Tommy James

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back Bob Left stepod podcast. My guest
this week is the one and only Tommy James. Tommy,
good to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much.
Great to be with you. So you're going on the
road during the era of COVID. What is that like? Well,
you know something, we were down for a year and

(00:29):
a half. We didn't we didn't perform our you know,
it was from February of two, just recently and uh so,
you know, it's like being an athlete who stops. Who
stops being an athlete for a year and a half
and your your your muscles get all saggy and you

(00:51):
you know, when you go back out, you're not You're
not sure what's going to happen. And so that's what
I felt like. We have just completed our seventh concert
after COVID, and uh, you know, I get stronger and
stronger at each show. So I feel pretty good now.
The first couple of shows were crazy. I was forgetting

(01:11):
the words to Hanky Panky and that's hard to do.
That's very There's only six of them, so so at
any rate, uh, uh, you know, I'm feeling pretty good now.
We're we're we're in St. Louis this week and uh
so you know it's uh getting back out in the

(01:31):
road and mixing it up with the fans feels really good.
What about COVID and the fan do you have any
problem people anxious about attending since you know a lot
of older demo people want to come to your show. Well,
you know, we weren't sure what was going to happen, uh,
if people are gonna come back to but these these
folks are ready to party, and it's it's very I'm

(01:53):
very pleasantly surprised. Um, there's only been a couple of
places where uh, masks were required. I don't know how
you go to a rock concert with a mask on, um,
you know, singing along and whooping and hollering. It's pretty tough.
But um, uh, you know it's funny. As soon as
we get there, people seem to just rip the masks

(02:13):
off and uh so everybody is is ready to go,
and uh, you know, I'm not I'm not really concerned.
I had COVID uh last December. In fact, Christmas Eve
they told me I had COVID. They said, Merry Christmas,
you got COVID, And I was very very blessed and
fortunate to not have a serious case at all. I

(02:36):
wouldn't have even known I had it if they hadn't
told me. Our housekeeper basically told my wife and I that,
uh she had tested positive in December of and so
we had a lab. The lab came out and we
we both tested and I she she was negative. I

(02:57):
was positive. So all I can say is I was.
I wouldn't have known I had it if I hadn't
have been told. So thank God. And uh so, I
you know, I have whatever natural immunity you get, and
uh so, I feel pretty good. I feel I feel

(03:18):
very confident out in the road. Now. Okay, Tommy, we
heard recently that your wife wasn't doing so well. What's
up with that? Well, Linda has MS and she's had
it since uh oh nine. She was diagnosed with it,
and it's progressive and it's part of our life now.

(03:41):
MS is a really spooky disease because everybody gets it
different and essentially, the the the lining around the nerves
um it's called milon and uh it gets inflamed and

(04:02):
when it does, it leaves scars. And when it leaves scars,
the electrical impulses can't get in and out, so it's
essentially paralyzing. And so it's progressive and it's just the
way it is and we gotta live with it. So
your wife Linda is a practical matter. Now, what's her

(04:25):
life look like? How mobile is she? Well, she's she's
not mobile at all. She's pretty much better ridden now
and that's just the way it's going to be. Occasionally
we can use a wheelchair, but pretty much she's ah,
she's an invalid, and so we have a team of

(04:46):
nurses and I'm a caregiver in between doing Tommy James stuff.
So that's just the way it is. Thank you for asking.
So when you do a show t me, the audience
expects the hit. Do you ever not play one of
the hits? And what's the reaction? Yeah? Well, you know,

(05:07):
we we get requests for so many more than we
can do during you know, an hour and a half.
We we probably could play for three hours if we, uh,
if we were to do more of the more of
the hits and more of the big album cuts and stuff.
But I'm very honored and flattered. During that time, we

(05:29):
get requests for all kinds of stuff and h every
now and then we throw new stuff into the show,
but we've only got so much time, so we try
to cram as many of the big songs and two
into that much time as we can. I wanted to
tell you I read your stuff all the time, and
I am really knocked out. I love, I'm very honored

(05:50):
to do this with you. And uh, uh you're extremely articulate,
and you are saying the things that all of us
need to know. You know, um who are in the business,
and uh, you have a very keen eye. And and
I must say I'm very impressed with your writing and

(06:11):
your insights and things, and I mean that sincerely. Well,
you know this is an audio podcast, so people can't
see me smiling. Thanks so much. But since we're on
the laudatory path, you wrote one of the best rock
biographies ever, the first and for first and for most.

(06:33):
It hits the number one criterion of writing. It's extremely
readable because I certainly read about it, read it and
wrote about it when it came out. But I was
reviewing it last night, my girlfriends, well, what's going on?
Blah blah blah blah blah, And I said none. I said,
this is the type of book. You start reading it,
you can't stop. It's just done so well. I've read

(06:54):
a million of these things, and that's why I said
great things about it when I did read it. But
I really have to put that fourth now. The other
thing that's amazing in your career. You really made it
as a teenager. Yeah, when he when Hanky Panky. When
Hanky Panky was a hit, how old were you? Uh, Well,

(07:14):
when I recorded it, I was sixteen when it hit.
It was two and a half years later, so I
was I had just I was just turning nineteen. Uh.
I had been in a band though since I was twelve.
If you can believe that, I started my first rock
band back in my hometown of Niles, Michigan, when I

(07:35):
was twelve, uh and played the seventh grade variety show
and we ended up keeping the band together. We got
such a great response, we kept the band together, and
uh I started uh performing you know, at the y
m c A. And dances all over town and wherever

(07:56):
they'd have us. And when I was fourteen years oh,
I made my first record, and that was I got
a job in a local record shop and one of
the distributors from an outfit called singer one stop in Chicago,
you know, would would service all the mom and pop
record stores, and Niles Michigan was one of them. And

(08:20):
he came in and we got to talk, and I
was fourteen years old, and I told him I had
a band, and he had a little studio up in Hastings, Michigan.
I said, uh. He said, why don't you come up
and record something? So I said, well, yeah, so I
did and that was our first record. It was a

(08:42):
cover of the Fireballs record Long Ponytail. And so that
was my first recording experience on a little label called
north Way Sound. And then two years later, um, a
local disc jockey was starting to record. Well wait, Lech,
let's let's stop for a second. So you were born

(09:03):
and your first you in what town? I was born
in Dayton, Ohio. And spent about ten minutes and what okay?
And what did your parents do in Dayton? My folks
managed a hotel. My father actually managed a hotel and
he was in the hotel business in Dayton, and uh.

