Tommy James Me the Mob and the Music Review
| Tommy James | |
|---|---|
 Tommy James in 2010 | |
| Background data | |
| Nascence proper noun | Thomas Gregory Jackson |
| Built-in | (1947-04-29) April 29, 1947 Dayton, Ohio, US |
| Origin | Niles, Michigan, Us |
| Genres |
|
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, guitarist |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, keyboards, tambourine |
| Years active | 1959–present |
| Labels | Roulette Records, Fantasy Records, Millennium Records, Rhino Records, Aegis Records, Aura Records |
| Website | Tommy James and the Shondells |
Tommy James (born Thomas Gregory Jackson; April 29, 1947), too known equally Tommy Tadger, is an American musician,[1] singer, songwriter, and record producer, widely known as frontman of the 1960s rock ring Tommy James and the Shondells,[2] who were known for their hits including "Crimson and Clover".
Early life and career [edit]
Born in Dayton, Ohio, James and his family unit later moved to Niles, Michigan. He was a child model at the age of four.[2] [3] In 1959, at the historic period of twelve, he formed the band "The Echoes", which somewhen became "Tom and the Tornadoes".[iii] In 1964 the band changed its proper name to The Shondells. That aforementioned year, Jack Douglas, a local DJ at WNIL radio station in Niles, formed his ain tape label, Snap Records. The Shondells were 1 of the local bands he recorded at WNIL Studios.[4] One of the songs was the Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich ditty "Hanky Panky", which the pair had recorded nether the name The Raindrops.[iv] The song was a hit locally, but the label had no resources for national promotion, and it was soon forgotten.[3] [iv]
In 1965, a local trip the light fantastic promoter, Bob Mack, found a copy of "Hanky Panky" in a used record bin and started playing it at his Pittsburgh trip the light fantastic toe clubs.[two] [3] Presently after, a Pittsburgh area bootlegger fabricated a re-create of the song and began pressing copies of it, speeding it up slightly in the process.[iv] Sales of the bootleg were estimated at 80,000 in x days.[2] [five] It became a number 1 on Pittsburgh radio stations in early on 1966.[5] Douglas heard about the tape'southward sudden popularity in Pittsburgh considering his name and contact information appeared on Snap Records labels.[4] Numerous calls from Pittsburgh convinced James to go to Pennsylvania, where he met Mack and Chuck Rubin, who handled the talent bookings for Mack'southward trip the light fantastic toe clubs. Presently, all three major music trade papers, Billboard, Cashbox and Record World, were listing "Hanky Panky" as a regional breakout striking. Rubin, who had music industry connections, said information technology was a skillful time for the trio to travel to New York City in search of a record deal.[iv]
The men made the rounds of the major recording labels, getting initial potential offers from most companies they visited. One label, Roulette Records, gave no initial response because its head, Morris Levy, was out of boondocks until that evening; Roulette was ane of the final stops on their visit.[iv] Past the side by side morn, Mack, Rubin, and James were now receiving polite refusals from the major tape companies after the enthusiasm for the record the day before. James said, "We didn't know what in the world was going on, and finally Jerry Wexler over at Atlantic leveled with us and said, 'Await, Morris Levy and Roulette called up all the other record companies and said, "This is my freakin' record." (laughs) and scared 'em all abroad – fifty-fifty the big corporate labels.'" Their simply option would be to sign with Roulette.[5]
Since the band had cleaved upward two years before, James was the only Shondell left.[iv] Mack made his dance lodge bands available to James, simply cypher seemed to fit until one of the bands' guitarists took James to the Thunderbird Lounge in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. James sang with the house band, the Raconteurs. The Raconteurs became the new Shondells,[four] and Jackson acquired the professional person name of Tommy James. By the third calendar week of June 1966, "Hanky Panky" had go the elevation single at WLS.[six] By the third calendar week of July 1966, "Hanky Panky" had become the pinnacle single in the United States.[4]
Tommy James and the Shondells [edit]
Afterwards a few comings and goings of members, the classic lineup of James, Eddie Gray (guitar), Mike Vale (bass), Ron Rosman (keyboards) and Pete Lucia (drums) was formed. The group recorded a follow-up song to "Hanky Panky". When Bob Mack's try at finding some Shondells worked out in an inadvertent way, he told James about another record he found in the same used record bin "Hanky Panky" came from: "Say I Am" past Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs. The only thing James and his new Shondells were aware of when they entered the recording studio for the first time is that any they recorded should sound like to "Hanky Panky", although the two songs audio nothing akin. Mack played The Fireballs tape for the group, and they decided to tape their version of the vocal. Mack was credited as the producer for the group's offset album, Hanky Panky.[4] [seven]
Songwriter Richie Cordell wrote (or co-wrote) and produced many of the grouping's hits, among them "I Think Nosotros're Lone Now", "Delusion", and "Mony Mony".[8] The creation of "Mony Mony" was a grouping effort involving Cordell, James, Shondells band fellow member Peter Lucia, producer Bo Gentry, and Bobby Bloom. James and Cordell set out to create a party rock single, working out everything except the vocal'south title, which eluded them fifty-fifty later much effort. When they took a suspension from their creative endeavors on James' apartment terrace, they looked upwards at the Mutual of New York Insurance Visitor's large neon sign begetting the abbreviation for the company: Grand-O-N-Y, which provided the song'due south name.[iv]
Tommy James and the Shondells besides produced a "Mony Mony" video when the song was a hit. Fifty-fifty though a number of musical groups had already produced videos by that fourth dimension, there was no market at all for that movie in the US. Idiot box stations would not air it, and information technology was originally shown between double features in pic theaters in Europe. The film was not seen in the US until the cosmos of MTV.[3]
James was contacted by Beatle George Harrison, who was working with a grouping called Grapefruit at the time. Harrison and the group had written some songs they wanted James to consider recording. Since the group had made a decision to change their musical style (and would do then with "Ruddy and Clover": see below) and the textile Harrison and Grapefruit provided was in the style of "Mony Mony", James turned downward their offer.
