by Tommy James
At some point during the gig, I had a great talk with Ricky Nelson. Our conversation was essentially me gushing about what a big fan I was and how I had always loved his music and that my first public performance ever was “Lonesome Town” before my high school class back in Niles when I was twelve years old. In fact, it was what got me to organize my first group, which eventually became the Shondells. He was dressed in a khaki three-piece suit and was very conservative, in that quiet way he always had on TV. The music business was so different since he’d first broke out in 1957, and he hadn’t had a big hit in a couple of years. He had not yet reinvented himself as the “Garden Party” Rick Nelson. I was flabbergasted when he told me he liked my music. I don’t know how impressed he was, but it was important to me that I told him how much he meant to me.
We worked with another of my heroes that summer. In Boston, we played with the Beach Boys at the Back Bay Theater and I was so blown away not just by them but by their stage gear. We had never worked with a professional monitor system before. They had a truck for nothing but their front sound system and monitors. We were still using whatever contraption the venue handed us, shouting into the microphones and hoping the crowd could hear us. The Beach Boys had a guy out of New Jersey named Jersey Joe who ran their sound. They were just coming off their hit single “Good Vibrations” so they were also riding high. It was amazing watching them perform, especially Mike Love on the theremin. It sounded like you were in a studio. We got to use their system because we were sharing the stage and everything was set up for them. That turned our heads around, and we traveled with our own sound system from then on.
We also played with the Monkees that year at a lot of ballparks. The one I remember best was the new Atlanta Braves ballpark. The 1910 Fruitgum Co. opened the show. We were the middle act. At that time the Monkees were working for the unheard-of amount of $100,000 guaranteed or 100 percent of the gate, which was a deal nobody was getting. Even the Stones and the Beatles didn’t have that kind of deal. The promoter made nothing, but he looked like a hero and probably thought that would cement his reputation. I don’t even think he recouped his losses. We got paid, but in essence, everybody was working for the Monkees. At that moment, the Monkees were the biggest act imaginable. They were having Top 10 hits, they had a hit TV show, and they were every American teenybopper’s heartthrobs. We played with them a few more times in ’67, including a concert at the newly built Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Another thing that happened after “I Think We’re Alone Now” was that the industry treated us differently. Radio, magazines, and television all treated us with a lot more respect than when we were the kids who had had this one hit out of Pittsburgh. Red Schwartz, who I spoke with every day no matter where we were or what we were doing, was able to get the top jocks and program directors on the phone anytime, day or night, with news about Tommy James. And the band and I were seeing ourselves differently. One day I woke up and I became a New Yorker. I think it hit me when I went home for a short visit and all my relatives sounded like hillbillies. When you think your mom and dad have accents, you know something has changed. New York looked normal.
I was getting acclimated to the city through Ronnie and just being in the center of this great creative merry-go-round called the music business. It was more than hitting the nightspots and buying new clothes. I was actually able to hail a cab by myself and know how to tip a waiter without getting glared at like a tourist. If it wasn’t for Ronnie I would have stayed hidden in my hotel room. Ronnie got me out of my gopher hole. Back in Niles, I was the musical prodigy and nearly everybody else in my world was tone deaf. But in New York, everybody was as musically good as or better than I was. That was a great spur to get not only me but the other Shondells to keep thinking creatively. We would argue and debate in what direction the band should go. Getting to know other bands was a revelation. When I used to stop by the Brill Building, I was always amazed at how Otis Blackwell or Jay & the Americans ran their musical operation like a well-oiled business. I had grown mildly savvy in Niles but it was nothing compared to what these guys were doing. And because pop music was changing so fast, we were always aware of our competition and what move we would need to make next.
