Tommy James – Crystal Blue Revelations

It’s Rainmaking Time!®
Tommy James — Crystal Blue Revelations
Host & Interviewer: Kim Greenhouse

[Musical Opening — Crystal Blue Persuasion, Tommy James and the Shondells]

Kim: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to It’s Rainmaking Time. This is Kim Greenhouse. It gives me great pleasure to welcome a legendary music master, Mr. Tommy James to the show today. Some of you may know of him as a former tornado. At age four, he debuted in his first fashion show. The man makes Indiana Jones look like a chump. Ed Sullivan insists he’s from New York when he’s really from Dayton, Ohio.

Kim: He thinks he might be a mob magnet and we’re very concerned. We actually think he is too. He stood up Frank Sinatra and still lived to talk about it. What we all know about Tommy James and the Shondells is their wonderful music that excites us. Hanky Panky, Mony Mony, I Think We’re Alone Now, Crimson and Clover, and one of my favorite songs in the whole world, the song that opened this show, Crystal Blue Persuasion.

Kim: This song is so pretty that I asked my mother as a young girl, if I ever died before her, would she please play this at my funeral? It’s that beautiful. Tommy James is not only the lead singer and songwriter of Tommy James and the Shondells. He has sold more than 100 million records. He has been awarded 23 gold singles and nine gold and platinum albums. He’s touring all over the country today. We’re going to talk with Tommy about his life, his work, his marvelous book Me, the Mob, and the Music that he wrote with Martin Fitzpatrick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Tommy James to It’s Rainmaking Time.

Tommy: Wow! What a great intro. Thank you. Nice to be with you.

Kim: Great to be with you. I’m glad you’re still alive.

Tommy: Yeah, that makes two of us.

Kim: Reading your story does make Indiana Jones look like such a chump.

Tommy: Well, listen, I’ll tell you, unfortunately, it’s true.

Kim: The interesting dynamic between you and Morris Levy, the crime boss, and ending up with the head of a crime family as the one who owns your record label, you, the band, your music, your publishing, everything — and that whole struggle — people really should read it because this still goes on today. It’s just that you don’t know who the Morris Levys are.

Tommy: Well, that’s very true. And I must tell you, this was essentially, of course, an autobiography, but about two thirds of the book is devoted to this very dark and sinister story with Roulette Records — that was our label that we had the bulk of our hits on. With us trying to have a career in rock and roll with this very sinister story going on in the background that we really couldn’t talk about. And so finally, about eight years ago, Martin and I started the book. I’d been asked for a long time to do memoirs and talk about everything that went on.

Tommy: We got about a third into the book and we were going to write a nice story called Crimson and Clover. It was going to be about music and recording sessions and so forth. And we got about a third of the way into it and realized that if we don’t tell the whole Roulette story, we’re really cheating ourselves and everybody else. But I was very uncomfortable back then talking about all this. I really had kept it sort of under wraps for a very long time. And some of these guys were still walking around. So I was a little nervous about it.

Tommy: So we waited until the last of the Roulette regulars, as I call them, passed on in ’06, and we felt that we then could finish the story, and we did. So we took about another three years to finish the thing, get all the proper names spelled right and everything, and told the story with the dates, and really told it. And finally, at the end of all that, Simon and Schuster picked up the book immediately, and we were very gratified by that, because they usually do presidential memoirs and things like that.

Tommy: So they picked it up and put it out and suddenly just got an incredible response from the public and from the media. And then we got calls for the Broadway and the movie rights. So it’s going to be a movie in about another two years. Barbara Dufina, who produced Goodfellas and Hugo two years ago with Martin Scorsese and Casino and just a whole lot of really great movies, is going to produce it as a major film. The public will actually get to experience all this finally.

Kim: I want to talk a little bit with you about your rainmaking activities because what I recognize is that you’ve done a lot of your own promotion. You really did a lot of your own sales and worked a lot behind the scenes to put things in place. You say here — we had enough of a following by then to guarantee a good sized crowd and everybody made money. By early 1965, we had a smartly functioning little machine going. I worked out a deal with the kids in my high school art department to make posters for upcoming dances. We hired off-duty cops as bouncers to work security. Now, someone who’s just singing or just writing doesn’t do this, but a rainmaker does.