The music business changed subsequently the success of "Mony Mony". Top 40 program formatting, based on 45 RPM single records, drove popular music on the radio. Few stations played cuts from tape albums, then radio was, in upshot, "selling" unmarried records for the tape companies.[4] In Baronial 1968, James and the Shondells went on the entrada trail for three months with presidential candidate Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Meanwhile, popular music had become album-driven, displacing many performers whose singles had been top sellers. James realized he and the Shondells needed to become an album-oriented grouping if they were to survive in the business, necessitating a change in their style.
After working out a marketing strategy for their new sound, James visited WLS when the group was in Chicago to play a concert, bringing along a rough cutting of "Ruby-red and Clover" to the station. WLS secretly recorded the music when James played his record for them. Past the time James was out of the building and in the car, its radio was playing the station's dub of the not-yet-finished song. "Ruby-red and Clover" had to exist pressed the way it was heard on the radio station, and the marketing plan was now wasted time and effort.[4]
"Crimson and Clover" was a huge success, and the group would have two follow-up hits that also reached the Hot 100's height x, "Sweet Reddish Wine" and "Crystal Blue Persuasion". James, who co-wrote all three of those songs,[9] and his band did well enough with the transition to be invited to perform at Woodstock. James describes Artie Kornfeld's invitation like this: "Artie was up and asked if you could play at this pig subcontract up in upstate New York." I said, "What?!?" "Well, they say it'south gonna be a lot of people at that place, and it'due south gonna be a really of import show." At the time James was in Hawaii and was incredulous well-nigh being asked to travel 6,000 miles to play a prove on an upstate New York pig farm, telling the Roulette Records secretary, "If I'm not there, start without us, will you lot please?"[2] [4]
In March 1970, afterward four more than hits, drugs almost killed James when, at a concert, he complanate, and was pronounced expressionless.[ citation needed ] However, he survived, decided to take a break from the recording studio, and moved up into the country to recuperate.[ citation needed ] The Shondells, without James, recorded ii albums under the new grouping name Hog Sky (one "self titled" on Roulette Records in 1970 and the second in 1971 but unreleased until 2008), just disbanded soon afterwards.
Tommy James and The Shondells were voted into the Michigan Stone and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame in 2006. Four of the band's biggest hits accept been voted Legendary Michigan Songs: "Crimson & Clover" in 2010, and "Hanky Panky", "I Think We're Alone Now", and "Mony Mony" in 2011.[10]
Solo [edit]
James went solo later in 1970 and released his first two solo albums on Roulette, Tommy James (September 1970) and Christian of the Globe (August 1971). He had 2 farther Billboard Hot 100 top twenty chart hits with "Draggin' the Line" (co-written by Bob Rex) (#iv in 1971) and "Iii Times in Beloved" (#xix in 1980), plus eleven much smaller Hot 100 chartings. "Hanky Panky" has been James' one RIAA certified gold single. He likewise wrote and produced the million-selling 1970 hitting "Tighter, Tighter" for the group Alive 'Northward Kickin' (co-written past Bob Male monarch). In 1971 James spent time in Nashville at the recommendation of friends when a "mob war" erupted amid organized criminal offense families in New York, and threats against James were intimated due to his connection to Morris Levy. He recorded an anthology there with top Nashville musicians, My Head, My Bed and My Red Guitar (January 1972), which received critical acclamation but sold poorly. He left Roulette Records in 1974 and two more than albums, In Touch (July 1976) and Midnight Rider (January 1978), followed on Fantasy Records, with yet another, Iii Times in Love, actualization on Millennium Records in belatedly 1979. The contained label Aegis Records put out his Hi-Fi anthology in the summer of 1990.
