Sir Tom Jones took six months to be persuaded to sing at an unnamed Russian oligarch’s 80-year-old mother’s birthday party in 2022, in a booking that hinged on one song he made famous nearly six decades earlier. The request reached him through Bob Van Ronkel, who spent three decades in an unusual booking role before founding Doors to Hollywood in 2001.

What made the ask so specific was not just the name attached to it, but the song itself. Jones is tied to the 1965 hit What’s New Pussycat?, which peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one in Canada and New Zealand, and the woman behind the request was said to be obsessed with it. That gave the private event a single clear target: bring in the singer who had become inseparable from the track.

Van Ronkel’s business books Hollywood actors, bands, models and athletes for international clients, and by 2022 he had taken around 130 famous bands and A-list actors to Russia, Kazakhstan and other former Soviet Union countries. The booking for Jones fits the kind of luxury entertainment his company has long traded in, where the draw can be as much about novelty and status as about music. One of the examples linked to that world is Kiss, who once played a seven-day party in Jamaica.

Still, Jones was not an easy sell. He has spent 13 years and counting as a judge on The Voice UK, and the story around this booking places him in the category of stars who may see private appearances like this as selling themselves beyond their artistry. In the end, though, he agreed after six months of convincing, showing how a request tied to a family celebration and a signature song could overcome even a performer’s hesitation.

What remains unknown is the part that usually settles the argument: how much he was paid. The reporting does not say whether Jones actually performed, only that he eventually agreed to the birthday request, leaving the size of the deal and the final night itself still out of view.