Tommy: Well, listen, truthfully, that was of course back in high school. I just, I guess all my life I’ve been sort of an entrepreneur, I guess you could say. I always felt that once you had the goods, the idea was to go out and sell it. And so I was very lucky that I was allowed to do that, first of all. And secondly, that our band back in my hometown of Niles, Michigan was good enough where I felt we could go ahead and do that.

Kim: You talk about working with good producers and how that’s so important. Now, you also were involved in producing some work for Patti Austin, correct?

Tommy: Well, yeah, that was much later on. This was after the Shondells and I broke up. This was in the early 70s. And I was producing — of course I had already produced Tommy James and the Shondells for a number of years by that point. And gradually I just sort of went out and started producing other people. For CBS I started producing Exile, Patti Austin, Lawrence Reynolds and several other people for Clive Davis up at Columbia. And I always was as interested in the making of the records as I was in songwriting and performing.

Kim: Could you explain to the audience, what does a good producer do? What are they responsible for?

Tommy: A record producer, of course, is responsible for pretty much the whole thing. I’ve always called it a kind of a thankless job. It’s sort of like being a manager. But with Tommy James and the Shondells, I basically began with Mony Mony and Crimson and Clover — began producing the group. And the group helped a lot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they were involved in this. But I gradually began to produce where we had been produced by other people before. And it’s a craft that you learn, like songwriting — the mechanics of making a record, the science of making records. Quite amazing, all the way from getting the song into the studio and played by musicians and getting it down on tape at that time, and then the whole process of mixing and molding the thing into the record that you have in your head, and then finally getting it out on record and getting it played on the radio.

Tommy: Because the radio has a lot of science involved — particularly in the old days with AM radio where they had the limiters and the compressors built into the radio signal. Where making a record for radio was really quite a difficult job. It was very time consuming, it was expensive. But you know, my first record was the cheapest record ever made. Honestly, it’s fun and it’s really getting into the mechanical nature of recording and the science of recording.

Kim: Back in the days, you wrote in your book that you could tell how different groups compared themselves because there would be a lot of screaming in the audiences that would tell the real star status of what’s going on. Can you share a little about that?

Tommy: Well, sure. Basically, at the very beginning of our career, I remember the very first summer in 1966 that we were out touring. The idea of having an audience really go wild was a very, very new thing. And I had never experienced that before. After you start having hits, it just kind of happens. And of course, then you start comparing yourself with the other groups. I wrote in the book that there were other groups that were on the road with us and you would always compare the applause and the screams you got with the other groups and you sort of decided who deserved to close the show. It was sort of a feeding frenzy and you could just kind of figure out from the excitement of the audience who was who. There was kind of a pecking order. It was fiercely competitive then. There were so many great groups at the time that you were out there.

Kim: How did you stand it? The 1960s were just a really magical moment because —

Tommy: All the ducks were in a row. The media and the record companies and all of the agencies and the publishers and the managers were all looking for the next big act and it was all about music. It was like anything goes — the rules were being made then. So it was really a marvelous moment in history to make it. And I always have been very grateful that I made it when we did. And especially let me just tell a bit of the story with Hanky Panky.

Tommy: My first record was actually recorded back in high school in Niles, Michigan, my hometown. And it just kind of came and went because we had no distribution in 1964. I was a junior in high school. And finally in 1965, I graduated and I took my band on the road and we played clubs in 1965 and early 1966 through the Midwest. And right in the middle of my two weeks, I’m playing a dumpy club in Janesville, Wisconsin, in early 1966. And right in the middle of my two weeks, the club owner goes belly up. And so we basically have to go home after that week. We got laid off and I went back home. That’s just how the good Lord works, because the minute I got home, I got the call that changed my life.

Tommy: Hanky Panky out of nowhere had exploded out of Pittsburgh and was sitting at number one. And if I hadn’t have been home at that moment I would never have got that call. I’m immediately thrust — that’s one of those only in America stories — I’m immediately thrust, first of all, to Pittsburgh, where I picked up the new group of Shondells that were sort of a bar band there. And a week later we’re in New York selling the record to a major label who would take it international. So this is in May of 1966 and we got a yes from all the labels. We got a yes from Columbia, RCA, and Atlantic and Kama Sutra — remember them? And so the last place we took the record to was Roulette and we kind of dropped it off. And I went to bed that night feeling great, thinking that we were going to go with Columbia or Atlantic or one of the big corporate labels.

