Tommy James has a laugh that could probably short out an old transistor radio. Which seems appropriate, considering he spent the last fifty years bouncing between the AM Top 40 and AM crime syndicates. “When we signed with Roulette Records,” he says, “we didn’t know we were basically joining the Genovese crime family.”
Somewhere between organized crime and crimson-and-clover-colored daydreams, Tommy James and the Shondells managed to drop hit after hit: 23 gold singles, platinum albums, and a legacy that’s still waiting for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to get its act together.
Talking to James is like riding a time machine with a busted steering wheel. We jump from 1969—where Crimson and Clover and Cellophane Symphony lit up radio playlists—to the present, where he’s finishing a new album called Alive (“we thought about calling it Dead, but didn’t think that would look great on a T-shirt”), prepping a biopic based on his book Me, the Mob, and the Music, and hosting a SiriusXM show that plays, among other things, endless versions of “Crimson and Clover.” “Prince had a hit with it digitally before he passed away,” James says, “and Dolly Parton and I did a kind-of duet too. She’s a real great gal.”
Crimson and Clover wasn’t just a big moment for the band—it was survival. “When we left for Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign in ’68, it was all singles,” James says. “When we got back, it was albums. Led Zeppelin, CSN, Neil Young… it flipped in 90 days.” Good thing they were sitting on a song that could stretch from two minutes to six with a few tape loops and some pedal steel. “We didn’t have Pro Tools then,” James shrugs. “We had scissors and prayer.”
He blames the pace for almost sending him to the hospital: two albums in one year, five gold singles, and trying to talk baseball with Yankees legend Whitey Ford, who owned the studio where they discovered the Moog synthesizer. “If you wanted to hear a funny conversation,” James says, “you should’ve heard me trying to talk pitching, and Whitey trying to talk Moog patches.”
And then there’s the little matter of Woodstock—the one party where Tommy James missed the bus. Literally. “Artie Kornfeld called while we were in Hawaii,” he recalls. “He said, ‘Big gig upstate at a pig farm.’ I said, ‘Well, if we’re not there, start without us.’” They did. “By Friday when they closed the freeway, we knew we’d messed up.”
Despite the occasional “oops,” James never stopped working. There’s a new single (“So Beautiful”) on deck, Alive on the horizon, and a film adaptation of his mobbed-up roulette experience in the works with Goodfellas producer Barbara De Fina. “It’s not a jukebox musical,” James stresses. “It’s a drama with music.”
Still, one thing nags: that empty space in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “When it’s our turn, we’ll go,” James says, only half-grinning. “But honestly, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of being the underdog.”
Besides, if the Hall ever does call, it’s going to be a hell of a party. Probably with a few more synthesizers—and maybe this time, no pig farms involved.
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