Tommy James

Tommy James
and The Shondells

Born: Thomas Gregory Jackson
April 29, 1947
Birthplace: Dayton, Ohio

“We all knew what happened to Jimmy Rogers when he went after his royalties. He was left for dead on an L.A. Freeway. It was by the grace of God that he survived because he was in good shape, but he was never really right after that.”
~Tommy James

Fame, Fortune, the Mob, and Christians who Lived to Tell the Story
Dawn Bonner

Do you know who one of the most popular Christian music bands is? What you are about to learn may surprise you. Tommy James and the Shondells are the most popular and danced-to Christian music, they also have nine Gold and Platinum Albums, plus 23 gold single albums.

Tommy James and the Shondells have also played 44 consecutive years. And, it would seem with the release of James’ new book, they are about to have a resurgence in popularity (not that they have ever left the scene or not been popular). See the above facts for proof of this statement.

Me, the Mob, and the Music One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells written by James and Martin Fitzpatrick was released in February 2010. Currently there is a movie project based on James’ life being worked on and James’ story will be playing on Broadway, as well.

About the Music

Now, you may not have been able to focus on the preceding paragraph because you are stuck, saying to yourself, Tommy James and the Shondells–Christian music? You could be thinking, perhaps he started playing and writing Christian music in his later years. Not so. Did you know Crystal Blue Persuasion is about a book in the Bible?

James went into detail regarding inspiration for his songs in his autobiography Me, the Mob, and the Music and in an interview he did with Songfacts Shawna Hansen Ortega.

When she asked if Crystal Blue was a reference to the Bible, James said, “Yes, it is. It’s out of the Bible, right. Well, the imagery was right out of Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation, about the Lake of Crystal, and what John sees. The imagery was right there. Crystal Blue Persuasion, although those words aren’t used together, it was kind of what the image meant to me.”

He was also asked if the words it’s a new vibration was a reference to him becoming a Christian, to which James said, “Yes, indeed. And, of course, everybody thinks if they don’t understand what you’re talking about it must be about drugs. But it wasn’t. We were going through a real interesting time back then, and a very wonderful time. Everybody in the band, by the way, became Christian. And we’re very proud of it. And, Crystal Blue Persuasion was our way of saying that in a kind of pop record way.”

Tommy James and The Shondells Music
Hanky Panky, the single was starting to catch some air time when he turned 19-years-old, and was just out of high-school. The air time got record labels in Manhattan interested. Off to New York City he went. Every label in the city accepted the band when he visited their studios. The next day it was a different story relayed James, when he called the studios he was interested in to accept, they reneged on their offer. He finally found out Roulette Records’ Morris Levy let every studio know Tommy James was his.

Immediately after signing with Roulette Records, Hanky Panky became a hit. James credits Herbie Rosen with being a marketing genius in getting distribution for their songs. After Hanky Panky, the hits kept rolling out. To this day, they are still cranking out hits.

James said, “We charted again with three Top Five Adult Contemporary records in 2006 with our Hold the Fire album. Love Words went to number one exactly 40 years to the week Hanky Panky went number one. So, we felt like there was this gigantic circle made. And, the CD also had three Top Five Adult Contemporary records off of that.

About the Book Me, the Mob, and the Music

“This book is an autobiography with about two-thirds of it explaining this relationship… Roulette [Records] was used as a social club and illegal bank account. But, we had to basically get our arms around the fact that we were not going to get mechanical royalties,” James said in an interview on Coast to Coast radio station.

Morris Levy was part of the mafia and Roulette Records was owned and operated by the mob. As James explained in the interview and in his book there were a lot of pros and definitely cons in working for this label.

Platinum single Crimson and Clover was a Roulette Records l
label. Tommy James and The Shondells sold more singles than
any other band in the world, including The Beatles.

“Every time I go to say something really nasty about Roulette and Morris Levy, I have to temper it because without them there wouldn’t have been a Tommy James. Especially with a record like Hanky Panky, we would have been handed off to a producer.”

“We would’ve been lost in the numbers and you never would have heard from us. And, I got an education from Roulette I never would have gotten anywhere else. They were a working record label company and they needed us. They hadn’t had a hit in three years, so they left us alone in the studio to do what we wanted to do,” explained James.

There was a downer attached to working with Levy. He kept all of the working royalties for himself. Closest estimates say this totaled a hefty 30 to 40 million dollars in missing royalties. That account was figured as closely as possible and in the 60s and 70s era money.

As Ian Punnett of Coast to Coast Radio Station said, “That is an incredible amount of money for even today’s standards. If you account for today’s inflation it is huge.”

James said, “In the book, one of the things I try to do is humanize Morris Levy to a certain extent. I learned a lot with him. He did a lot of things. He opened Bird Land, the most famous music club, was Alan Freeds manager, owned several music clubs in NYC. He came half-an-inch from Trade Marking Rock and Roll. Can you imagine paying him every time you say Rock and Roll?,” asked James.

“He put his name on songs he didn’t write, he was a thief, and very likely a murderer. That really is a mixed bag, that’s why there is so many mixed feelings in this. This was very cathartic [writing the book], I had wanted to tell this story for many years.”

“We were very aware that bad things could happen to us, we were very lucky to make it out in one piece I always felt,” said James.

And, Tommy James and The Shondells, we are so glad you made it out of there as well.

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