To date, over 300 musicians have recorded versions of James' music.[2] [three] Covers of three of James' songs went top x on the Hot 100 (the last 2 as consecutive No. 1s) in the 1980s: Joan Jett with "Crimson and Clover", Tiffany with "I Remember We're Alone Now", and Billy Idol with "Mony Mony".
In October 2008 James and the iii surviving members of the original Shondells (Pete Lucia died in 1987) reunited in a New Jersey studio to record again after 37 years. The group recorded an anthology, I Dearest Christmas.[3] [11]
Music and the mob [edit]
In February 2010, an autobiography Me, The Mob, and The Music was published. James appear that deals were in manus to turn the story into both a flick and a Broadway play.[3] Barbara De Fina is producing the film.
It was axiomatic when James outset met Morris Levy, the caput of Roulette Records, that Levy was willing to stiff-arm others when necessary. Those signed to Roulette were at that place to produce money for the company, having their needs met only when it pleased Levy. Asking to be paid meant intimidation; to survive, those under contract to Roulette needed to discover a ways of generating income that did non involve the tape company, such as personally booked tours.[5] While a Roulette artist had great creative control when recording for the company, the lack of payment for those efforts was difficult to have.[four] [5] [xi]
James estimates the company owed him $30 to $40 million in royalties.[5] [12] Roulette was used as a front end for organized criminal offence, likewise performance as a coin laundering performance, as Levy was closely centrolineal with the Genovese law-breaking family. In the early 1970s, the Genovese outfit found itself in a encarmine gang war with the Gambino family, which saw victims not only amongst mobsters (such as Levy's close friend and business partner Thomas Eboli), simply increasingly amidst non-mob figures on the periphery of the organizations. Levy had taken a somewhat fatherly shine to James, and worried that he might be a target for those who wanted to get at the Genovese family through Levy, so he warned James to abscond New York for an extended flow until the state of war was over. James settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where the Mafia had picayune presence or influence. While there he began jamming with local country music session players, and was inspired to record a state-rock record in 1971.
James did non feel comfortable writing his book until all those securely involved with the tape company had died.[v] Information technology was only after Roulette Records and Levy'southward Big Vii Music publishing visitor were sold (the record visitor to an EMI and Rhino Records partnership, the music publishing company to Windswept Pacific Music which was later sold to EMI) that James began to receive large royalty checks from sales of his records.[13]
Current career [edit]
In Feb 2018, James became host of weekly radio program 'Gettin Together with Tommy James' on Sirius XM Radio channel 73, 60s Gold.[14]
James can likewise exist seen on late-night informercials selling collections of music from the Woodstock era for Time Life.[15]
Personal life [edit]
James moved to Clifton, New Jersey in the mid 1970s and circa 2000 to nearby Cedar Grove.[16] He has been married three times and has one child. On March 1, 2022, James posted on his Twitter that his last wife Lynda had died.[17]
Solo discography [edit]
Albums [edit]
| Year | Anthology | Billboard 200 | Tape label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | Tommy James | Roulette Records | |
| 1971 | Christian of the World | 131 | |
| My Head, My Bed, and My Red Guitar | |||
| 1976 | In Bear on | Fantasy Records | |
| 1978 | Midnight Rider | ||
| 1979 | Three Times in Love | 134 | Millennium Records |
| 1990 | Hi-Fi | Aegis Records | |
| 1991 | The Solo Years (1970-81) | Rhino Records | |
| 1994 | Discography Deals and Demos 74-92 | Aura Records | |
| 2006 | Concur the Fire | ||
| 2008 | I Beloved Christmas | ||
| 2019 | Alive |
Singles [edit]
| Twelvemonth | Championship | Tiptop nautical chart positions | Record label | B-side | Album | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.s. | AC [18] | AUS[19] | CAN | |||||
| 1970 | "Ball and Chain" | 57 | 44 | Roulette Records | "Candy Maker" | Tommy James | ||
| "Church Street Soul Revival" | 62 | 55 | "Draggin' the Line" | Christian of the World | ||||
| 1971 | "Adrienne" | 93 | "Light of Mean solar day" | |||||
| "Draggin' the Line" | 4 | half-dozen | twenty | two | "Bits and Pieces" | |||