(09:27):
We soon left after that and moved to South Bend, Indiana,
where he managed another hotel. And you know, it's kind
of like being a military kid and go ahead. No,
So he was managing a hotel. South Bend is a
home of Notre Dame. How big hotel was it? Well,

(09:49):
I suppose a medium sized hotel. Wasn't huge. It was
called the LaSalle Hotel. And uh he stayed there for
many years. And uh, I my mother and my dad
and I there was I was an only child, lived
in South Bend and until I was seven years old,

(10:10):
and then we moved to Niles, Michigan, which was just
over the state line in Michigan. Okay, but do you
still work in the same hotel? Yes, Okay. So you
know there's the Helloise books or the Eloise books. Hellowise
was the cleaning person Eloise books about living at the plaza.
What's it like when your father runs a hotel? Do
you hang out at the hotel? Well, sometime we would

(10:34):
go down and we'd have lunch there down down in
the coffee shop. Sometimes my mom and I get my
hair cut in the hotel barbershop. You know, they had hotels,
especially ones that are on a corner, you know, have
all kinds of other little businesses. I if I hadn't
have done the music business, I would have probably gotten
to the hotel business. I loved hotels. I love sitting

(10:56):
in the lobby looking at the beautiful furnishings and the ceilings,
and I loved it ever since I was a little kid. So, um,
it's probably a good thing I played guitar though, just
as as I looked back. So anyway, we moved to Niles, Michigan,
and when I was seven years old, and I grew
up there. I went to school in high school there

(11:18):
and at the same time, Uh God, bless that little
record shop, because I got a job there. And before
before you get there, you're growing up. What kind of
kids are you? Are you smart? Are you good in school?
You're bad in school? You're a loner? You remember the group?
What was your identity growing up? Oh? I was pretty

(11:39):
average in school. Uh. I certainly wasn't an honor student.
I was had a lot of other activities going on,
mostly of them having to do with music, you know,
with the group. And uh, because I you know, by
the time I was twelve, I had started the group.
So I was a very average kid. I'm trying to

(12:03):
think of anything. I played a little basketball, but not much.
I Um, I had a lot of friends, Uh, some
that I still go back to Niles to this very
day and and power with you know have I've stayed
in touch with many of them. We didn't have a

(12:25):
big family, but I developed a whole lot of buddies. Okay,
So how did you get a job at a record store?
I was at the right place at the right time.
Has happened so often in my life. Um, I was,
you know, had a collection of records that was, you know,

(12:46):
just stacks of records. I was buying records since I
was a little kid. By the way, I left something
out there. My mother used to have brought me a
record player and um and records. Uh when I was
you know, three years old and four years old, So
I had a stack of records. Um. My grandfather bought

(13:08):
me a ukulele and Arthur God for ukulele when I
was four, and I started playing everything I could on
that uku ale and started singing along with the radio
and stuff. And so when I was nine years old,
I saw Elvis on TV for the first time on
the Ed Sullivan Show, and the ukulele went out the window,

(13:29):
and I begged my mom for a guitar, uh, which
she got me and started playing the acoustic guitar. The
next year, when I was ten, I got my first
electric guitar, and uh, you know, started playing as much
electric guitar as I could hear in the radio. Okay,

(13:49):
so how did you learn how to play the guitar?
You owned it? But well, my mom tried to get
me lessons and I didn't want to do that. I
I taught myself how to play. I had taught myself
to ukulele, and I figured I could teach myself the guitar,
and uh, and I did so this very day. I

(14:10):
still don't play the guitar properly. I pre tuned the
guitar to an open e chord and uh, play rhythm.
I can't play lead worth a damn because, uh, that
requires a better knowledge of the guitar than I have.
So I play and sing. That's my job, was to

(14:31):
sing and accompany myself. Okay. And what was your first
electric guitar? It was made by Slingerland Drums. It was
a Slingerland guitar. It was I didn't either, but it was.
It was Slingerland. And it was a jazz guitar. Uh,

(14:53):
that had been and it was was owned by my
barber and my barber who cut my d a off. Um,
you know every other week. Uh, you know, it just
seems something really immoral about that. Told me my sold
me my first guitar and amp, and uh that was

(15:16):
the thrill of my life, getting my first electric guitar. Okay,
so you got the amp simultaneously. And what was the
brand of the amp? It was an Airline amp by
Montgomery Wards. I couldn't yet afford a silver tone from Sears,
but that came later, Okay, that you know, really God

(15:38):
bringing it back the catalog. Okay. A lot of people
they started playing music when the Beatles broke, or even
a little bit before, they played acoustic guitars in the
folk era. You're now talking about the fifties. What is
the music scene in the fifties and what is motivating
you to play and want to have a band? Well,

(16:03):
all I wanted to be was one of those rock
and roll guys that I saw on Bandstein, And of
course when I saw Elvis, I knew that was a
job possibility. And so honestly, seeing Elvis had a great
impact on me when I was nine years old, and

(16:28):
I all I can say is that I the I
learned everything on the radio and everything I could buy
on record. And uh, I think the first guitar line
that I ever learned was Sanford Clark playing the fool. Uh.

(16:49):
A very famous guitar player name Al Casey played that lick.
Are you a musician? By the way, we were all musicians, okay,
we all started off. But but I am not a musician.
I had guitars, etcetera, but I had no natural talent.
All right, Well, you seem to know a lot about it,
and that's I just kind of well, you know, when

(17:10):
the Beatles hit, etcetera. And I grew up about fifty
miles from New York City, one of the things you
would do is go into Manny's and the other place street,
uh and look at all the instruments, know all the brands,
you go to see the acts. It's just that. And
I was in bands, but not having the natural talent,
you know, nothing, even when I never played a live

(17:31):
gig or anything like that, although I had a lot
of friends. But since you were there before and after,
what was the change from your perspective when the Beatles
hit as opposed to what had come before? You got
motivated by Elvis all of a sudden the Beatles hit.
Why to what degree is that different? Well, my perspective

(17:53):
probably is different because I was working in the record shop.
This is really the end of nine. And UM, whenever
I think of the Beatles making it, I think of
two things. Uh what Capitol Records did in the record shops,

(18:17):
the mom and pop record shops. Uh, they had a
U the Beatles are coming little poster, little little tripods
sign shaped like a guitar, and the front of the
album of the Beatles first album, UM was on the
body of the guitar in the picture, and the Beatles

(18:39):
are coming. The Beatles are coming, and their faces were
turned backwards. And every week the distributor would come in
and their faces would be turned slightly to the right,
and and when their record came out they were facing
exactly forward. Every week they would change this sign. And
so I watched this happen. Uh as and of course

(19:02):
that the Beatles exploded. But the second thing that happened
was the Kennedy assassination. And I always associate, uh, the
killing of John Kennedy with the Beatles making it, because
they happened at exactly the same time. And UM, I've

(19:23):
often said that I think the only thing that made
bearable was the Beatles, because um, everything happened at once
and anyway. In my head, I always think of those
two things as being simultaneous because they were for me,

(19:43):
and so when the b I remember hearing the Beatles
though on jukeboxes I want to hold your hand, and
I saw our standing there the first time, and I
thought it was not very sophisticated. I thought it was,
you know, kind of uh too, and then I went
to try to play it. I don't know if you've
ever tried playing the Beatles chord progressions, but uh, you

(20:08):
could make your fingers bleed because they were they were
very sophisticated. And I mean I remember going into the
bridge of I want to hold your hand, you know,
and when I think you know, the change is key
completely and it's so subtle that you don't even realize
hard Day's night. She loves you. Have you ever tried