Tommy: And the next morning about nine o’clock I start getting calls back from all these record companies that say, listen Tom, we got a pass. And I thought, what do you mean you got a pass? I thought we had a deal. And finally Jerry Wexler at Atlantic told me the truth — that Morris Levy, this notorious head of Roulette Records, had called all the other record companies and basically scared them off. Said this is my record and backed them all down. And we apparently were going to be on Roulette Records whether we liked it or not. And that’s quite honestly how we got on Roulette. Basically what we learned when we went to Roulette — and Roulette did take the record, by the way, and made it a number one record in the United States and all over the world — the problem was Roulette, in addition to being a functioning and a pretty good little record label, was also a front for the Genovese crime family in New York.

Kim: Oh God.

Tommy: So this made life real interesting and we learned that incrementally. We didn’t know it when we signed.

Kim: You didn’t have counsel with you when you signed with Roulette, did you? How did that happen to you?

Tommy: Well, basically I had Chuck Rubin and Bob Mack — two characters — one of them was the fellow who brought us into Pittsburgh originally, who became my first manager, and his friend in New York who was the head of the ABC agency. They took me around to all the various labels. They were the ones — cause I was really a babe in the woods. I had no idea what I was doing. And they took me around to the record companies. Well, when Roulette basically grabbed all the action, I really didn’t have a problem with that at the beginning because I had been well aware of Roulette Records and all the great acts they’d had. So I was okay with it.

Tommy: The funny part is, if I had gone with Columbia or RCA or Atlantic or one of the big labels, I can tell you right now with a record like Hanky Panky, we would have been a one hit wonder at best. We’d have been lucky to be a one hit wonder because we would have been immediately handed over to some A&R guy and we would have been lost in the numbers. At Roulette, they hadn’t had a hit in over three years and they actually needed us.

Tommy: And one of the things I was always grateful to Roulette for, even though doing business with them was a disaster, was the fact that they left us alone and allowed us to sort of morph into whatever we could become.

Kim: When you got done creating a song, did you know which ones were the hits?

Tommy: Well, we had real strong feelings. I must tell you, I was very lucky because I always had good writers around me. I always had people around me who were really excited about my career and wanted to see us make it. So I basically had a lot of good material around me. But the challenge of course was always to come up with the next record. And that’s a very daunting challenge. But we recorded enough songs so that we would hone in on something. And so we knew, you know what, that’s the single. So we had enough material and we had enough people around us writing, including myself of course and the group, that we pretty much knew what the single was going to be before we put a lot of time into it. We had strong feelings about it.

Tommy: Of course you never know — you can always get fooled. I remember the song Draggin’ the Line was the B side of a record, Church Street Soul Revival, in 1971. I really got fooled. I didn’t think Draggin’ the Line was any more than a B side and suddenly radio starts playing it all over the country, playing the B side. So I went back in the studio and remixed it and put horns on it and flipped it up a little bit and then put it out as a single and it became a top 10 record. But generally speaking, we knew which were the A sides.

[Sponsor Break — Water Availability]
The declaration of a national and international water crisis is a declaration about water that comes directly from snowmelt and rainfall. It has nothing to do with the water that exists below your feet, underground, in faulted structures all over the world. I want you to know that there is an unlimited supply of available fresh water everywhere on earth, including the deserts. For over 100 years, teams of people have been locating water for private people. And the reason you haven’t heard of it is that it is not part of the mainstream orthodoxy of geology that’s taught at universities. When you think about people and animals in developing nations having to walk miles to bring back a bucket of water, I want you to know that that is an unacceptable atrocity. Nobody should have to go through that. I’ve made a commitment to make water available to sophisticated investors and to people in need across the world. And to make commercial applications available for water in the United States and abroad. There’s only a water crisis as it relates to snowmelt and rainfall, not having to do with the third source of water, which is below our feet. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are a sophisticated investor or a farmer that would be interested in having your own water supply that is independent of the aquifers, feel free to call It’s Rainmaking Time. The good news is that there’s plenty of water everywhere for anybody and any animal on planet earth that needs it. Thank you very much. And back to the show.

Kim: You write about how Billboard was very frustrating because they would have these top five lists. You went number one in both trade papers and yet they got you at like a number six. And so it was very hard for researchers and historians to go back and check the archives for a record’s history because you say they inevitably got a skewed sense of how popular it really was. Has that changed now?