We really grew into seasoned professionals in 1967 by insisting on “rock star” treatment. We were playing consistently for crowds of 50,000 and 60,000 people, and we were beginning to understand what it meant to be stars, which was great fun. Since we’d started at Roulette, we’d always found ourselves staying at the Holiday Inn in order to save the promoters and our manager money. Nobody figured out that we should be staying at the Hilton or the Sheraton. We would blow into town like heroes and there would be a big sign on the marquee of the Holiday Inn saying: WELCOME TOMMY JAMES AND THE SHONDELLS. It was usually above another announcement like: WELCOME SCHWARTZ BAR MITZVAH or ALL YOU CAN EAT FISH-FRY. We must have stayed at every Holiday Inn in the country. I think it was something Lenny Stogel arranged. Sometimes we had to double up and share beds. One night, we were so exhausted that Ronnie Rosman and I, half-asleep, must have thought we were home with our wives or girlfriends and started to put our arms around each other. The two of us woke up, screamed, and nearly fell off the bed. That was it. We were “stars” now, and that year we insisted on better treatment.
First, we invested in an official Tommy James and the Shondells truck with our name painted on the sides, which, of course, was like a neon sign saying “Please steal our stuff.” Next, we gave the green station wagon an honorable retirement and began riding around in limousines, and then we hired roadies to do the heavy lifting. Nineteen sixty-seven was the year we upgraded.
Through all the traveling and one-night stands, I was constantly returning to New York to do publicity and work on the next album. In May 1967, I met with Bo and Ritchie at Bo’s apartment on Fifty-first Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues to talk about our next project. Bo had become a hippie by this time and had completely embraced the flower child look, even if he still acted like a street punk. He had acquired what could only be called “homeless chic,” which was kind of popular back then. He had holes in his jeans; he wore construction boots without socks, and carried around a leather shoulder bag with lots of fringe. His apartment was filled with overstuffed pillows and all the doorjambs had hanging beads. There were posters of naked girls on the walls that became transformed under the glow of a black light and the whole place smelled like pot and incense. He might have even had a lava lamp. We lit the customary joint and I settled down to listen to whatever new material they were working on. Bo played some things for me on his upright piano, but nothing sounded good and it wasn’t because his keyboard was constantly out of tune. While Bo was playing, I noticed an acetate record out of its cover, titled “Gettin’ Together” with Gene Pitney’s name on it. I picked it up and said, “What’s this?” “Something I’m working on.” I could tell I had touched a nerve. He did not want to talk about it and there was tension in the room. There was always tension when I was with Bo and Ritchie, that’s just the way they were, but this was different. I made them play it for me. I looked directly at Bo after the record was over and he said, “It’s just something I did.” “Can I do it?” Silence. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Why wasn’t I shown this? Why wasn’t I given the right of first refusal?” Bo gave a bogus answer but I could see he knew this wasn’t going to end well. I didn’t want to hear anymore. “I like this a lot,” I said, “and I’m doing this.”
I went right to Roulette and walked into Morris’s office and I told him how upset I was with Bo, that he had this record I liked but that he went behind my back and recorded it with Gene Pitney. “Fuck Gene Pitney,” said Morris and he called Bo. “Get over here right now and bring that record Tommy likes.” A half hour later we were all in Morris’s office listening to Gene Pitney sing my next single. Ritchie could not have cared less, but I could see that Bo was mad, probably because he knew there was nothing he could do about it. “Fuck Gene Pitney.�
�� That’s all it took. End of story. “Gettin’ Together” turned out to be our seventh gold record and I always felt like I owed Gene Pitney an apology.
I suppose it’s best to clarify a few things. It is always reported that there are five major crime families in New York—Gambino, Genovese, Colombo, Lucchese, and Bonanno—and that’s mostly true. But back in the sixties, there were six families. All of the above and the Roulette family. It was not for nothing that Morris Levy was called the Godfather of the music business. People from all over the industry called him or came to him to sort out problems. If somebody from Atlantic Records or Kama Sutra found out that their records were being bootlegged, they called Morris. It seemed like once a month Morris would grab Nate McCalla and a few baseball bats, which were always in his office, and take off for somewhere in New Jersey or upstate New York. It was a ritual. “KARIN,” he would yell out to his secretary, baseball bat in hand. “Call my lawyer.” And off they would go.