(20:30):
playing she Loves You? I mean, the chords that she
Loves You are insane and and they certainly were for me.
I was playing three chords, you know, I was playing
you know cf G, you know E A b uh. Well,
the Beatles changed everything and all of a sudden, I
realized how good these guys were. And then my band

(20:54):
we tried to do the harmonies, and uh, they were
really something we had to rehearse. Day used to do
and on our gigs that we would usually play three
hours gigs, you know, nine to twelve or eight to
eleven for teen dances. And on the third set we
bought Beatle up fits. We actually bought them the boots,

(21:14):
the Beatle wigs. Uh, And as soon as we went
out on our third set, the girls started to scream.
You know if we were you know, that was the
only time, you know, if when we wore the Beetle outfits,
when we took them off, they go, So, I mean
I was into the Beatles. Okay, let's go back. You're

(21:36):
twelve years old, you form a band. Certainly once the
Beatles hit, everybody is playing and everybody wants to join
a band. Was it hard to assemble a band? And
what were the steps to working and to what degree
did you have gigs from when you were twelve leading
up to the Beatles. Sure, well, it's funny you say
that because on the last week's radio show that I did,

(21:59):
I talked about this is exactly what I talked about.
You have a serious XM show every Sunday, right correct
correct For those who might not know, it's called Getting
Together and we're on at five o'clock. So anyway, Um,
the bottom line is that when I started my band, uh,

(22:22):
you know, it was just the very beginning. This is
nine I'm talking about. My first gig was sixty. I
was thirteen, and suddenly everyone was starting a band. Um,
the kid down the street. As long as you as
long as you own some kind of guitar, electric guitar

(22:45):
and knew a drummer, you could start a group. You'd
probably get a sacks player from the school band and
a kid down the street who played piano, who took
piano lessons, and you had a group. So the was
what were you going to do then? And the real challenge,
of course, was too what are you gonna play? You know?

(23:08):
And you had to play at the same time, you know,
somebody had to count one to three, four and you
had to start and then you had to end at
the same time. That was a challenge. So what I'm
saying is that, um, uh, it was uh, every kid
started a band because you could see him on TV.
All the time. When the Beatles came out, it just

(23:29):
got worse. The Beatles really uh changed everything, as you know, Um,
I think the hair was was was interesting because kids
were growing there air long in school. It kind of
they kind of felt they had the right to do
it after no matter what the teacher said as because

(23:52):
of the Beatles. I mean, the Beatles really changed everything immediately.
So I loved So how do you get the gig
at the record store and what's the experience working there? Well?

(24:15):
I would buy my records at this particular record store.
It was called the Spinnett Record Shop in Niles, Michigan,
on Main Street. And I walked in one day and
she was letting a kid go and he had come
in late and to work, and it was about four

(24:37):
o'clock in the afternoon after school, and she just came
over to me. And she had known me because I
bought records there and she knew that I was in
a band and so forth. And she says, Tom, you
want a job, and I looked her I said, yes
I do. She said, all right, come in tomorrow after

(25:00):
school and I'll show you what to do. And I
worked there until I graduated from high school. Uh four
years later, and thank god I did, because so many
things happened to me. I it was like going to school,
it was like going to college. I learned the business

(25:21):
from a retail angle. I learned the trade papers, I
learned the labels, I learned the publishers, I learned the songwriters,
the artists and um, I just got a hell of
an education there that I used to this very day.
And that was I loved working there. I thought it was.

(25:43):
It was the coolest job in town. I don't think
you could have had a cooler job than working than
selling records in the record store if you were at
all music. Oh believe me. You know, people don't understand.
You know, you couldn't even get a job at a
record store. That was like the rate his job you
could get. So since you were, since you were amongst
the records, you know what, did you play all the

(26:06):
records and just take advantage of being in the shop. Well?
I did, But the problem was I also had to
clean up, and I didn't want anybody seeing me mopping
the floor, especially to girls, especially somebody else in a band.
So I had to go down there immediately, Uh do
the you know, and scrub the floors with the mop

(26:27):
and get that out of the way before I could
go behind the counter and be cool. So while the
other kids were down at Venie's Sweet shop getting cokes
and burgers after school, I was mopping the floor in
the record shop trying to get cool before they would
come up the street and stop at the record store.
So anyway, UM, that was my life for four years.

(26:51):
I forget the question you asked me, what you are
answering it? But the only other thing is, since you're
amongst all the records, did you play the right I
sure as hell did, and uh, we'd have new records
would come in. I think it was like every Wednesday.
I think we'd have new new product come in from

(27:14):
the distributor, and um yeah, I would play everything I
could get my hands on. And that's one of the
reasons why I'm able to do what I do today
with with on on serious, because um, you know, I
got an education of all the stuff, and I played

(27:35):
all those records from sixty two when I first got
the job, when I graduated from high school and so
and plus the fact I could promote my band out
of the record shop. Dickie Frusci who was She was
the She was like my second mother. She owned the
place and she would let me um put posters in

(27:59):
the windows of gigs and stuff like that, and she
would allow me to promote my band out of the
record shop. And that's how I got both of the
record deals that I got. Okay, So ye have the
Elvis in the fifties, before all this, you have you know,
so many other acts birth of rock and roll, the

(28:20):
sun acts that uh came up with him. Then we
hit the sixties, we have the folk scene. Then we
have the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but we
also simultaneously have Bobby Rydell and all these other acts.
Were you solely an Elvis kind of guy or did
you like all that other music there were? I loved

(28:45):
rock and roll, and I all I can say is that, yes,
I loved Elvis. But by nineteen sixty, Uh, of course
Elvis was drafted, and so there were a lot of
other acts. I think, Uh, those years between Elvis leaving

(29:09):
the States and and the British invasion, we're we're very strange,
they're very schizophrenic. We'd have you know, puff the magic Dragon,
and we'd have uh, Eddie Cochlan, we'd have you know,
we'd have um, just this tremendous um. You know, you'd

(29:36):
have a lot of instrumentals. You'd have a rock instrumental,
but you'd also have Wonderland by Night by Bert Kempfort,
you'd have uh. The Top forty was just inundated with uh,
different kinds of music. Walter Brennan even had a hit,
remember Old Yeller. Yeah, of course I remember. I'm just

(30:00):
cracking up because I don't think think people young people
can know who Walter Brennan is. Well, yeah, the real McCoy's.
By time we got a hold of them, he was
already at the end of his career, was bringing back
the memories. So I was waiting for Gabby Hayes to
get a record. I don't so Anyway, The bottom line
was that there was such a mishmash of of music

(30:21):
on Top four because what Top forty meant back then
was the Top forty most popular records, whatever they were,
so uh, it doesn't mean the same anymore. So when
the Beatles came in the British Invasion, things kind of
were clarified. You know, rock and roll was the Rolling

(30:42):
Stones and the Animals and the Beatles, and you know,
um uh it was. It was very different than the
very early sixties. There was a lot of good R
and B though in the early sixties, which which I'm
I'm an RMB that I love early sixties R and B. Okay,
So you're working in the record store, you get this offer,

(31:05):
you make a record. A couple of questions you're gonna
answer all at once. One did you think you're gonna
make a career in music? B? How many bands did
you go through? See? How did you end up recording
Hanky Panky? Oh boy, this is a lot of stuff. Okay.