Tommy: There’s only one trade paper left basically. There’s charts, but Billboard has become sort of the last of the big trade papers, so that problem doesn’t exist anymore. But what would happen is that there were three primary trade papers — Billboard, Cashbox, and Record World. And they owned the industry for a long time, but they were based on different criteria. Record World was always based on radio airplay. Cashbox was based on record sales, over-the-counter sales. And Billboard was supposedly a combination of both, sort of general popularity. When you put a record out, the first thing that happens is you get airplay. And the airplay would go on for about two to three weeks before somebody decided if they really wanted to pay money for the record and go buy it. So there’d be this two to three week lag time between the charts produced by Record World and the charts produced by Cashbox.

Tommy: It was like a seesaw effect. So you could be three weeks ahead in Record World than you were in Cashbox. And you could end up going number one in Record World two to three weeks before Cashbox. You had to stay number one for the period of time it took to get you up to number one in the other trade paper. And Billboard, who was in the middle — if you’re number one in one trade paper and you could be number one in the other trade paper, they’d have you at number six. So unless you stayed number one for the period of time it took for your record sales to catch up, you were always somewhere in the middle in Billboard. And Billboard, since it’s ended up being the last trade paper standing, is where people get all their information. So you may have had a number one record, but in Billboard you’re listed at number six, and that’s kind of where you stay.

Kim: When you wrote about what Morris told them, it made me laugh. Morris Levy — you gotta understand, was a very frightening character.

Tommy: Morris Levy, the head of the label, was an associate. He was Jewish, so he wasn’t a made man, but he was a strong associate of the Genovese crime family. His partners up there were all heads of the family. Tommy Eboli was the head of the Genovese family, and he was his immediate partner. And so all these characters were hanging out up at Roulette. It was used as everything from a social club to illegal bank accounts and running all kinds of illegal things through there. We learned all that later.

Tommy: But the point was that Morris’s partners and Morris himself was a very scary character. And we had to walk on eggshells while we were up there. And I guess that was the point of the book — how frightening that became at certain points. We had incredible success. We always had to sort of juggle the facts and say, do we take our lives in our hands and try to get out of here because they are not paying royalties, which was the problem, of course.

Kim: And your royalty deal was very little. But at the end, when you had your account checked, even with your lousy royalty deal with Roulette, they owed you what — $40 million?

Tommy: Between $30 and $40 million. Unbelievable. And those are just things I had to accept and it was kind of hard, but you know, that’s just the way it was. Of course, we were making money in all kinds of other areas like touring and BMI and ASCAP. It wasn’t like we weren’t making money, but mechanical royalties were just not going to happen. And of course that was always the issue. And it was always the issue because if you pushed it too far, bad things could happen to you.

Kim: Did you think he would kill you?

Tommy: There were a couple of moments where it got real hairy. I remember — they let us know. I don’t know if you know the Jimmy Rodgers story, but Jimmy Rodgers was a big artist in the late 50s, early 60s. He had Honeycomb and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. Jimmy went for his royalties and wouldn’t stop and they basically tried to take him out. He was left for dead on an LA freeway. Almost beaten to death, they left him for dead. He was never the same after that. He survived, but just barely. And this could happen to anybody who pushed it too far. And we knew that, so we constantly had to make a choice of — take our life in our hands and try to get out of this contract, or do we stay and put up with it?

Tommy: Because we’re having such tremendous success on Roulette.

Kim: What a life. What a story.

Tommy: What a story.

Kim: Do you think it still goes on, but with different names?

Tommy: Well, I’m sure to some extent. Of course the mob does not run things like it used to. The mob was running Las Vegas at one time and now the corporations have it. I don’t believe right now it’s as effective in the music business as it once were. Although a lot of street level deals are still going on. They don’t have control of the major labels. Although you hear about it every now and then, but not nearly like it was in the 60s and 70s.

Kim: When I left my tournament tennis career and I was teaching tennis, Tommy, I used to teach Barry Gordy — he was one of my students. And so he took me — I went and met him at his house and he took me up to this room in his house and everybody said, oh my God, he’s mafia, be careful. And I didn’t really know what they meant. So I beat him in chess and there were like 10 guys surrounding the table and I thought, oh, I’m not feeling very well, sir. I’m just not feeling very well. There were like 10 guys surrounding us. I thought, okay, never again. And then he insisted on taping the lessons. I was a mess. And then he took me to this room that had no doors. He would laugh, probably remember it. I hope I stay alive telling the story.

