'A very sinister and dark story': How the mob helped Tommy James become a hit machine

Tommy James was 19 in the summer of '66 when “Hanky Panky,” a breakthrough single he’d recorded two years earlier, hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

By the time the decade ended, Tommy James and the Shondells had followed through with an amazing run of 13 more Top 40 hits, from “I Think We’re Alone Now” and “Mirage” to “Mony Mony,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “Crimson and Clover,” the last of which became their second No. 1 in 1968.

As James prepares to dust off all those hits and more on Friday, Feb. 3, on the rotating stage of the historic Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, he is quick to share the credit for his biggest hits.

"We'd have been lucky to have been a one-hit wonder,” he says, if not for Roulette Records, a label run by Morris Levy, who went on to be convicted of extortion in an FBI investigation into the alleged infiltration of organized crime into the record business.

“While we were mony mony-ing and hanky panky-ing, there was a very sinister and dark story going on behind us that we couldn't talk about,” James says. “We were very lucky to get out of there in one piece. There was a lot of shenanigans going on that we had to pretend we didn't see.”

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'Me, the Mob and the Music: One Helluva Ride'

James shared the often terrifying details of his days on Roulette Records in a memoir published in 2010, “Me, the Mob and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells.”

The Denver Post said it “reads like a music-industry version of ‘Goodfellas.’”

Now, there’s a film of his life story in the works that James says is being produced by Barbara De Vida, whose credits include executive producing “Goodfellas.”

“We're very lucky to have her on this one,” he says. “She is fantastic.”

James had been wanting to share his story for quite some time “and couldn't,” he says, for fear of retribution.

It was until the death of Vinnie 'The Chin' Gigante, a Genovese crime family boss who died in prison in 2005, that he finally felt comfortable writing the memoir he wanted to write, which is about three-quarters dedicated to the Shondells' "crazy, sometimes scary relationship" with Roulette Records.

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Tommy James on Roulette Records: 'It was also a good little label'

"The reason it was crazy and scary is because unbeknownst to us when we signed the deal, Roulette was basically a front for the Genovese crime family in New York," James says. "Of course, we didn't know that. It was also a good little label. They had a lot of hits.”

They’d heard stories, he says, but didn't realize they were true until he started seeing certain figures from the news in Levy's office.

“We'd start seeing mobsters that we saw on TV,” James recalls. “He'd introduce me to somebody and a week later, I'd see the guy on TV doing a perp walk out of a warehouse in New Jersey in handcuffs, saying, 'Isn't that the guy we just met up at Roulette?' And little by little, we realized who we were rubbing shoulders with.”

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When 'Hanky Panky' topped the charts in Pittsburgh

James was in his junior year of high school when he cut the song that would become his breakthrough single in a radio station studio.

He’d forgotten all about it by the time the phone rang two years later.

“We were playing this dumpy little bar in Janesville, Wisconsin, in March of '66,” he says. “And right in the middle of my two weeks, the IRS shuts the guy down for not paying his taxes.”

James laughs at the memory.

“We were lucky to get our equipment out of there and go back home, feeling like real losers,” he says.

“As soon as I got to home, I got the call that changed my life out of the clear blue sky from Pittsburgh, that my song was No. 1. I said, 'Who is this?!' I thought somebody was doing a crank call. But it was real. If I hadn't been home at that exact moment, I would’ve never got the call. And you and I wouldn't be talking today.”

A Pittsburgh DJ named Bob Mack had stumbled on a 45 of "Hanky Panky" in the bins at a used record and started spinning it at dances, where the kids went wild. As word spread that Mack had a hit on his hands, local radio jocks Clark Race, Chuck Brinkman, Bob Livorio and Porky Chedwick started spinning it on radio.

James says Pittsburgh label Red Fox/Fenway had bootlegged 80,000 copies of the single and sold through that run in 10 days.