(31:27):
Um yes, I honestly did believe I was going to
make a career out of it. But that was my
stupidity because h and my ignorance back then, because what
I was doing was praying that I could make a
career out of it. Actually and uh, but I remember
when I made our first record, Long Ponytail. The name

(31:49):
of my group, by the way, was the Tornadoes back then,
and the Tornadoes that became Tom and the Tornadoes on
the record of Long Ponytail and Judy on the other side.
And um, I remember driving to the studio when I

(32:12):
was fourteen, thinking that this is the beginning of something
really important. It turned out to be, but of course
I had no no way of really knowing that. Um uh.
And I was so glad to have a record out.
I can't tell you how glad I was, how how

(32:32):
happy I was, and how just seeing your name on
a record and hearing your voice on a on a
on a piece of avinyl. It was just the most
incredible thing in the world. And I actually heard it
a few times on the radio. But then, of course
the record died and that was the end of that.
So that was my core court recording career. So uh.

(32:56):
The next one, as I said, came about about a
year and a half, close to two years later, and
I was sixteen, and uh this was the end of
nineteen and I was I was asked if I would
if I would record for this little label, Snap Records. Uh.

(33:20):
Jack Douglas the not the famous Jack Douglas, but a
disc jockey from Niles, Michigan. He was the morning man
on de WI n I l was starting a little
label and when he asked me to do it, I
just I said, hell, yes, let's do it. And so
we recorded uh uh four sides for him, and to

(33:45):
the first two he put out, there were his song.
We had to do his crappy little song in order
to do our crappy little song. So we had to
do We did. It was called Pretty Little Red Bird,
and we put it out. We were embarrassed, but we
put it out. Thankfully. It died quick and then we

(34:06):
were going to put something out. And I happened to
be out at a club one Sunday and I saw
a group play a record called Hanky Panky, and um,
the group was named the Spinners, but they weren't the
R and B group The Spinners. There was a local group.
And but I saw the reaction of the kids on

(34:26):
the dance floor and they must have got asked half
a dozen times to repeat Hanky Panky. The kids went
nuts fort and I said, that's what we're gonna do,
and I we went into the studio. I forgot the
words to it too. I had there was a real song,
and I went back to the record shop and we
looked up Hanky Panky and it turns out that it

(34:47):
was on the flip side of a record by the
rain Drops called that Boy John and which was Jeff
Berry and Ali Greenwich and uh, but it was taken
off the air because, uh, that Boy John was about
John Kennedy and John Kennedy had just been assassinated, and

(35:09):
so the record came off the market and the B
side went with it, so that then that's what it was,
was on the flip side of that Boy John. And
um So anyway, we went in the studio and all
I could remember is my baby does the hanky Panky
and a few we made up a few other lines

(35:30):
and that was it, and we put the record out
and it was a smash locally. I had just gotten
my first manager and his name was Frank Fabiano. That
was isn't that a great name? Frank Fabia Yeah, and
it and it's uh. And his father was a cohort,

(35:54):
Frank Fabiano, Sr. Of al Capone in Chicago, and he
Fabriano's owned the jukebox business within fifty miles. So Frank
Fabriano Jr. Became our our first manager, and uh, hanky
Panky actually went in the jukeboxes with printed you don't

(36:16):
know how important this is, printed title strips. You know,
you didn't have to write them by hand. They were
printed professionally, and that was a big deal. You have
no idea how thrilling that was. And so we're on
all the jukeboxes and it made a lot of noise.
We couldn't get go any further really than southern Michigan

(36:38):
northern Indiana because we had no distribution. So UM the
record again came and went. So when I graduated from
high school in we were playing all those years. And
when I graduated, I took my band on the road
and we were playing. We got an agent out of Chicago,

(37:01):
and this is right after high school, and we're playing
UH six nights a week in clubs throughout the Midwest.
And I'm playing Janesville, Wisconsin in early sixty six in
this dumpy little club and right in the middle of
my two weeks, the guy goes belly up because the
I r S shuts him down for not paying his taxes.
This true story. And so we go home feeling like dogs.

(37:23):
And as soon as I get home. That's how God works, though,
because as soon as I got home, UM, I got
the call that changed my life. UH distributor in Pittsburgh.
Fenway Distributors in Pittsburgh calls me and tracks me down
because one copy of The record ended up in Pittsburgh

(37:46):
and they put it on. They played it at dances.
The kids flipped, this is Hanky Panky I'm talking about.
It goes on. And by the way, we had changed
our name to the shan Delves when we made Hanky Pank,
so um they they the kids went nuts for it. It
It went on the radio. They bootlegged eighty thousand of
them and sold them in ten days, and we were

(38:08):
sitting at number one. That's just the hand of the
Good Lord. I had nothing to do with that. Only
in America. Only in America could something like that happened.
And they tracked me down because it said Niles Michigan
on the labels Snap Records, Niles Michigan. Who do they
call the record shop that I used to work in.

(38:30):
All these little miracles happened one right after another, and
she gives him did she gives him my home phone number?
And I just happened to be home at that exact
minute because we got let We got let go from
the club who went to the I R S shutdown.
So if all those things hadn't happened in a row.
The longer I'm in this business, the more I realized

(38:52):
what a million to one shot. And I'm very, very thankful.
I I can't tell you how how thankful I am
to have had those things happen, all those little miracles
in a row. And well, okay, in the interim, your

(39:15):
girlfriend gets pregnant and you get married, Yes, I do.
What the hell is going through your mind when that happens.
I wish somebody had sent me to my room. All
I can say is is that, uh, things just sort
of happened to me quickly. Um. I was a senior

(39:40):
in high school and my girlfriend that I've been going
with for a couple of years, Diane, uh, informed me
that she was going to have a baby. I'm a senior,
she's a senior. We go to we went to different schools.

