Ravinia 2026 Issue 6

After a nearly 20-year absence from the festival, Tom Jones filled the house at Ravinia in 2024 on his Ages and Stages Tour. Jones told Big Classic Bands why this brand of American music first appealed to him: “There was an honesty there. They were songs that made you think— there was something very human about them. There was a similarity there, about working-class life or family life and struggles.” By his early 20s, he was fronting a beat group, Tommy Scott & The Senators. A fateful meeting with Gor- don Mills, a noted music insider and songwriter, aimed Jones toward fame. Mills ultimately managed Jones as a solo act, and the combination of Mills’s connections and Jones’s talent landed a 1964 recording deal with Decca Records (which had rejected The Beatles two years earlier). It was Mills who urged TomWood- ward to change his name to “Tom Jones,” looking to capitalize on the popularity of the 1963 British comedy film Tom Jones , which won four Academy Awards. In addition to managing talent, Mills wrote hits for major acts including Cliff Richard and Freddie & The Dreamers. He later managed hitmakers such as Gilbert O’Sullivan (“Alone Again Natu- rally,” “Claire,” “Get Down”) and another ’60s sexpot balladeer. In addition to Jones, the former George Dorsey (who, for a time, per- formed as “Gerry Dorsey”) was cajoled by Mills to change his name. To elimi- nate any confusion with either the well- known big-band brothers Tommy and Jimmy or the American pop singer Lee (“Ya-Ya,” “Working in a Coalmine”) with the same surname, Mills transformed the singer into Engelbert Humper- dinck (borrowing the name of the distinguished German composer from the late 1800s), who then soon came to fame with the tender “Release Me.” Obviously, Mills’s affinity for stage names proved fruitful. Though Jones’s first single, 1964’s “Chills and Fever,” failed to catch on as “Beatlemania” blanketed the scene, his next song, released in early 1965 and co-written by Mills, almost overnight propelled him from being a complete unknown to an international star. What would become his hallmark hit, “It’s Not Unusual”—with its driving, peppy melody; booming horns; and, of course, Jones’s alluring, robust vocals—sky- rocketed to number one on the UK singles chart and the top 10 in the US. Overcoming The Beatles on the charts in 1965, especially in Britain, was quite an achievement for any music act, let RAVINIAMAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 23 , 2026 12 PREVIOUSSPREAD:RICKGUEST;THISPAGE:KYLEDUNLEAVY/RAVINIA