesy of their generous son, Tom’s parents were to end their days in great luxury. But it was his good fortune to be part of a generation that was opening up to new thoughts and ideas, refusing to be hidebound by the traditions of the past. For all the worries and uncertainty he experienced until his career got going, it was a glorious time to be young and full of hope and ambition. The world was there for the taking, and he went out and grabbed every opportunity he could find. ‘At eighteen, everyone wishes that something is going to happen to them that is going to change their life drastically,’ he said. ‘It did happen for me. I was part of an era that changed everything – fashion, music, films, even our way of thinking and our morals.’

      It was indeed. And another aspect of Tom’s character that stood him in very good stead was that when he met the right people, he was willing to allow himself to be guided. He was sensible enough to realise that while he might have the voice, others had business sense and the ability to plan ahead. In the early days he changed direction several times and again, his apprenticeship playing in rural Wales allowed him to find what he was capable of doing best. At that stage it didn’t matter if he made mistakes because he was still playing to a very restricted audience who were not going to hold it against him. Of course, at the time Tommy Woodward had no idea he was destined to become one of the biggest international stars of his generation. Back then it seemed the best he could hope for was to make a bit of money by singing, just enough to keep his family on, without having to become a miner himself. And he was certainly becoming noticed locally. His voice was so powerful that he could hardly hide himself in the shadows: once he started singing, people really sat up and took notice.

      While Tom was to acquire fame later on as a solo singer, he had his first big break when he joined a band. In fact, it was the band that approached him. A Beat outfit named, coincidentally, Tommy Scott and the Senators, had just lost their lead singer (Tommy Redman), who had decided to go off in a different direction and sing ballads. Fortunately, one of the band members knew Tom. Desperate to replace their lead singer, in 1963 he decided to approach him to join the band. What happened next is one of those make-or-break moments that have shaped so many careers without the person at the centre of it all realising quite what a momentous event was about to take place. When Tommy Redman failed to show up one night, the bandleader – Vernon Hopkins – asked Tom if he would go on stage. His first reaction was incredulity, for it was Friday night, traditionally the night the local boys went out with their girlfriends and, worse still, the venue was the YMCA! This was not only uncool but no alcohol was allowed and then, as now, he enjoyed a drink. But Vernon needed someone, and fast! He promised Tom that if he agreed to appear, he would make sure a crate of beer was smuggled into the premises. Rather reluctantly, he consented to play for one night, but one night was all it took. The evening was a resounding success and, buoyed up by the audience’s reaction, Tom signed up with the band. It would be a while yet before he hit the big time, but Tommy Woodward was on his way.

       CHAPTER 2

       TIGER TOM, THE TWISTING VOCALIST

      Things were getting serious. Tom had now made the decision to pursue a career in music in earnest, and it was a far from straightforward road that lay ahead. It was also financially precarious. The couple still had no money and now, on Tom’s side at least, no fixed income, and what he did earn wouldn’t have taken them far. Singing in the pubs and clubs of Wales was not a well-paid occupation, but by now he was determined to make a go of it, and he took to his new career with gusto.

      He also, for pretty much the only time in his entire career, managed to persuade Linda to come along to watch him perform. Much has been made of the fact that Tom’s wife doesn’t attend his concerts because she doesn’t like the way other women respond to him (and who can blame her?). But there is another element in her reticence, too: Tom’s act is pretty highly charged, not simply because of his cavorting, but also the sheer scale and range of his voice and Linda was constantly anxious that something would go wrong. In the event, her presence was not a great success. ‘In the end, she got so bloody drunk that I had to go into the ladies’ room to get her out once the whole thing was over,’ said a wry Tom. ‘She’d bloody collapsed in there because she’d got too excited. That’s the way she’s always felt. If I go for a high note, she’s worried I’m not going to make it.’ And that, as far as Linda attending Tom’s concerts was concerned, was that.

      Now that he was in a band, changes had to be made. For a start, Tommy Woodward became Tommy Scott and, dressed in black leather, he began to perform with his new friends. At his suggestion, the music was Rock’n’Roll, with the result that the local pub owners would take one look at the leather, the instruments, and offer to pay the band off without them actually playing. But Tom managed to persuade them to think again. ‘I said, “Wait a minute,” he recalled. ‘“Let’s start the show. After a while, if we do three or four tunes and you’re bothered by it and people are not digging it, fair enough.” So there we were on a Saturday night, and “Pay ’em off!” became, “Do you think we can get an extension if we call the police tonight?” And did we mind if they moved all the tables and chairs so everyone could have a dance? And I said, “By all means.” So I introduced Rock’n’Roll to Welsh working men’s clubs. They had never had it before.’

      He wasn’t exaggerating (or at least, not much). Since he was a teenager Tom had been listening to Rock’n’Roll in the dance halls, which meant, in effect, he’d been preparing for the moment when he would play it himself. ‘We were being influenced a lot by that kind of music,’ he said. ‘So then I would incorporate it into, you know, if I got up into a pub. I learned to play guitar because the piano players around couldn’t play it. It was a music that they were not used to. So, if you went into a pub in Pontypridd and there was a piano player there, nine times out of ten they wouldn’t be playing Rock’n’Roll. So I started – I learned to play the guitar in order to accompany myself. You know, so I used to go to a pub called The Wheatsheaf in Ponty and I’d take the guitar there on a Friday night and a Saturday night, and get up and make my own Rock’n’Roll music.’

      It was a rough old time but Tom had the stamina to cope with it. ‘They would ring the police station to get the licence extended till midnight, and I would sing for hours with just the odd break for a pint at the bar,’ he recalled on another occasion. It wasn’t just the odd pint – friends from those days remember he managed to get through about ten or twelve of them without the alcohol having an effect on his performance at all. Indeed, he was to become as well known for being a bon viveur as he was for his other excesses, although in time it was champagne, rather than beer, that would become his tipple of choice.

      Inch by inch, he was beginning to make his mark, gathering a devoted following in South Wales. He continued to upstage everyone around him: an early gig was in Porthcawl, where the Senators were supporting Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. They were such a hit with the audience that Kramer had to let them perform a second set to pacify all those present: it was Tom who seemed to be the star of the show rather than anyone else. With that kind of audience reaction, he was bound to come to the attention of the professionals and the first people to realise his potential were Raymond Godfrey and John Glastonbury, also known as Meirion and Byron. The two were songwriters and, on seeing the Senators playing in Caerphilly, they realised that here was a man who had the capacity to make it to the very top. They were just what Tom needed at the time: they had contacts with the music business in London and, until he made his breakthrough in London, the centre of the music industry, he hadn’t a hope of achieving fame – and they were able to offer some much-needed guidance.

      With a producer called Joe Meek of Telstar Records, Godfrey

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