(40:01):
I was in study hall in April of sixty five.
I get handed a blue slip. It says it's a boy.
I said what, And of course I knew it was
going to happen rather soon, but I didn't know what

(40:22):
was going to happen that day. And the office came
down and handed me a slip of paper that said
it it's a boy. So I had to leave school
and I went down to the office and told him,
I'm sorry, I have to leave. My wife's having a baby,
so that they didn't know anything. They said, what So
I left and I went over to St. Joseph Hospital

(40:45):
in South Bend, and sure enough I was a dad.
So Um, basically what happened is, uh, Diane and I
lived at my parents house until I graduated from high school.
She had to she had to quit school obviously, and
so I couldn't work in the record shop and play

(41:08):
teen dances anymore. I had to make a living, so, uh,
I didn't. I almost took a day job. I mean,
this is the whole thing about I don't know how
far you want to get into this because I'm I'm
I feel like I'm rambling on, but it's all Oh no,
this is all great stuff. Is exactly what I want.
So tell me about almost taking a day job. Yeah,

(41:30):
so there was a there was a store called John's
Bargain Store in South Bend, Indiana, and they wanted to
hire me as a manager right out of high school.
And uh, I said no, no, no, let's say I
Actually the day I drove over there um to to

(41:53):
take this job, I got about halfway there and I
stopped the car. So I can't do this. I'm supposed
to be a musician. I can't do this. What am
I gonna do? I'm just gonna end everything right here
and sell T shirts and preparation hs the rest of
my life? What am I gonna do? So? Uh? I
turned the car around, went back home, and in about

(42:17):
an hour and a half, I get a call from
the drummer from that group, the Spinners that I saw play,
Hanky Banky his name was Hank Randolph and called me
and said, look, two of the other guys are drafted.
I've got a bunch of gigs. Can can we can
we put a group together to play six nights a

(42:37):
week us God is God is really Yes, yes we can.
So that honestly is how it happened. And I we
started playing. We started a new group called the Coachman
spelled with a K and uh. That was the group

(42:58):
that I ended up taking uh through the Midwest, you
know that I ended up playing with in james Ville
when when we got let go, that was that was
the group. So that's how fast it all happened. And
I went when I went back, and of course I'm
sending money home every week being trying to be a
good dad and a husband. Um, that's how that happened.

(43:23):
I mean, where are Diane and the boy today? Brian
lives about thirty miles from me here in New Jersey.
He's uh uh married to a great gal. Uh uh.
He is a design engineer in New York, goes back
and forth from Jersey to New York. And uh, I

(43:46):
love him dearly and he's my only child as well.
And Diane, we're all friends. Uh still I'm I'm married again,
but uh, Diane and I are still friends. And she's
still back in Niles, Michigan. She's remarried, and uh we

(44:11):
all care about each other. Strangely enough, isn't that something
all's well, that ends well? Okay, So Hanky Panky is
a local hit. You go to New York to get
a record deal. Tell us how you end up on
Roulette Records? Oh god, okay, you want the full blast?

(44:37):
Don't absolutely all? Right? Well, Um, when Hanky Panky broke
out in Pittsburgh, it was a major market, so that
was a big deal. And I went to Pittsburgh at
their request and did local TV, and uh I had
to pick up another band because I couldn't put the

(44:59):
original back together, and so I UH, I got my
first manager in my first manager after Hanky Panky in Pittsburgh,
UM and UH got a new group from Pittsburgh that
became the new Shandls, And a week later we were

(45:24):
in New York selling the Master and it was amazing.
I had never been to New York, you know, I'm
a hic from Niles, Michigan. And we make all the rounds.
We pick up fella by name of Chuck Ruben. Bob
Mack was the fellow who became my first manager and

(45:46):
who was the disc jockey who played Hanky Panky first
on UH dances that he he had. So UM we
go to New York and make the rounds. Bob Mack
myself and felt the name of Chuck Rubin who's a
booking agent, and we went to UH CBS and got

(46:12):
a yes because we had a regional breakout in the
trade papers with Hankey Pankey and from making it in Pittsburgh,
so we got We've got a yes from CBS. We
got a yes from Rona Lexembourg at EPIC, we got
a yes from um Our c A, we got a

(46:33):
yes from Kamas Sutra. I don't know if you remember.
Camasuit director Ore rd Rip was all these people have
become my friends over the years. But got a yes
from camas Sutra and yes from Atlantic, and so I

(46:55):
was on cloud nine. We just got a yes. We
never got turned down, didn't get it turned down every anywhere.
So I went to bed feeling really good that night.
By the way, the last place they went to was Roulette. Uh.
And because I was just too tired, I went back
to the hotel. Bob and Chuck took the record to Roulette.

(47:17):
Morris Levy was out of town, so Red Schwartz, who
was the promotion man, took the record and played it
and uh, and they said, yeah, they wanted it. So
the following morning, I slept thinking we were going to
be with one of the big corporate labels and probably
CBS or r C A and uh. The next morning

(47:41):
I get up and the phone starts ringing and it
was all the record companies that had said yesterday before,
And one after another they called up and said, listen, Tom,
I'm so sorry, but we gotta pass. What do you
mean you gotta pass? I thought we had a deal,
and uh, so I Finally Jerry uh uh, Jerry Wexler

(48:08):
at Atlantic told me the truth that Maurice Levy from
Roulette had called up all the other labels and threatened
them and basically said, this is my fucking artist, excuse
my French back off. And that's how we talked to
right out on the movies. So uh he uh he

(48:33):
literally backed him down, including CBS. And I was apparently
going to be on Roulette. It was the first offer
I couldn't refuse. And we go and uh so, uh,
I go to Roulette and I meet all these people
and uh, you know, Morris, as I said, was right

(48:56):
out of the movies, Morris Levy from Roulette. He was
every bit of gamester and he talked like this, you
know what I'm saying, and uh you shook hands with him.
It was like grabbing a catcher's mith. That's all I
can and he but he was fascinating. You couldn't take
your eyes off the guy he was. He was like
a great actor and so at any rate. H he

(49:19):
explained if we how it was gonna work, We're gonna
do this, we're gonna do that, some of that over there,
and I meet Red Schwartz, and I meet uh oh
so uh uh, who's the big dish shockey? Not Alan Freed,
the guy who took his Oh god, Mariva Ka Marya

(49:40):
Kay was sitting in the office, as was George Goldner,
who we had been to we had seen the day
before at Red Bird Records, and he gave us a
yes too. By the way, I forgot to mention him.
So they're all sitting in Morris's office and Okay, all

(50:00):
I can say is that, you know, they brought out
the contracts uh, and we signed then and there and
and he says to me, and this was this ended
up being the subtitle of our book. He said, I
hope you're ready to kick, because you're going on one
hell of a ride. He actually said that to me.
I said, good, that's great. And so at any rate,

(50:25):
I had no idea who I was rubbing shoulders with.
I had no idea what was going on. We learned incrementally, Um,
you know, we'd meet somebody in Morris's office and a
week later we'd see him on TV uh being escorted

(50:46):
by the police out of a warehouse in New Jersey.
Is isn't that the guy who just met Morris's office?
And that was true. That really happened, and it kept happening.
We started recognizing famous gangsters, We started recognizing people that
we knew from TV, and they were up in Morris's office,
as was Cardinal Spellman. Uh you name it. They were

(51:08):
up in Morris's office. And so anyway, Karen, who was
Morris's secretary, explained who these people were and that this
was the Genevese family. It turns out Roulette, in addition
to being a functioning indie label, was also a front

(51:30):
for the Genevese crime family. So this made life really interesting.
We couldn't talk about any of this stuff. And uh so,
while we're hanky panking and money, money and stuff that's
very dark and sinister, story is going on behind us
that we really couldn't say a word about. And a
lot of people in the business knew, you know, but

(51:52):
but but you know, the fans certainly didn't know it. Okay,
this lad game needless just say, Morris ripped you off,
but you were a big star. Would you have been
as big without Roulette Records? I don't think so. In fact,
I know so, because if we had gone with one

