Tom Jones: The granddad of cool is back in the groove

What's new, Tom Jones? Well, the top Brit award, for one thing, and a slinky R&B album produced by Wyclef Jean. Retirement is the last thing on his mind, he tells Fiona Stuges

The show is almost over and, following a riotous encore of Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle", Tom Jones takes his final bow. The fact that the seats in the auditorium are empty doesn't seem to bother him. Ever the showman, Jones gives it his all whether anyone is looking or not.

We're in Earls Court, west London, where the big man with the big voice is rehearsing for his performance the following night at the Brit Awards. There, Jones is due to collect the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. He's certainly a more deserving candidate than the Spice Girls, who won it in 2000, just four years after their first hit. After 40 years and 32 albums, Jones agrees that he's earned it. "Well, it's always nice to get a pat on the back, especially if you've been around as long as I have."

After the rehearsal I find him reclining on a leather sofa in a makeshift dressing room. The night before he was out on the tiles with his friend George Clooney, and he's feeling the effects. "He likes a pint or two, that one," he groans. "Then the rehearsal seemed a long way away, but now I'm regretting it. My hangovers are a lot worse than they used to be."

While not at all handsome, Jones is a man with a presence, a very male presence. His eyes still glisten with a lifetime of mischief. For once the famous chest hair is being kept under wraps – today he's soberly dressed in a black shirt, dark trousers and polished shoes. The only nod to his old medallion-man persona is an enormous diamond-encrusted ring on his little finger.

Over the past five years the Welsh crooner has undergone a serious overhaul, and I'm not just talking about the plastic surgery. First there was the rabble-rousing duet with Robbie Williams at the 1998 Brit Awards; then came Reload, an album of duets with hip young upstarts such as Catatonia's Cerys Matthews, Mousse T and Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics. His latest offering, Mr Jones, is a collection of slinky R&B tunes co-written and produced by the former Fugee and celebrated hip-hop producer, Wyclef Jean. At 62, Jones is the toast of the pop scene. Hell, even his grandchildren think he's cool.

It was his son and manager Mark who alerted Jones to Wyclef Jean's producing talents, although Jones says he had long admired The Fugees' version of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly". He finally ran into Jean at a pop festival in London last year. "Wyclef suggested we just hang out together," he recalls, slipping unselfconsciously into hip-hop speak. "Initially he was just going to help me with a couple of tracks but he ended up doing the whole album. When we got into the studio he said to me, 'Listen, I've worked with legends before. You just do what you do naturally and I'll take care of the beats.' I'd never heard anyone talking about 'beats' before. I'd always called it a groove, but there you go."

Initially they planned to rework old hits such as "What's New Pussycat?" and "Delilah" for a hip-hop audience, though mercifully that idea was scrapped. Instead they came up with an album of largely original material. The partnership with Jean was a shrewd move on Jones's part. Where Reload introduced him to a younger audience weaned on indie-rock, Mr Jones has brought him to the attention of hip-hop and R&B devotees. Of course, the path to pop credibility is riddled with potholes, especially when it involves hooking up with musicians half your age. Did Jones ever consider that he might end up looking a bit, well, silly?

"Not in the least," he replies, looking affronted. "Besides, I don't like taking the easy road. The easy road for a singer like me would be more big ballads. But I've done the big lush tunes with the great big orchestras. I've always wanted to do a soul album and now I've finally done it."

In some respects, Jones has come full circle. He has long felt an affinity with soul and R&B, going back to the days when black American radio stations were playing "It's Not Unusual" thinking the singer was black. He remembers his first gig in the US, at the Apollo in Harlem in 1964, when he walked on stage and was met with a stunned silence. "They wanted to see the soul brother from England, not some white guy from Wales. Thank God once I started singing they all started dancing."

The son of a Baptist coal miner, Jones grew up in Pontypridd. A bout of tuberculosis left him bedridden between the ages of 12 and 14 and kept him from following his father down the mines. During his illness he remembers being moved to tears at the sound of the American soul singers on the radio. He left school at 15 and got a job in a glove factory in order to save money to pursue his singing career.

In 1964 he went to London for an audition with Decca andwas snapped up as a solo artist. "It's Not Unusual" in 1965, launched his career. A string of hits followed and by 1971 he had sold more than 30 million records. One of Jones's early fans was Elvis Presley. The two singers met in Los Angeles in 1965. "We were both at Paramount Studios – he was doing a film and I was recording a song for a movie," Jones says. "He heard I was there and apparently asked if he could come and say hello. I couldn't believe it. Just six months before I was skint and listening to Elvis records at home. When he came over he said, 'How the hell do you sing like that?' I told him he was partly to blame."

Presley and Jones became close friends and partied together in Las Vegas in the late Sixties. "He'd be singing at the Hilton and I would be at Caesar's Palace. The only problem was that when he finished his shows he would come and see mine and then he would want to party all night. The sun would come up and I would say, 'Elvis, I've got two shows to do tonight. Go to bed.'"

By the early Seventies, Jones had hit a wall in his career. While the lounge-suit lothario remained popular in Las Vegas, elsewhere he had begun to look out of date. It wasn't until 1988 that he againcharted with a cover of Prince's "Kiss" backed by the Art of Noise. It was a project that sowed the seeds of future collaborations, although Jones credits his son and manager Mark for pulling his career out of the doldrums.

"He pointed out problems with my show that I would never have been aware of. For instance, I never saw that the underwear thing was having a terrible effect." He is, of course, referring to the tradition of knicker-throwing at his shows. Through the Seventies Jones would pick up each pair, wipe the sweat from his brow and return them to their overwrought owner.

"The critics had stopped paying any attention to my music," he continues. "They wouldn't even mention my voice, they were just looking at what was happening with the women. My son told me, 'We can't stop the underwear thing but don't pick them up and wipe your face with them. Concentrate on the music.' He also suggested that I stop wearing my trousers so tight."

Jones says that now he's never been more content with his status – a top-selling artist with an audience that spans several generations. When I ask if he would consider quitting while he was ahead and taking early retirement, he looks appalled. "Not a chance," he cries. "Once I can't sing as well then I'll stop, but it's not a thing that I'm looking forward to. I suppose I'll slow down when I get older. When my voice won't do 'Delilah', then I'll know to stop."

The single 'Black Betty' is out now on V2. Tom Jones begins a national tour at Cardiff International Arena on 18 April