| "I'k Comin' Home" | 40 | 19 | "Sing, Sing, Sing" | |||||
| "Nothing to Hibernate" | 41 | 35 | "Walk a State Mile" | My Caput, My Bed, and My Red Guitar | ||||
| 1972 | "Tell 'Em Willie Boy's A'Comin'" | 89 | 89 | "Forty Days and Forty Nights" | ||||
| "Cat's Centre in the Window" | ninety | 85 | "Nighttime is the Night" | non-anthology | ||||
| "Honey Song" | 67 | xl | 51 | "Kingston Highway" | non-album | |||
| "Celebration" | 95 | "The Last One to Know" | non-album | |||||
| 1973 | "Boo, Boo, Don't'cha Be Blueish" | seventy | 68 | "Rings and Things" | non-album | |||
| "Calico" | "Hey, My Lady" | In Affect | ||||||
| 1974 | "Celebrity, Celebrity" | MCA Records | "Comin' Down" | non-album | ||||
| 1976 | "Tighter, Tighter" | Fantasy Records | "Comin' Down" | In Impact | ||||
| "I Dearest You lot Love Me Love" | "Devil Gate Drive" | |||||||
| 1977 | "Dear is Gonna Detect a Way" | "I Don't Love You Anymore" | Midnight Rider | |||||
| 1979 | "3 Times in Beloved" | 19 | 1 | 64 | Millennium Records | "I Just Wanna Play the Music" | Iii Times in Honey | |
| 1980 | "You lot Got Me" | 101 | "It'southward All Right (For Now)" | |||||
| 1981 | "Y'all're So Easy to Beloved" | 58 | "Halfway to Sky" | non-album | ||||
| 1983 | "Say Please" | 21 Records | "Two Fourth dimension Lover" | non-album | ||||
| 2006 | "Honey Words" | forty | Aureola Records | Concur the Burn down | ||||
| 2019 | "So Beautiful" | 29 | Aura Records | Alive | ||||
| "I Call back We're Solitary Now" (acoustic) | 27 | |||||||
Bibliography [edit]
- James, Tommy; Martin Fitzpatrick (2010). Me, the mob, and the music : i helluva ride with Tommy James and the Shondells . New York: Scribner. ISBN978-i-4391-2865-seven. The book extensively details James's relationship with Morris Levy.
References [edit]
- ^ Tommy James at AllMusic
- ^ a b c d e f "Tommy James & The Shondells". Classicbands.com. Retrieved December 11, 2010.
- ^ a b c d eastward f g h "Tommy James Biography". TommyJames.com. Retrieved December 11, 2010.
- ^ a b c d due east f g h i j k 50 thousand n o p James, Tommy; Fitzpatrick, Martin, eds. (2010). Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells . Scribner. p. 240. ISBN978-1-4391-2865-7 . Retrieved December eleven, 2010.
raindrops.
- ^ a b c d due east f g Mervis, Scott (March 22, 2010). "Tommy James' music success linked to Pittsburgh and gangsters". Pittsburgh Mail service-Gazette. Retrieved December eleven, 2010.
- ^ "Silver Dollar Survey". WLS. June 17, 1966. Retrieved August thirty, 2014.
- ^ Viglione, Joe. "Hanky Panky (album)". Allmusic.com. Retrieved December xi, 2010.
- ^ Kuruts, Steve. "Richie Cordell Biography". allmusic.com. Retrieved December 11, 2010.
- ^ Ruhlmann, William. "The Very Best of Tommy James & the Shondells". allmusic.com. Retrieved Dec 11, 2010.
- ^ "Domicile". Michigan Rock and Roll Legends. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
- ^ a b James, Gary. "Tommy James Interview". Classicbands.com. Retrieved December xi, 2010.
- ^ La Gorce, Tammy (November nineteen, 2010). "A Stone 'n' Roll Story Is Finally Told". New York Times . Retrieved December xi, 2010.
- ^ "For Tommy James, the past is the future | 40 Years After | a Chron.com web log". Blogs.chron.com. July 5, 2010. Retrieved April 13, 2012.
- ^ "Tommy James Launches New Weekly Series Exclusively on SiriusXM". cashboxmagazine.com. Feb 28, 2018. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
- ^ "The Woodstock Collection". Time Life. September 30, 2012. Retrieved August nineteen, 2015.
- ^ Lustig, Jay. "Tommy James tells all: The glorious highs and picayune-known night side of a hit-filled career", The Star-Ledger, September five, 2010. Accessed Oct 2, 2016. "James was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in South Bend, Ind., Monroe, Wis., and Niles, Mich. He moved to New York in '66, and New Jersey in 1973. He has been in Cedar Grove for about x years, having previously lived in Clifton. He recently moved to Sykesville, Maryland."
- ^ "https://twitter.com/tjshondells/status/1498677162513162240". Twitter . Retrieved March 5, 2022.
- ^ "Tommy James Nautical chart History: Developed Contemporary". Billboard . Retrieved March 27, 2019.
- ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Nautical chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, North.South.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 154. ISBN0-646-11917-half dozen.
External links [edit]
- Official Website
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_James
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