Tom Jones on song on new album and autobiography

In his recently published autobiography, Over the Top and Back, singer Tom Jones recounts with unbridled honesty and a wicked sense of humour many of the remarkable highlights of his 50-plus-year career.

But sitting in a side room of a recording studio recently, the Welsh singer’s blue eyes never lit up more brightly than when the subject returned to the source of it all: music.

“I knew Sam – I met him,” he says, referring to Sam Phillips, the Sun Records founder and producer who discovered and first recorded Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and numerous other pivotal musical figures.

“He was a character. He came up with some interesting stuff,” Jones says. “I mean, Blue Moon ... ” Jones begins vocalising the clip-clop effect Phillips brought to Presley’s performance. “I notice on that record, though, he never goes to the middle section.”

Jones – who is due to appear in Hong Kong at the Convention and Exhibition Centre on April 7 – quickly sings the song’s first two verses, then says: “But he never goes to the part ‘And suddenly appeared before me/ The only ones my arms will ever hold.’ I think he thought, ‘[Forget] that – too many chords!’” Jones lets loose with a bellowing laugh.

At 75, Jones is in high spirits precisely because he has returned to making music the way he did when he was first exploring a sound that became known to millions through such grand-scale pop hits as It’s Not Unusual, Delilah, What’s New Pussycat? and She’s a Lady.