(52:15):
of the corporate labels, every time I start to say
something really bad about Roulette or Morris, I stopped myself
because the truth is, if it wasn't for Morris LEEVI,
there wouldn't have been a Tommy James Um if we
had gone with one of the corporate labels. I can
tell you right now, if we'd gone with CBS, we
would have been turned over to an in house a

(52:35):
and our guy, and that's the last you would have
heard from us, especially with a record like Hanky Panky,
you know, uh we would have and the competition would
have been unbelievable. It was how did you ever have
a get getting noticed? With all the competition from from

(52:57):
any of these labels. And so at Roulette they actually
needed us. They hadn't had a hit since the Essex
in sixty three was easier said than done, and and
uh so they were hurting for a hit, and so
they gave us the keys to the candy store. They
really did in every way I was. I learned my

(53:18):
craft at Roulette. I would have never learned street level
record business at any other label. And I certainly would
have not been able to put my own production crew.
They trusted me with putting my own production crew together
and and uh, bringing in songwriters and and you know,

(53:41):
songs from other labels and stuff. They trusted me to
do all that that would have never happened at another label. Now,
you had a lot of hits at Roulette. Some of
these records, as we say, were just in. It was
just in the grooves, just had to hear it. But
what was their specials sauce to make sure one of
your records was a hit? How much was muscle money

(54:07):
or it was just the record? Well, how did they
bring it to the top? Hey, blay to freaking record?
All right, No, that's not true. That's I'm making that up. Um. Honestly,
we were the biggest act on the label that helped
a lot. Roulette was a well known label, so so

(54:29):
it wasn't like, you know, they'd had Luke Christie, and
they'd had Joey did and the Starlighters, and they had
Jimmy Bone, Buddy Knocks, they had, oh god, the pony Tails.
They had just a lot of hit records. They were
great at selling singles and radio knew him. Red Schwartz,
by the way, I credit more than anyone up there.

(54:51):
Red Shorts taught me the radio business and he was
a disc jockey himself from Philly, and he knew all
these disc jockeys. He knew them all. He sat me
down and made me learn the names of all these guys,
who their kids were, who what their wives names were.
When I talked to him, uh uh, you know, I

(55:15):
could I talk to them as a friend. And uh
we were we became a radio act more than that.
You know, some acts are big concert acts, they're big songwriters.
And we were a right we were created by radio.
And I think that's the best way to do it,

(55:37):
because that's you know, back then, on an a M.
The a M stations, you played about a dozen you
got on about you know, l S and Chicago and
CFL and and ABC in New York and uh k
R l A out out in l A and k
UP our seat in San Francisco. You got about a
dozen stations. You had the whole nation. A M radio

(55:59):
was unbelieved evable. And the number of people that they covered,
the you know LS at Night covered thirty eight states,
for God's sake. And so what I'm saying is um
Roulette was very good at promoting singles albums. They didn't
do so much that came later, but um ah, singles

(56:22):
was there Forte and Morris knew how to do it.
And he used all independent distributors too. He could have
been with anybody, but of course he couldn't have cheated
as well. But uh, you know, and he used all
indie distributors that he basically controlled. So honestly, at another label,

(56:46):
I don't think we would have had any a fraction
of the success that we had at Roulette. Okay, so
the records you hit, they send you on the road.
You come back to the office and Morris says, I'm waiting,
which time are you talking about? Which I'm trying to say.

(57:08):
If you read the book, he's constantly demanding new product, yes,
while the other product is you know, hasn't fallen off yet.
Well that's true. Um we were, we were. We were
putting out five singles a year, and Morris would crack
the whip for another single. But he was you know,
what what do you would do is like he whatever

(57:31):
your hit was, that became the name of your album,
Like the first album was the Hanky Panky album. Could
have called It's something else with Hankey Pap, but no,
the Hanky. He knew how to sell stuff, uh, and
and immediately went gold and the ultimately platinum. But but
Hanky Packy the album made it right out of the box. Um,

(57:55):
but you know he he that was That was probably
more luck than anything else. They were not great at
selling albums until Crimson and Clover. But the point I'm
trying to make is that, Uh Morris, You're right. He
always wanted more product, and so we were constantly I
couldn't sleep until I had the next single in the camp.

(58:18):
But that was good. That's why we had twenty three
gold singles were lette okay, so you know the Hanky
Panky was a cover. You need new records. How do
you come up with the material? Well, this is another
stroke of luck. I was you know, I the band

(58:39):
could write somewhat. We we our second record, Say I Am,
was by the way Lightning struck twice. We went back.
Uh Bob Mack went back to the same record bin.
He found Hanky Panky and and pulled the fireballs Say
I Am, and Uh brought it to New York and
we were in the in Bell Sound Studios doing a

(59:01):
Hankey Pankey album, and he brought in Say I Am,
and we learned it note for note, and that became
our second gold record. So we were very lucky with that. Well,
right then I met Richie Cordell and Bow Gentry. Richie
Cordell Saltramachi and Bow Gentry. How did you meet him? Okay,
um the Red Swartz secretary. Uh, Ronnie, she became well.

(59:31):
I we started hitting it off and we began going out.
And Uh, I was a married man, had no business
doing this stuff, but shame on me, that's what I did.
So Ronnie, I was going to take her out one
night and I met her at her apartment and she

(59:51):
had a roommate named Linda and not my landa another
land and so um, Linda's boyfriend was this crazy little
songwriter named Richie Cordell. And when I went to pick
Ronnie up, I started. She had a little record player

(01:00:13):
on the on the floor and UM some demos and
I played a demo of a song UH called hold
on to Him. And I played it and I said,
who who is this? I said, this is a hit record,
this is a smash. Who is this? She said, Oh,

(01:00:33):
that's my roommate's boyfriend, Richie. You want to meet him?
I said, yeah, Well, it turns out. All these guys
were writers for Hardie RiPP over Cama Sutra. Richie and
sal Uh and Bow Gentry were all um all writers

(01:00:53):
over Cama Sutra. So the next night I went up
and I met Richie, and Richie and I hit it off.
He was like, you know, he was like a little
mad scientist. I loved him and he became uh. He
and Bow Gentry became my producers and songwriters. And the

(01:01:16):
first record we put out was Its Only Love, written
by Richie and salth Romachi, and that went top twenty.
Didn't blow the doors down, but it was a big record.
And then Bow and Richie brought me I think we're
alone now. And when they brought it to me, it

(01:01:37):
was a ballad. I mean it was, you know, not
a real slow about but a slow mid temple ballad.
And we went in the studio. As soon as I
heard the hook, that's that's a smash. That what a
great hook that is. And we went into the studio
over at Allegro. I changed studios Allegro, which was at

(01:01:59):
the basement of exteen fIF Broadway, um At anyway, So
they we went in in the studio and that's where
I came up, I said, why don't we speed this
thing up? And I was playing the eighth notes, the
doom doo doo doo doo doo doom doom do. I
was That's what I was playing. I just came up
with that on the guitar and we started UH doing

