2020. 2. 29. 20:43ㆍ카테고리 없음
MRRL Hall of Fame.DetailsCategory: Tommy James and The ShondellsTommy James was born Thomas Jackson in Dayton, Ohio in 1947. He was attracted to music at a very early age and his mother bought him a record player and some 78’s to play on it when he was just two years old.
- Tommy James And The Shondells Covers
- Tommy James And The Shondells Wikipedia
- Tommy James & The Shondells The Shondells
When he was three, Tommy started to play the ukulele and then made his first stage appearance as a child model at the age of four. By the age of nine, Tommy had got his first guitar and taught himself to play it. He graduated to electric guitar the following year.Tommy’s family moved to Niles, Michigan, when he was eleven. It was in Niles, a small town located near the Indiana border and Lake Michigan, that Tommy formed his first rock band. The Tornadoes began playing gigs in and around Niles and developed a sizeable local following.
Tommy James And The Shondells Covers
He also got a fun part-time job working at Spin-It Records after school where he got a valuable music business education by reading the trade papers and learning about retailing.Tommy signed a record deal for the Tornadoes with a small regional label in southeast Michigan and they cut a song called “Long Pony Tail”. Five hundred copies of the record were pressed, and it became a local hit as the band sold the records at their gigs.Performing now as Tom and the Tornadoes, they attracted the attention of Jack Douglas, a disk jockey at local radio station WNIL. Douglas had heard “Long Pony Tail” and had seen Tommy and the band play live.
Tommy James And The Shondells Wikipedia
Now he wanted them on the new regional label that he started called Snap Records. He signed Tommy and the rest of the Tornadoes to a recording contract and, in early 1964, brought them into the studio.Although their first single flopped, the second one they recorded for Snap included “Hanky Panky”. The song had been written by the famous team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. In 1963, the pair had written two big hits; “Be My Baby” for the Ronettes and “The Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget” for the Raindrops. The Raindrops were really a studio group made up of Barry and Greenwich. For their follow-up single, Jeff and Ellie wrote two songs: “That Boy John” and “Hanky Panky”.
Tommy James & The Shondells The Shondells
Jeff Barry thought “Hanky Panky” was the weaker of the two, so it was issued as the B-side of The Raindrops’ next record late in 1963.Tommy was not aware of the Raindrops’ original version of “Hanky Panky” but he had heard a rival band from Niles rev up a crowd with their cover of it. That twist of fate led Tommy and the Shondells to cut a version of the song for Snap. “Hanky Panky” was recorded at the WNIL studios with the entire band playing all at once.
The band members urging Tommy on during his guitar solo gave the record a party atmosphere that was irresistible. The band then changed its name to the Shondells and released it as a single. It was a regional smash but Snap, with its limited distribution, was unable to break the song nationally and it quickly faded away.The original Shondells had broken up by 1965, and Tommy began playing a steady series of club gigs throughout the Midwest with a new band called the Koachmen.
It was a grind to be on the road, and the band had settled into a regular gig at a club in South Bend, Indiana. Tommy was able to live at home in nearby Niles with his young wife and new baby. By the end of the year, Tommy was considering giving up music when he got the phone call that changed his life. It was from Jack Douglas who told him that a promoter in Pittsburgh had tracked him down to tell him that “Hanky Panky” had been the # 1 single in the city the past three weeks.A club deejay in Pittsburgh had found a copy of the Shondells’ “Hanky Panky” in a pile of used records. When he played it at one of his dances, the crowd went crazy.
Tommy James was a top selling singles artist throughout the mid- to late ‘60s, with a string of Top 40 hits that were as fresh and exciting as the album oriented rock that received most of the critical applause and that gave rise to the FM radio format. James’ music with the Shondells kept AM radio firmly in its sights and their heads. They were an unashamed celebration of what became known as “bubblegum” pop. Fact is the songs themselves are very, very good. “Hanky Panky” has a powerful hook and slashing guitars, while “I Think We’re Alone Now” is an affecting piece of adolescent sexual tension. “Mirage,” “I Like The Way,” “Getting Together” and “Real Girl” are riveting pieces of pop-rock, with vocal interplay that enlivens even the most routine composition. “Mony Mony” proved to be a great rock ‘n’ roll shouter (and later a hit for Billy Idol), but “Crimson and Clover,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “Sweet Cherry Wine” showed James and crew could keep up with the psychedelic innovations without losing their bite.
This is a great detailed anthology of that era. Tommy James was a top selling singles artist throughout the mid- to late ‘60s, with a string of Top 40 hits that were as fresh and exciting as the album oriented rock that received most of the critical applause and that gave rise to the FM radio format. James’ music with the Shondells kept AM radio firmly in its sights and their heads. They were an unashamed celebration of what became known as “bubblegum” pop.
Fact is the songs themselves are very, very good. “Hanky Panky” has a powerful hook and slashing guitars, while “I Think We’re Alone Now” is an affecting piece of adolescent sexual tension. “Mirage,” “I Like The Way,” “Getting Together” and “Real Girl” are riveting pieces of pop-rock, with vocal interplay that enlivens even the most routine composition. “Mony Mony” proved to be a great rock ‘n’ roll shouter (and later a hit for Billy Idol), but “Crimson and Clover,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “Sweet Cherry Wine” showed James and crew could keep up with the psychedelic innovations without losing their bite. This is a great detailed anthology of that era.