Tommy James

Tommy James (born Thomas Gregory Jackson; April 29, 1947) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. James is the frontman of the rock band Tommy James and the Shondells, which is known for hit singles such as "Mony Mony", "Crimson and Clover", and "Crystal Blue Persuasion".

Born in Dayton, Ohio, on April 29, 1947, James later moved with his family to Niles, Michigan. He was a child model at the age of four.

In 1959, at the age of 12, James formed the band the Echoes", which eventually became Tom and the Tornadoes. In 1964, the band changed its name to the Shondells. That same year, Jack Douglas, a local DJ at WNIL radio station in Niles, formed his own record label, Snap Records. The Shondells were one of the local bands he recorded at WNIL Studios. One of the songs was the Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich ditty "Hanky Panky", which the pair had recorded under the name the Raindrops. The song was a hit locally, but the label had no resources for national promotion, and it was soon forgotten.

In 1965, a local dance promoter, Bob Mack, found a copy of "Hanky Panky" in a used record bin and started playing it at his Pittsburgh dance clubs. Soon after, a Pittsburgh-area bootlegger made a copy of the song and began pressing copies of it, speeding it up slightly in the process. Sales of the bootleg were estimated at 80,000 in 10 days. It became a number-one on Pittsburgh radio stations in early 1966. Douglas heard about the record's sudden popularity in Pittsburgh because his name and contact information appeared on Snap Records labels. Numerous calls from Pittsburgh convinced James to go to Pennsylvania, where he met Mack and Chuck Rubin, who handled the talent bookings for Mack's dance clubs. Before long, all three major music trade papers, Billboard, Cashbox, and Record World, were listing "Hanky Panky" as a regional breakout hit. Rubin, who had music-industry connections, said it was a good time for the trio to travel to New York City in search of a record deal.

The band 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 town until that evening; Roulette was one of the last stops on their visit. By the next morning, Mack, Rubin, and James were now receiving polite refusals from the major record 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, 'Look, Morris Levy and Roulette called up all the other record companies and said, "This is my freakin' record." (laughs) and scared 'em all away – even the big corporate labels.'" Their only option would be to sign with Roulette.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.