Somethin' 'Bout You Baby I Like evokes the country-inspired pop of previous
Tom Jones hits like "Green Green Grass of Home" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," but the end result fails to match past creative and commercial peaks. The songs are uniformly bland, with few if any of the dramatic flourishes that
Jones relishes, and
Johnny Spence's arrangements are atypically flat, adding little to the mellow ballads and tepid pop grooves. Listeners who stick it out through all ten tracks are nevertheless rewarded by the closer, an earthy rendition of
Dr. John's "Right Place, Wrong Time" that's perfectly calibrated to
Jones' prowess as a blue-eyed soul belter par excellence. [
Somethin' 'Bout You Baby I Like was reissued on CD in 2009 on a Vocalion two-fer also featuring the 1975 follow-up,
Memories Don't Leave Like People Do.] ~ Jason Ankeny