Tommy: But you know, so many of these record companies and the guys who ran them really came off the street. So many of them were street guys and just smart people, but came off the streets. And particularly all of the little independent labels back in the early 60s when the industry just exploded. The late 50s, early 60s — rock and roll always seemed to attract people like that because it was a fast way to make a buck. So that was where it all came from. And of course later on as the corporations sort of became dominant, it was just like Las Vegas — gradually the corporations took over.

Kim: In 1967, you had this profound transformation where you were growing into being a seasoned professional and you insisted on rock star treatment. You were playing consistently for crowds of 50 to 60,000 people and you were just beginning to understand what it means to be stars. But I would like you to share that revelation because that’s a big one.

Tommy: All I can say is that there’s this moment when it hits you that this is actually happening. I’ll tell you the moment it happened for me in 1967. You’re always plotting and trying to get the next record and you really don’t have time to think and reflect very much. It’s not nearly as romantic as you think it’s going to be. But the moment it hit me — I’ll never forget — I took a limo from New York to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and I was for the first time playing Atlantic City at Steel Pier. And I just remember the limo pulling up and I see this 40 foot marquee on the side of Steel Pier. And on one side it said Ricky Nelson and on the other side it said Tommy James. And I just looked at that, and at that moment — because Ricky for so long had been one of my heroes and his memory still is today. Ricky was one of my heroes.

Tommy: And he was such a monster act at that moment. And when I looked and saw our names together like that, it just blew my mind. And that was the first time it really hit me. I wanted to pinch myself — that this is real. And I can’t tell you what it did to me in that moment. And I wrote about it in the book. And it just absolutely floored me.

Kim: Yeah, this experience of being prominent — it is very definitely something that messes with your mind. And it’s really very important to not get so caught up in it that it takes your reality away from you. I can’t tell you how important it is to really have to be centered, because when you’re that young and you have that kind of success, it can really play with you. Are there people you see on television and in film and on the radio and other musicians that sometimes you would like to give a message to?

Tommy: I think we all know the stories of people who have had such a difficult time adjusting to success. You know, it’s something you think you always want psychologically. You think you always want it. But wanting and having are two different things. They really are. Keeping your head on straight is just so difficult. I can tell you from first-hand experience it was difficult for me. And there are many people — we’ve all seen them — people who just can’t deal with it, can’t handle it, and it ends up destroying them if you let it. I suppose there’s a great morality story in that. There’s something spiritual about that.

Tommy: And of course we all know what it is. It’s being grounded in God, I think. Although I suppose that isn’t absolutely necessary, but ultimately it is. It’s very important to know why you believe what you believe in and to play it like a game. This is a game. This, especially this kind of success that’s so whimsical, is a game. And if you don’t see it that way, it’s going to destroy you. The seduction is incredible.

Kim: I remember when a lot of the tennis players would quit the game. There’s another phenomenon — you go to the height of what you can go to. You get all the accolades, all the applause, all the stuff, all the rankings, all the prominence, and then you’re in the vacuum. You leave that part of your life at the level at which you were. And then you have to live in the day to day where you’re not in that anymore.

Tommy: Well, that’s why it’s so important to get it right up front. Look, a career — especially when you’re in it for life — a career ebbs and flows. It comes and goes. You have to wait for your moments of opportunity to walk through the door. They come, but you gotta wait for them and you gotta be ready for success. Stay ready for success. When you’re in the music business and the entertainment business in general, I really believe that if you’re going to survive it, you’ve got to just understand that it changes. There’s an ebb and a flow. It’s sort of like — I guess it’s like having a meal. You eat this part of it and then you eat that part of it. And you have to stay well balanced because if it all goes at once, if you allow it to all go — it’s like having money. If you spend it all immediately, you’re not going to have it later. So it’s very important to be economical with your career, I guess that’s the word.

Tommy: For example, actresses — we all know — they come out as a child star and then suddenly they’re playing more grown-up roles. And before you know it, they’re playing middle-aged women and then they’re playing somebody old. Well, that’s what it’s like. You’ve got to — but you’re still an actor or still an actress, even though your role changes. And that’s how you’ve got to be. If you try to play a kid when you’re thirty you’re going to look ridiculous.

