Tommy James and the Shondelles C or D

This man speaks the truth

I was supposed to go last night to BeeBeeKing's to see him on a comp from my buddy who was playing in the band but, somewhat mysteriously, all the tickets to the sold-out show that were reserved for the band seemed to have disappeared, so dud for that reason, but otherwise classic.

Where is the love for "Kathleen McArthur"?

"I'm Comin' Home" is like cheapass songwriting at it's BEST, a vague rip of "Jumpin' Jack Flash"'s riff and the chorus from "He's So Fine" and it fucking WORKS. Just got a crappy "as advertised on TV!" US cdouble vinyl comp for cheap and man, it's all good. And it's missing so many songs that've been mentioned on this thread!

Also "Cat's Eye in the Window" IS "Horse w No Name". Bubblegum rips off a lot, and so leaves itself open for same due to lack of respect to "art" going both ways?

"He has sold, to date, over 100 million records and has been awarded 23 gold singles and 9 gold and platinum albums."

...according to James' website. But I believe it. It's mind boggling how many classic songs this dude has written. As a singles band, I think the Shondells (and James solo) rivals the Monkees. Is that crazy to think?

Hell no. And as mentioned upthread, I think, it was interesting to see how often he got covered in the eighties and how so many of those covers were big hits! A transitional character, if you like. Liminal even. (I'll stop there.)

Sadly, the most recent cover I can think of is REM doing "Draggin' the Line."

in addition to the 30 or so absolutely perfect and transcendent pop songs already mentioned, i feel compelled to add a word or two on behalf of 1969's "on behalf of the entire staff & management," from the tommy james experimental era. it's basically an early guided by voices song, right down to the way the lead vocal is recorded. and james isn't that much older than robert pollard. the replacements could've covered it too, circa "treatment bound." and, um, it's great.

How about the production on "Ball of Fire"? I know somebody else mentioned the tune, but hell, talk about lo-fi weirdness long before Sebadoh!

actually, it was you, fact checking, that mentioned it before.

I don't think the James' penned "Tighter, Tighter" gets enough love; well, except on certain oldies stations.

speaking of "ball of fire," can someone tell me what the first line is? i hear "scarlet hovering my head," which makes no grammatical sense whatsoever but kind of does make sense with the rest of the song (which, by the way, makes for a fairly excellent 9/11 song!). is there some word or piece of syntax that i'm missing in there?

according to songmeanings.net you're right

excellent. that's confirmation enough for me!

i've had a tommy james 2cd comp for a while, but never really listened to 'Draggin' the Line' before, which is my new favourite song.

another two that aren't mentioned above but are really wonderful are 'She' and 'Loved One'

Fucking Mirage!

I have a hard time saying anything bad about TJ&Shondelles. In fact, the later into their catalog, the better, yeah...

Cellophane Symphony ('69) has way good moments going on

"Evergreen" from that record is a psychedelic sloe-jam of sorts, while "Making Good Time" is something that should have been covered by Elvis circa '75. It just has that kinda vibe. Vaguely swamprock, and name-checking different cities and stuff.

another two that aren't mentioned above but are really wonderful are 'She' and 'Loved One'

Oh, yes. Yes. "Loved One" is...yeah. If you like "Tighter, Tighter", then...

Dude was a GREAT singer. Maybe still so now, dunno. Can anyone report?

saw him in coney island this summer and he was kinda great. he was headlining a straight-up oldies bill, and the average age of the crowd was easily over 50. first up, johnny maestro and the brooklyn bridge ("worst that could happen") did their name proud with some nice singing over pedestrian bar-band arrangements. next up, jay black simply can't sing anymore -- i mean, really really really has no vocal skills whatsoever -- and he knows it and he spent 70 percent of his stage time telling stories and cracking jokes, which he's damn good at. dude is hilarious. he too had the pedestrian bar-band oldies lounge thing behind him. then they cleared the stage for tommy & the shondells, who came out with marshall stacks, leather pants, long hair, etc., and who were a mix of old guys and one or two young ringers who look like they play in wooden shjips in their spare time. they turned up the volume from roughly three to roughly 12, scared more than a few 60- and 70-year-olds out of the venue, sang every song you could legitimately expect to hear (i.e. most of their rhino anthology, including "mirage," "ball of fire" and other faves from this thread), and quite legimately rocked. when oasis tour the oldie circuit in 2035, i imagine they will sound similar, and i will be ok with that, though they won't be as good.

so classic i can't even believe it.

great story fcc, thanks.

yeah, awesome story

i wonder if Tommy knows about this whole garage/60s pop subculture? maybe he's been listening to little steven's show?

...although he should be legitimately pissed about not receiving the kind of lip service a lot of these retro bands pay to far inferior bands from the 60s.

Anytime he wants to do a European tour, I'm there!

yeah, i found a fantastic 2005(or so?) version of Crystal Blue Persuasion on youtube. he's still awesome.

Mirage is great, as is Out Of The Blue.

Tommy James in 2006

Crystal Blue Persuasion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m9d4IyCmIs

I Think We're Alone Now - not a great video, but you can tell he's still got it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzmmwsOjl7s

Crimson and Clover!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6444EeeQBiw

look over yonder
what do you see?

just picked up travelin' from '70 on roulette. much goodness on here. bloody water, travelin', gotta get back to you.

"candy maker" is the jam!

Read about fifty pages of his memoir Me, The Mob, And The Music and it's very good.

Was he involved with the Mob?

You'll have to read the book ;)

Let's put it this way: the very beginning of the book, the incident which prompts him to tell his story, is the death of Morris Levy. Do you know who that is?

Ah, I see. I forgot they were on Roulette!

Morris Levy is such a colorful character, his cameo in Ahmet Ertegun's biography steals the show from the subject http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bkrev/hitmen-nyt.php

"Meet the Comer" off of Christian of the World = vocal melody from Neil Young's "Helpless"

"bad vibrations everywhere..."

Long CBC interview about the mob stuff:
http://www.cbc.ca/day6/blog/2011/02/11/tommy-james-the-mob-and-the-music/

uggest Ban Permalink
One night when I was like 13, I was working on a poetry assignment for my Grade 8 english class, we had to assemble our own poetry anthology, meeting certain requirements, and only so many could be lyrics from songs, blah blah blah, this is not important, anyway, it was really late, like maybe 10 or something, or maybe later, because I was the only up in my house and I was working in the kitchen, but I called into the crappy radio station and requested "Crimson & Clover" and they played it, and maybe even put me on the air for like 5 seconds, I don't remember, but they definitely said my name. Which is an uncommon name. That's important to remember.
Two years later, I meet this girl at a party. We talk for a while and finally feel friendly enought to tell each other our names. She looks at me and says "You're XXXXX? Did you ever request 'Crimson & Clover' on such-and-such FM? You're soooooo rad!"
I got kissed with tongue for the first time that night.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, February 20, 2004 7:46 AM (6 years ago)

This is a fucking great story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp2u0sgwvPQ

"ah dig snow and the rain and the bright sunshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine"

who is gonna groove to Tommy with me today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv3WB2loIA4

I'm sure I've mentioned it, but how wild that three people had three huge hits with three covers of his songs in the '80s?

miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage