Origins The band The Echoes formed in 1959 in
Niles, Michigan, then evolved into Tom and the Tornadoes, with 12-year-old
Tommy James (then known as Tommy Jackson) as lead singer. While attending
Niles High School in Niles, Michigan, the group released its first single, "Long Pony Tail", in 1962. In 1964, James renamed the band the Shondells). As James could often be found playing at Niles High School events, his popularity locally continued to grow. James' version of "Hanky Panky" sold respectably in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois, but Snap Records, the label under which "Hanky Panky" was originally released, had no national distribution. The band toured the eastern Midwest, but no other market took to the song. The single failed to
chart nationally and the Shondells disbanded in 1965 after its members graduated from high school. After first considering taking a job outside of music, James decided to form a new band, the Koachmen, with Shondells guitarist Larry Coverdale and members of a rival group called the Spinners (not
the hit-making group from Detroit). The Koachmen played a circuit of clubs in the Midwest through the summer and fall of 1965, but returned to Niles in February 1966, after the gigs dried up, to plot their next move.
Hanky Panky Meanwhile, in 1965,
Pittsburgh dance promoter Bob Mack had unearthed the forgotten single "Hanky Panky", playing it at various dance parties, and radio stations there touted it as an "exclusive". Listener response encouraged regular play and demand soared. Bootleggers responded by printing 80,000 black market copies of the recording, which were sold in Pennsylvania stores. James first learned of all of this activity in April 1966, after getting a telephone call from Pittsburgh disc jockey "Mad Mike" Metro(vich), who asked him to come and perform the song. James attempted to contact other members of the Shondells, but they had all moved away, joined the service or gotten married and left the music business altogether. There remains disagreement over the role of Metrovich in the recording. In his book,
Me, The Mob and the Music, James credits Pittsburgh dance promoter Bob Mack and never mentions Metrovich. In April 1966, James went by himself to make promotional appearances in Pittsburgh in nightclubs and on local television. Bob Mack made his dance club bands available to James for promotional appearances, but nothing seemed to fit until a guitarist from one of the bands took James to the Thunderbird Lounge in
Greensburg, where he recruited a quintet that was playing there called the Raconteurs – Joe Kessler (guitar), Ron Rosman (keyboards), George Magura (saxophone and piano), Mike Vale (bass) and Vincent Pietropaoli (drums) – as the new Shondells. "I had no group, and I had to put one together really fast," recalled James. "I was in a Greensburg, PA club one night, and I walked up to a group that was playing that I thought was pretty good and asked them if they wanted to be the Shondells. They said yes, and off we went." With a touring group to promote the single, James went to New York City, where he sold the
master of "Hanky Panky" to
Roulette Records, at which time he changed his last name to James. With national promotion, the single became a No. 1 hit in July 1966. He signed with
Leonard Stogel and Associates for management. In 1967, Kessler and Pietropaoli were forced to leave after a dispute when planned monies were not remitted to them by Roulette, a label closely associated with organized crime, and whose head,
Morris Levy, was the inspiration for the
Herman "Hesh" Rabkin character on
The Sopranos. They were replaced by Eddie Gray (guitar) and Peter Lucia (drums); Magura departed as well. In early 1967 songwriter
Ritchie Cordell gave them the No. 4 hit "
I Think We're Alone Now" and the No. 10 hit "
Mirage". In 1968, James had a No. 3 hit with "
Mony Mony". Co-written by James, Cordell, Cordell's writing partner
Bo Gentry, and
Bobby Bloom, "Mony Mony" reached No. 3 in the US and was a British No. 1 in 1968. The title was inspired by a flashing sign for
Mutual
Of
New
York visible from James's apartment balcony in New York. From late 1968, the group began writing their own songs, with James and Lucia penning the psychedelic-tinged classic "
Crimson and Clover", which was recorded and mixed by Bruce Staple, with James tackling vocal duties and playing many of the instruments himself, and featured the creative use of studio effects such as delay and tremolo. Further hits included "
Sweet Cherry Wine", "
Crystal Blue Persuasion", and "
Ball of Fire", all from 1969. They also produced "Sugar on Sunday", later covered by
the Clique. As the band embraced the sounds of psychedelia, they were invited to perform at
Woodstock, but declined. The group continued until 1970.
Hog Heaven At a concert in
Birmingham, Alabama, in March 1970, an exhausted James collapsed after coming off stage from a reaction to drugs and was pronounced dead. He was not dead, however, and decided to move to the country to rest and recuperate, and left the band. His four bandmates carried on for a short while under the name Hog Heaven, recording two albums (one "self-titled" on Roulette Records in March 1971 and the second recorded in 1971, but unreleased until 2008), and landing one Hot 100 hit, "
Happy", at number 98, but disbanded soon afterwards. In a 1970 side project, James wrote and produced the No. 7 hit single "Tighter, Tighter" for the group
Alive N Kickin'. James launched a solo career in 1970 that yielded two notable hits over a 10-year span, "
Draggin' the Line" (1971) and "Three Times in Love" (1980).
Covers by other artists During the 1980s, the group's songbook produced major hits for three other artists:
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts' version of "Crimson and Clover" (US No. 7 in 1982),
Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" and
Billy Idol's "Mony Mony" (back-to-back US No. 1 singles in November 1987). Other Shondells covers have been performed by acts as disparate as psychobilly ravers
the Cramps,
new wave singer
Lene Lovich, country music veteran
Dolly Parton, and the
Boston Pops orchestra.
1980s and later In the mid-1980s, Tommy James began touring in oldies packages with other acts from the 1960s sometimes billed as Tommy James & the Shondells, although he is the group's only original member. A
Greenwich Village nightclub appearance was filmed and released as
Tommy James & the Shondells: Live! At The Bitter End. On January 6, 1987, original drummer Peter P. Lucia Jr. died of a heart attack while playing golf at the age of 39. In 2008, "I'm Alive" was covered by
Tom Jones and released on his
24 Hours album. In 2009, James and the surviving Shondells, Gray, Vale and Rosman, reunited to record music for a soundtrack of a proposed film based on James's autobiography,
Me, the Mob, and the Music, released in February 2010. In March 2011, the Tommy James song "I'm Alive" (co-written with Peter Lucia) became a top-20 hit in the Netherlands for UK singer
Don Fardon after his version had been used in a
Vodafone commercial. In 2012, "Crystal Blue Persuasion" was used in the eighth episode of Season 5 of
Breaking Bad, "
Gliding Over All", during a montage depicting the process involved to bring main character
Walter White's methamphetamine operation and its signature blue crystal meth to an international level. In 2015, Gray, Vale, and Rosman decided to reunite and form their new group, The Crystal Blue Band. They recruited their longtime friend and drummer Mike Wilps to replace the late Peter Lucia. That group disbanded in 2022. ==Recognition==