Herb Rosen told me about an encounter with a bootlegger he got from Nate himself. Morris got a call from one of the big record labels that someone was bootlegging the company’s records. They had an address in Brooklyn, so Morris and Nate grabbed their bats and were off to Flatbush. They broke into the building and found one guy busy pressing records. They tied the terrified guy to a chair, smashed the machinery, and then piled the records around him and doused them with gasoline. Morris lit a match and asked the guy who was behind it all. The man was in tears, swearing that it was only him, that he was doing it all to pay for an operation for his kid. Morris blew out the match and said, “If you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”
They left the building, threw the guy into the car, and drove to a nearby hospital. Sure enough, the man’s child was in intensive care. Morris talked to the hospital officials, wrote out a check for the operation, and told the guy, “Don’t ever do this again.”
But Morris used more than just muscle, and he worked with everybody in the business. If someone needed a change in their contract, Morris would arrange a deal. If someone wanted to leave one company and go to another, Morris would handle the details. If someone needed money because they were broke or bankrupt, Morris would arrange the financing. If you wanted a song that Gene Pitney had already recorded, you went to Morris and Morris would fix it. Of course, you would then be in debt to Morris and that could mean anything from an IOU you took very seriously to buying bonds for Israel. Morris ran his business like a “family” business. He protected you, but he also demanded loyalty and a hell of a lot of money. He was constantly on the phone, making deals. I never saw a guy use the phone so much. Every time I would come to see him he would be on the phone making a publishing deal in Britain or chatting up Cardinal Spellman or organizing a dinner for the United Jewish Appeal, or just saying hello to James Brown or Bob Hope.
The most expendable commodity in Morris’s world was songwriters, who he probably felt were immediately replaceable. The big joke at Roulette was that scientists were trying to find the quietest place on earth. Answer: the Royalty Department at Roulette. Howard Fisher, who issued the checks, was the most harassed man I ever met. It seemed at some point every songwriter, recording artist, producer, musician, and IRS agent in the country came banging at Howard’s door. Karin told me that during the great blackout of 1965, no one at Roulette knew the problem extended from Canada to New Jersey. Everyone thought that Con Edison had just shut off all the power in the building. Everyone ran into Howard’s office screaming, “For God’s sake, pay the electric bill already!”
Oddly enough, a few royalty statements were paid out regularly. They were royalties owed to that famous songwriter Morris Levy. If you weren’t careful, Morris’s writing credits would appear on songs that were actually written and recorded months before the record was purchased by Roulette. Even Morris’s son, Adam, was given the occasional writing credit, which was very odd because at the time Adam was busy attending kindergarten.
This was the reason Bo was so mad. Morris wasn’t paying him, and Bo started getting an attitude. Just before June, I went into the studio by myself to do the lead vocal and harmonies for “Gettin’ Together.” Bo and Ritchie had gone in with Jimmy Wisner separately to put together the music track but the feeling had soured. Everybody was getting an attitude. I couldn’t really dwell on it because I had to leave the next day to begin our big summer tour.
The summer tour of 1967 was really the first big tour in which the Shondells and I were involved. It had always been random one-nighters up to that point. This was a bus tour put together by Lenny Stogel and included all of his acts. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs were the headliners, and the Royal Guardsmen opened the show. They had a crazy made-for-radio novelty hit earlier that year called “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.” And then came an act named simply Keith, who had a big hit called “98.6.” We went on just before Sam. Sam was older than we were and he was a good guy. He had a good band. The last real solid hit he’d had was “Lil’ Red Riding Hood” in 1966, and of course they scored big the year before with “Wooly Bully.” They were popular beyond the number of hits they had partly because of their outlandish image, which was perfect for the times. Sam wore a turban and the female backup singers, the Shamettes, dressed in metallic skirts with slits down the side. The band wore puffy pirate shirts. Lenny booked the tour through William Morris and all the acts were handled by Lenny and his management team. I didn’t want to ride on a bus for weeks at a time, and I had to keep returning to New York whenever we were not performing, so I hired a driver and a gold Cadillac, which, of course, endeared me to everyone on the bus. My driver’s name was Vito, and he had a hard time controlling all the high-tech gadgets in the car, especially the power windows. I’d be talking to someone outside the car from inside and suddenly the window would be rolling up on my neck. “Sorry, Tommy,” he would say.