Kim: Absolutely, absolutely. Well you talked about how when you wrote Crystal Blue Persuasion — or actually it was a Christian poem inspired by the Book of Revelation that this young fan came to you with — and that it was one of the hardest records you ever made. When I ask people, listen to this most beautiful song and they find out about when it was made, they say, was it about crystal meth? I said, are you listening to the words? Do you hear the beautiful music? And Breaking Bad a few weeks ago — Crystal Blue Persuasion was the song that they featured in the show and it was all about crystal meth. So it’s very interesting. No, no — Crystal Blue Persuasion was a Christian song.

Tommy: That I wrote. We didn’t care about being politically incorrect. It was just a snapshot. And it was one of the hardest records that I ever made because when we made the record, we completely overproduced it. We had drums in it, we had several guitars, we had keyboards, and we had just a whole lot of stuff going on that was just way too much. And when we finished the record, we listened to it and said, you know what, it’s not Crystal Blue anymore.

Tommy: So we spent the first six weeks producing it, the second six weeks unproducing it — we were pulling things out. Little by little we pulled out the drums, we pulled out all the electric guitars, we pulled out the non-essential keyboards. And what we were left with was a bongo drum, a conga, a flamenco guitar, and a couple of rhythm instruments and a little trickle of organ. And that became the whole record. So we had to empty out the record to let it breathe.

Kim: Wow. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever know behind the scenes what goes into what we hear and what you had to do to bring it there is a whole different world.

Tommy: Well, that’s true. We were very lucky that we saw that because I’m sure the record would have stiffed if we’d put it out the way it was. Talk a little bit about your mentor. You said that Red Schwartz was one of your mentors — he was a guru in the promotion area.

Kim: You bet. And he had signed the Beatles before people had even heard of them. Also the Four Seasons.

Tommy: Well, Red Schwartz — who was the national promotion director of Roulette — and I got to be very close. And Red was sort of a middle-aged guy who had a lot of history. Red was one of the characters at Roulette. You know, it’s funny — everybody up at Roulette was like this. They were characters, they were interesting people with a past. They weren’t just sort of nebulous guys hanging out at the record company. They all were stars in their own right. And Red Schwartz had actually started out as a disc jockey in Philadelphia and knew everybody, and then became a promotion man at VJ Records out in Chicago and was involved in signing the Beatles to VJ a year before they made it. They made it in late ’63 on Capitol, but they had really kicked around the record business a lot.

Tommy: They had done an album with Red Schwartz and the people at VJ Records in ’62, a year before they made it. And of course he was involved with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons when they signed to VJ — before it was their first label. And he was really an amazing promotion man. Basically dealt with singles. So he and I became very, very close and he took me under his wing. He was a middle-aged guy and I was 19 years old. And he took me under his wing and really promoted Tommy James and the Shondells. And together we would work the phones and call every radio station in the country and really made friends at radio. And he taught me everything he knew about radio and record promotion, which has lasted me to this very day. Just amazing because we really were creatures of the radio. We were created by radio. And Red Schwartz really was the guy who made that happen. And I always will be grateful for knowing him. He died a few years ago and I got a chance to say goodbye to him before he died of cancer. So I was very lucky to know him and I wrote about him in the book.

Kim: What did your parents say to you during these times? Did they have any inkling that you were really in trouble?

Tommy: Well, I would tell them and they were very concerned. You know, I’m an only child and I was very close with my mom and dad. And I would tell them everything. They actually came to New York and met Morris and several of these guys. Of course, Morris was on his best behavior. But he treated them very, very well. But you know, the bottom line was they knew what I was going through. Just imagine — your parents must have suffered quietly behind the scenes.

Kim: Well, they did. And it’s true.

Tommy: And we would always talk about how things were. But you know, the bottom line was that I was on my own. And of course, the myth about the record business is that you think — I’ll never forget when I signed with Roulette and I went up and had my first meeting with Morris and the execs up there — I was sure that some grownup was going to take me by the hand and walk me through all this and say, here’s what we’ve got planned for you. And none of that. First thing I was asked when I met with Morris is, okay kid, what’s next? He’s asking me what’s next. And I have no idea. I don’t know how Hanky Panky happened. How do I know what’s coming next? So that was really what sort of shook me into understanding that I’m really doing this by myself. I’ve got the group and to some extent they can help me, but really, as far as finding the material and finding the writers and producers, I’m on my own. So I really had my job cut out for me.