“We had a regional breakout in the trade papers,” James says “So they tracked me down and asked me to come to Pittsburgh, which I did. Of course, I get there and the record's No. 1. It just blew me away. This is a record that I had recorded when I was in high school.”

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Tommy James on 'the first offer I couldn't refuse' from Roulette

By then, the Shondells he’d recorded “Hanky Panky” with had broken up, so James recruited “the first decent band I could get,” a Pittsburgh group known as the Raconteurs, to be the new Shondells, and left for New York City, where he hoped to sell the master to a major label.

“We got a yes from RCA, a yes from CBS, Atlantic Records, all the major labels of the day,” he says.

“So I went to bed feeling real good. The next morning, the phone starts ringing about 9 o'clock, and one by one, the labels that had said yes the day before were all saying, 'Listen, we gotta pass.' I said, 'What the hell's going on? I thought we had a deal.’”

Finally, Jerry Wexler at Atlantic told him what had happened.

“Morris Levy, the head of Roulette, had called all the other labels and scared them," James recalls.

"He said, 'This is my (expletive) record. Back off.' So we were apparently gonna be on Roulette Records. That was the first offer I couldn't refuse. But they took the record to No. 1 everywhere in the world the summer of '66 and started my career. So God bless the crooks, I guess.”

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Tommy James on the freedom it took to make 'Crimson and Clover'

The reason James assumes he would've been a one-hit wonder if he’d wound up on a major label is he feels he had the "total freedom" at Roulette to make the kind of records that became his greatest hits.

“Getting paid was a whole other story," he says.

"Crime doesn't pay. But we were the kings. If we had gone with one of the majors, I can tell you right now, especially with a song like ‘Hanky Panky,’ such a flukey record, we’d have been immediately turned over to some A&R guy, some in-house producer, and that's probably the last anybody would've ever heard from us.”

James points to the wild psychedelic production of “Crimson and Clover” as a prime example of the sort of things they got away with on Roulette.

“’Crimson and Clover’ was probably the most important record besides ‘Hanky Panky’ because it was such a big style change for us,” he says.

“It's the record where I started producing the band without any outside help. It also was the moment we were able to make the transition from top 40 pop singles to FM album-oriented progressive rock."

It was a freedom based primarily on Roulette needing the Shondells.

“They hadn't had a hit in three years,” James says.

“So we were given everything. I was allowed to put my own production team together, choose the studio, the engineer. I learned the record business from the ground up. That would've never happened anywhere else. Then there was all the craziness with the mob stuff. So I got a well-rounded education. Let's put it that way.”

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Parting ways with Roulette Records in the '70s

It could get pretty scary at times.

“There was a gang war in New York in '71,” James recalls.

“The Gambinos were taking over as top dogs. And Morris was with the wrong family. He was associated with the Genovese family. So there was this terrible mob war, over 300 murders of different mob guys, and Morris left the country. We were all there stuck at Roulette."

James' lawyer advised him to get out of Dodge as the primary source of Levy's money. So James went to Nashville, recording an album called “My Head, My Bed and My Red Guitar” with producer Pete Drake. 

“When I got back, I was so angry, I got drunk and told Morris, 'I'm leaving,’” James recalls. “And he says, 'You ain't goin' anywhere.' So I was forced to stay there for another three years.”

Finally, in 1974, he left Roulette and signed to Fantasy.

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From Billy Idol to Prince, the Shondells have been covered 300 times

In the ‘80s, three of James' biggest singles got a second lease on life when Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Tiffany and Billy Idol all had Top 10 hits with their covers of “Crimson and “Clover,” “I Think We’re Alone Now” and “Mony Mony,” the latter two of which hit No. 1.

More than 300 artists have covered his songs, from R.E.M. to Dolly Parton.

“I'd have to say my favorite cover is Prince with his version of 'Crimson and Clover,’” James says. “It really was very futuristic and very different. He really made it his own.”

Tommy James and the Shondells

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3.

Where: Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix.

Admission: $35-$95. 

Details: 602-267-1600, celebritytheatre.com. 

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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