We had a big tour kick-off party in Manhattan, and all the jocks from WMCA radio were there. WMCA was the 5,000-watt station up against WABC, which was the 50,000-watt station. The most popular jock at WMCA was Jack Specter. He had been hired as our traveling MC and went on the whole tour with us, which lasted about eight weeks. Jack made a sad kind of history years later, by actually dying on the air. We played all over the country, and it was the first time we were merchandised with shirts, tour books, and lots of prepress and promotion. I finished the tour, but just barely. My voice was cracked and sore. We were sometimes doing five shows a week in different cities, and the pills and cigarettes were starting to take their toll. I was starting to look bad, losing lots of weight. When there was downtime, I was going back and forth to see Ronnie in New York or making spot visits back to Niles to see my family. I would blow through Niles like a tornado, spending what time I could, arms filled with money and gifts.
While we were out on the road, Lenny Stogel and his wife, Myrna, discovered a great new group called the Cowsills while they were rehearsing on the family farm in Connecticut. The reason the band was so unique for rock and roll was that they were an actual family. The mother, brothers, and sister all performed while the father managed them. Lenny got them a deal with MGM, and Mike Curb, the golden boy, who at twenty-one years old became the president of the company, signed them. Artie Kornfeld, who would later go on to help create the Woodstock festival, produced them and wrote their first hit, “The Rain, The Park & Other Things.” In addition, Jimmy Wisner was brought in to do their arrangements.
Because of all the personal connections, I felt like I had a stake in this act. Every time I hear that first Cowsills hit, it evokes memories of that time and place. It was one of the greatest-sounding records I ever heard. It was as powerfully emotional and evocative as “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. When the NBC network had such a great success with the Monkees TV show, ABC wanted to get into the act and they conceived a show based on and starring the Cowsills, but there was so much haggling with the father that the deal fell through and the musical actress Shirley Jones and her son David Cassidy went
on to star in The Partridge Family, which was one of the highest-rated television shows in the early seventies. David Cassidy is still performing the hits from the TV show to this day.
Lenny started a new company called Heroic Age Publicity and had Janis Murray run it out of 888 Eighth Avenue. Most of the people in my professional life were all living at 888. It was one of the great show business buildings in New York. Lenny lived there and so did Zac, Linda Eastman, Jimmy Wisner, along with other celebrities like Laura Nyro and Howard Keal. Then the Cowsills moved in on the ground floor. It was one big happy family, except the father drank heavily. He was an ex-serviceman, a big, burly guy who would occasionally come home crocked and get violent with the kids. A couple of them would come up to my place and hang out until the dust settled and then go back downstairs. That happened several times. The Cowsills were regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show that year. He adored them. They were good kids and it really was a nice family when the old man was not drinking.
Many people point to 1968 as the pivotal year in rock, but the sea change actually occurred in 1967. One of the things I remember so clearly was that it was the beginning of psychedelic music and FM underground radio. The music was getting away from the AM Top 40 format. The songs were getting longer and the melodies and themes were moving away from traditional pop into something that didn’t really have a name yet. Just after the breakup and reorganization of the band, I went up to Pittsburgh for a rehearsal. I decided we needed to revamp the show and make it fit our new sound and the smaller, tighter, five-piece group we now were. A couple of the Shondells picked me up at the airport and on the way to rehearsal I was blown away when I heard the new Beatles single, “Strawberry Fields Forever.” But what really stunned me was that the next song was “Happy Together” by the Turtles. The Turtles’ song was a great pop AM radio hit while “Strawberry Fields” was something else. It belonged on FM underground radio, not Top 40 radio. That is when I realized a shift was occurring and it was not just in the music business. In 1967, the first whiff of Eastern influence really entered the general culture. People were taking up yoga and meditating, and even old-guard stars like Sammy Davis, Jr., started wearing Nehru jackets and medallions. Bellbottoms and beads became part of everyone’s uniform. The new acts coming out that year, like Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin on lead vocals, the Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, and Cream, all had an edge to their music. There was still a good-natured feeling about everything. Drugs were still just “recreational,” and Vietnam had not yet turned into the mess it later became. The presidential elections were still a year off. It was that time in between pop and “heavy.”