[Sponsor Break — Coherent Advertising Space]
You are tuning into an advertising space, but it’s not like any kind of advertising space. It is called a coherent advertising space. It means that you are plugging into the energetics of this program, this conversation, the consciousness, and you want to be part of the magic. You could be an individual that really wants to send this segment all over the world — you just want to do it, and you want to plug in your financing to do it. Or you could be a company that has an advanced product line, a very exotic, unusual product or service that is revolutionary or revelatory that you want to put on the map and you want to be part of this conversation with Tommy James. If that would interest you, call us at 626-398-8652 and we’ll plug you right in and we’ll bounce this thing all over the world. And back to the show.

Kim: You met Janis Joplin and so many remarkable people in your genre and I’m sure have incredible stories, some you have published in the book. Is there anything that you would like to share that you didn’t publish in the book?

Tommy: Well, there’s lots of stuff. Everything that’s in the book — there’s about 10 or 15 things that you didn’t put in, I’m sure. Are there any nuggets you would like to share that come to mind? Well, you know, I have to think a little bit. But you know, the bottom line is that I did get a chance to meet so many interesting people. I’ll never forget — the Beatles wrote us, you know, when the Beatles were starting Apple, they basically were starting it out as a publishing company. And their idea was to write songs for their friends in the business, to write songs for other artists. This is before it became a record label.

Tommy: One of the artists they wrote for — George Harrison as a matter of fact wrote a tape full of songs for us after Mony Mony went number one in England. He was producing a group called Grapefruit at the time, and George and Grapefruit wrote us about a dozen songs and they were all like Mony Mony. And the problem was, by the time he got them to us, we were already doing Crimson and Clover, which had pretty much changed our style from — we’d sort of left the party rock days behind and we weren’t doing songs like that anymore. But I was always very grateful that George wrote us these songs and I never really had a proper chance to thank him for doing that. Wow. How nice. It was one little thing.

Tommy: I had a great talk with John Lennon in ’71 at the BMI dinner. I was getting an award for Draggin’ the Line and he was getting one for Imagine. And we sat back to back and Yoko was with him. And we ended up in a big discussion that night. Had a great talk about the industry and what admirers we were of each other and fans of each other and stuff like that. And it was really wonderful. These are great little tidbits that I will probably put some of them in the movie, but they’re not in the book.

Kim: You say in your book that the Monkees had one of the best music deals in the business, and that your music was influenced technically by the Beach Boys with this professional system that they had. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tommy: Well, the first time — this was actually on the road — the first time that I had ever worked with a really professional monitor system was the Beach Boys, and this is ’66. We were playing in Boston together. Before I had worked with them, we had always worked with PA systems. Basically they were just loud raucous systems and you never knew what was coming out of them. You tried to have a good sound man, but you never really knew. The Beach Boys basically had a studio sound right on stage. It was amazing. The monitors they had and the people running their monitor system — they could blend their harmony perfectly and everybody was listening like you’d be listening in the studio. And of course six months later everybody had a monitor system like that, including us. But back then, this was the first time. They were such perfectionists with their sound and they took that studio sound right on the road with them. And I was just blown away because I loved the Beach Boys. It was a real thrill getting to work with the acts that had been my heroes.

Kim: Did you ever see any of the Rascals?

Tommy: The Rascals are great friends to this very day. You know, they’re out on the road again.

Kim: Wow. Did you know that?

Tommy: Well, I think I heard that a few years ago. Which is amazing. They’re all living. And they just did a beautiful stint on Broadway. Stevie Van Zandt wrote a play for them called Once Upon a Dream, and it was taken from their album title in ’67. And they did a month on Broadway and sold out every show. It was great. And they’re now on the road. They’re going to be back on Broadway in December. Of course all the Rascals are great friends of mine — we’ve been friends all this time. We had the same booking agent, we worked a lot together, we’ve written songs together. And it’s been really — have you always felt with the Rascals that we were on a journey together? I’m so glad they’re still doing it.