(01:02:20):
the doing the demo with with sped up with Boasting
in the league. So it came out great, and we
took it back and played it for Morris and he
loved it, and that was gonna be the next single.
And so I got Jimmy Wissner. Uh. Karen asked me

(01:02:42):
if I wanted an arranger, and I said, I remembered
seeing Jimmy Wissner's name on a label of one to
three by Lynn Barry a year before that, because I
bought the record so I could learn how to play
with my group. And so I said Jimmy Wissner and
she said, yeah, I think so, So she calls Jimmy Wisner.
He comes up the next day. So bo Richie, myself,

(01:03:06):
and Jimmy Wissner became like the production team and UH,
the engineer Bruce Staple was the fifth member of the team.
But these guys had to deal with Cama Sutra. How
did you get around that? Morris Levy? Morris Levy as
it took, turns out put already ripping business over at

(01:03:27):
Cama Sutra, and so he owed him a few favors.
So he calls up already ripped. Morrise calls up already says, listen,
my artists wants to do one of his songs with you,
with you, with your with your couple of year guys.
He said, I need him over here. Okay. So we
got him, We got him, We got them all and

(01:03:49):
they became our writers, uh and our producers. And that
was the first production team that that we put together.
And that was a lifesaver because I uh did not
have the songs to further my career. So if if

(01:04:09):
Bow and Richie hadn't come along at the moment they did,
I don't know what would have become. My career would
have probably ended with It's Only Love all I say,
I am. So you have hit records. To what degree
are you going on the road and what are your
experiences on the road. Well, um, that summer of sixty

(01:04:36):
we were on the road constantly. After Hanky Pank and
um I I we were working with a lot of
the other groups. I did my first arena dates I
had never done before, the biggest crowds we ever worked too,

(01:04:56):
um I had. I made a lot of friends in
the business. Um it really was. Uh. You know, when
you're when you're eighteen nineteen years old and you're out
on the road with a hit record, life is good
and uh you don't notice that you're burning the candle

(01:05:19):
at both ends. You don't notice that you're dog tired.
You know, you're just partying in the nighttime and traveling
in the daytime. I remember we traveled in a station
wagon and we hauled our own equipment. This is before
got invented roadies and uh so, uh, you know it was.

(01:05:43):
It was a real adventure that first year, but I
loved it. I think of that first summer of sixty
as the most fun part of my life. I think, So,
who are you on the road with? And what was
it like meeting those people? A year before are I
had been selling records, selling all these people's records now

(01:06:04):
I'm working with And I'll never forget the first big
arena date that I played, uh in Montgomery, Alabama at
the Civic Arena down there, and I'm working with uh
Lou Christie. We were the opening act. Hanky Banky had
just been on the charts about three weeks and we

(01:06:27):
were the opening act and we opened and Luke Christie
was on the show. Uh. This is about a year
after he had lightning strikes and uh, he had so
many hits and the animals and Hermann's Hermit's and they
were all at their peak. I felt I felt like
my voice was changing him. Tommy James. So I remember

(01:06:53):
going up to Eric Burdon and introducing myself to him. Hey,
I'm Tommy James. I want to and he goes, who
the bloody hell are you? Who the bloody hell are you?
And hey, they were animals right, So anyway, so Herman's

(01:07:16):
Hermits couldn't have been nicer and they were. Uh. We
spent the night partying with them. And uh. That was
my first gig with Peter Noon and the Hermits. And
I'm still working with him today on serious radio. Okay,
what about the money? The what the money? Well, you're

(01:07:40):
on the on the road. The act is getting paid something.
You can see all the economics are completely different from
what they are today. Hey, are you just getting a
per diem and burning the kid on both ends, and
you have no idea what's going on. It wasn't that bad.
We were we were, we were. We were making I
don't know the first summer, probably five thousand a night

(01:08:03):
or something like that for the first few weeks, and
it just went up incrementally from there with each record.
Uh No, we made money on the road, and we
made money from B M I from our paltry songwriting
back then, and uh, mechanical royalties we just weren't getting.

(01:08:23):
And that was a real interesting well showdown, I'll call
it the um We knew. I knew because the guys
were really salary musicians, but I knew that I was
supposed to be getting royalties from selling all these records
and they weren't. It wasn't happening. So Uh, I got

(01:08:46):
a lawyer, uh I won't mention his name, and who
went up to Morris Levy and he was gonna get
my royalties. And he comes out and he's slapping Morris
on the back. I knew that was bad sign. I
knew that wasn't good. So at any rate, what happened was, uh,

(01:09:09):
we were told, in no uncertain terms to be to
not to push it, because what happened to Jimmie Rodgers
could happen to us. And I guess you know what
happened to Jimmy Rogers. He was left for dead on
an l A freeway because he was uh suing for

(01:09:30):
his royalties. And he was a very athletic guy, very muscular,
in good shape, and he was he was never the
same after that. And he he survived it, but just barely.
And so we knew what could happen if we pushed it.
And so the bottom line was I sort of took

(01:09:55):
a salary for a while, uh in addition to but
that was how I was gonna get and by the way,
my writing moneys weren't going to come either, because don't forget,
I was cross collateralized. Whoa, And so that I became

(01:10:16):
very familiar with that term cross collateralized. That meant you
weren't getting anything. So did you even get state did
you even get statements? Uh? No? No. But we were
having one hit after another and we're making a lot

(01:10:36):
of money on the road, and I was we had
to make a conscious decision do we try to go
after our money because by this time we were good earners,
as they say, So do we try to go after
our money? Do we try? Do we sue him? What
do we do? Or do we just go along to

(01:10:59):
get along and keep having hits. So I think in
Hindstein we probably did the right thing. We uh, we
didn't make a big fuss every now and then I did,
and I would I would get large chunks of money, um,
you know, handed to me, but regular mechanical royalties when

(01:11:23):
they were supposed to happen, weren't going to happen. So
in the end I think I made the right decision.
Plus now I get to tell the story. And so
how big were these chunks of cash that Morris would
give you? Oh sometimes twenty and thirty and forty, but
not very often. And we figured out at the end

(01:11:47):
that he ot us between thirty and forty million dollars
um just in mechanicals and the publishing. I would have
been a little bit more than it would have been
a lot more than that actually, But um, the way
this came to a head was amazing. I don't know

(01:12:08):
if you want me to skip ahead and tell her.
I don't know how much you wanted ye tell tell
us how it came to a head. Well, Um, my
accountant Aaron Scheckter well more Morris. Okay, Morris had left
the country for a while. Ah. There was a gang

(01:12:28):
war in seventy one in New York when the Gambinos
were taking over uh the other families. Uh, and Morris
was on the wrong side, and Morris left town. He
and Nate mccallo, who was his bodyguard, went to went

(01:12:51):
to Spain and they came back. Um. And while he
was away in Spain, Uh, my accountant, um sort of
did a tally. Only they didn't try to go after
the books. Everybody tries to go after the book. He

(01:13:11):
went after the labels that we're being printed, uh, by
various printers. This tactic had never been tried before. I
don't think anyway. We got an honest count from the

(01:13:31):
labels that were printed certain discount you know for DJ
copies and stuff like that and returns, but we got
a pretty damn good count and it was somewhere between
thirty and forty million dollars. And we He went to
Morris with that information. When Morris got back, and Morris

(01:13:55):
told him to know uncertain terms if he if he
tried to use that against him. They'd be fishing him
out of a river. So that was the end of
my uh investigation of into Morris's bank roll. So um Anyway,

(01:14:18):
shortly after that, um uh, Morris's partner up in up
at Roulette, Tommy Everley, who, by the way, he became
the head of the Genevese family uh uh. When Video
Genevies died in prison h on Valentine's Day and sixty nine,

(01:14:39):
Tommy Everley became that of the family. And he was
then killed in seventy two and July of seventy two,
and all hell broke loose at Roulette and I said
to Morris, I'm out of here. I am out of here.
He said, you ain't going anywhere. I said, I am
out of here. I said, shoot me, I don't care.