Kim: Courtney Cox says she may have danced with Bruce Springsteen but can’t forget Tommy James. And Dick Clark talks about how in the early days with the Shondells through your career as a solo artist, that you made wonderful hits and that your music has become part of the soundtrack of our lives. And Dolly Parton loves you and is swept away by Crimson and Clover. And so you still have a huge amount of fans all over the world, myself included. You’re still traveling and touring, correct?

Tommy: Yes, indeed. We’re all over the country this year. If anybody would like to come to TommyJames.com and just check out the dates and see when we’ll be near you. I really believe that being a working act is the centerpiece of everything else you do in rock and roll. And it’s awfully hard to maintain a career in rock and roll without doing rock and roll and without doing it in front of people. So yeah, we tour every year and we have our own label now — Aura. We’re in the stores, we’ve got a lot of new product out, it’s available in the stores.

Tommy: We just have a brand new distribution deal, international distribution deal with Allegro distributors — a big independent. So for the first time, all of our music is available everywhere at the same time.

Kim: All the music publishing even from the past?

Tommy: Well, let’s put it this way. All the stuff we weren’t getting paid for, of course we’re getting paid for now. Warner Brothers, Rhino Records has our Roulette masters and then we have all of our own from 1979. So we own most of our own publishing.

Kim: When you finally were able to get yourself off of drugs, talk to us before we close the show a little bit about really how you did it. Because people should hear it.

Tommy: You know, we were always popping something and we were fearless back then. Today, if I ever took that stuff they’d find me in a field somewhere. But honestly, I can’t believe how you have no fear when you’re in your 20s and you just take drugs without thinking about it, whatever they are, whatever somebody hands you. It’s just amazing. But 1986, I went to the Betty Ford Center. The ones that finally got me were booze and Valium — a pretty dangerous combination. Of course they’re all dangerous, but that was particularly dangerous.

Tommy: I just lived my life for a long time in a chemical haze and that is the truth. And thankfully I’ve never relapsed since then. So it’s twenty-seven years this year.

Kim: What do you attribute it to?

Tommy: Well, first of all I just couldn’t stand myself anymore. And I hope you can understand — a little bit as simple as that. And just a real desire to stop. You know, I’m an alcoholic, I’m always going to be an alcoholic, I’m what they call a recovering alcoholic. But you know, that just is the way it is. And that’s the hand that I got dealt. The bottom line is that I don’t do chemicals of any kind anymore. And what I attribute it to is the good Lord. And I guess you could say a lot of reasons to not do it, including my wife and my son and my own life and those great fans out there who have been with me for over 40 years. And what can I say? People like you.

Kim: Thank you very much. I understand that you’ve been married a very, very long time. Happily married a long time. How many years?

Tommy: Since birth.

Kim: Yeah, really? That’s right. Actually, even before you came in, you were married.

Tommy: Yes. The song Three Times in Love was no joke. I’ve been married three times. The first two times were pretty short. The wonderful lady I’m married to now, Linda, and I have been married since — we’ve been together since ’72.

Kim: You’re going into the Guinness Book of Records.

Tommy: Yes. That’s awesome. 41 years is a long time and it’s been a great ride.

Kim: That’s extraordinary. You know, I did a little strange thing last week when we got the schedule committed — I put in a call to Carlos Santana. And I asked him if he would call and say hi, because Carlos really likes your music and he did a piece, Crystal Blue Persuasion.

Tommy: Yes, I saw that on YouTube. Was that beautiful?

Kim: Yes, it was. Beautiful job.

Tommy: Oh my God, I’ve never heard — yes, exactly.

Kim: And he wasn’t able to make it today, but I really feel like you should be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I know the Rascals were and other wonderful groups were. I don’t know how that works, but I hope that you are in our lifetime.

Tommy: Well, listen, truthfully — you know when I’d like to see it happen? If I had my druthers, when the movie comes out. That’s really when I’d like to have it.

Kim: Okay, I’m sure that the good Lord is listening in.

Tommy: Well, I hope so.

Kim: Tommy James, it’s a great pleasure and honor to meet you, to learn from you, to read the book that you did about your life with Martin Fitzpatrick. Please let him know that we thought he did a beautiful job with you. Thank you so much. Have a good day. We love you and we appreciate you. We wish you and your wife and Carol, your manager, all the best.

Tommy: Thank you so much.

Kim: It’s Rainmaking Time. Bye bye.

Tommy: Bye bye.