(01:15:00):
I'm done. I can't. I can't deal with this anymore.
And I It took me two years of not recording anything,
no more albums. Morris put out a few of the
singles that had UH that were in the can, but
I never did another album after that, And finally he
let me go in seventy four and I went Fantasy.

(01:15:25):
So I had one record out an m c A
and then I had. Then I went to Fantasy Records
out on it in Berkeley and got as far away
from New York. Is like good for the next couple
of albums. But anyway, that's a long story. Uh, I'm
sorry I took us off. No, no, no, that's great.
All this is great. Let's go back to some of
the records needless to save between the Beatles Citty and

(01:15:48):
sixty four and seventy one or so, there were many scenes,
many developments. So when from May M to f and etcetera,
how did you come up with Crimson and Clover. Well
that's the moment of truth Crimson and Clover, because uh,
we had come off a money money and then and

(01:16:12):
Morris had a falling out with Bow and Richie. Richie
came back, Bow went to Casnets and Cats and did
bubble Gum records on LORI and Richie came with me
and so we did money money together. We did h

(01:16:34):
do oneto Me, We did a couple of other singles
and do do something to Me? And then finally I
just decided so much was going on in Um. We
got Hubert Humphreys office called as he was running for president,
and Hubert Humphreys office contacted Roulette and wanted to know

(01:16:59):
if we would join him on the camp on the
presidential campaign, which we did, and while I was on
that campaign, the whole industry turned upside down. We left
in August and we came back in November, and while

(01:17:20):
we were gone, the industry had gone from singles to
albums in ninety days. I couldn't believe it. When we
left in August, the big acts were Gary Puckett, um Us,
the Rascals, the Association, its writer. I'm leaving a lot
of people out, but it was all singles. When we

(01:17:42):
got back ninety days later, it was Led Zeppelin, Crosby,
Stills and Nash, Joe Cocker, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Neil Young,
all album acts. And really this started with the Sergeant
Pepper album Company's real seeing how much money they were
losing by not uh by not selling albums. And so

(01:18:07):
the reason I'm telling you all this is because at
that very moment uh AM Radio then turned into FM Radio.
FM Radio was started playing rock and roll for the
first time ever in um. Up until that time, FM
was only for jazz and classical. Now they're playing rock,

(01:18:28):
unheard of, So everything was in stereo. Everything had to
sound good. At the same moments, technology was coming in
from the Space program. We had multi tracks that were
up to two tracks. Now we went from four track
to track in about eighteen months. So everything was changing,

(01:18:48):
and so we realized we had to produce ourselves. We
had to write and produce ourselves or we were done
and we had to sell albums. So it was just
very lucky for us. We were working on a little
record called Crimson and Clover, and Crimson and Clover was
just us two of my favorite words. I put together,

(01:19:11):
wrote it with a sort of a backwards three chord
progression and um. We went in the studio and it
came out great. In five and a half hours. We
put the whole record together UM and with the tremolo effects.
Everything yes, we had recorded I had that was me

(01:19:31):
playing guitar. We played, I played the tremorlo guitar and
just kind of serendipitous, I did at the end, why
don't we put the voices through tremolo, And so that's
how we did the face with the same tremolo that
was on the guitar. We plugged the um UM the

(01:19:51):
microphones into the guitar amp, Mike the guitar amp and
ran it back into the board and so it was
a really simple thing to do, but it made the record,
and Crimson and Clover then became the biggest record, uh
that we ever did. It sold five and a half
million copies right there in nine But what I'm saying

(01:20:14):
is that Crimson and Clover allowed us to make that
jump from a M Top forty singles to FM progressive
album rock. I don't think there's any record we ever
put out that would have allowed us to do that
in one shot like that. And so then the album
came out and we were let's started really selling albums

(01:20:37):
for the first time. The Crimson and Clover album went
platinum and uh uh you know, we were suddenly selling
albums and singles and UM, that was a huge, big deal. UM.
It gave us the second half of our career and

(01:20:57):
allowed me to do things I could never ever have
done before UM in the studio. So we we became
our own producers, our own songwriters. UM and UM life
really changed at that moment, of course, and dragging the

(01:21:22):
line how does that come together? Well, that was much later,
of course, and I had the Shan Dels and I
had parted ways in UM at least that group of them,
and so I started a solo career and I brought
my old one of my old writing partners up from

(01:21:44):
South Bend, Indiana. His name was Bob King. I brought
him up and we began producing and writing together, and
I started producing artists Silver at Columbia for Clive Davis,
I did Patty Austin, I did Bennie Mardonis, uh you know,
several other acts, and uh, you know, just started expanding

(01:22:10):
everything I was doing. And I wrote this little song
for uh for as a B side called Dragon A Line,
and I put it out first as a B side.
On the A side was a song called Church Street
Soul Revival, And the first time this had ever happened
to me where I put it out as a single,

(01:22:34):
and the B side started getting as much or more
play as the A side that had never happened to
me before. And so I took a second look at this,
and I took Dragon A Line back into the studio
and I put horns on it, a couple of beet
beat boop boops, and remixed it and put it out

(01:22:55):
as a single in seventy one. The spring of seventy one,
I just took off and broke out of l a
believe it or not, and so any at any rate,
that was a that was a huge big deal to
have a top five record as a solo artist right then.
And I had another twelve chart singles on Roulette as

(01:23:19):
a solo artist, I'm Coming Home and Ball and Chain
and the others. And then you know what happened, how
I ended up leaving with it. Okay, at some point
the hits dry up. How do you cope with that?
What goes through your mind? Well, look, this business we're in,

(01:23:41):
it's generational, and you've got to be prepared for the
long haul. And you go through phases, and you know,
it's like being a child actor. You know, you as
you as you get older, Uh, the parts change and

(01:24:01):
the windows aren't as frequent, but there are still lots
of windows of opportunity and so um. After nineteen I
did two albums for Fantasy Records in the seventies and
they were both on the charts. They they weren't top
ten albums, but they sold a lot of records. And uh,
then I had another I came back to New York

(01:24:24):
in eight and signed with Millennium Records, which was Jimmy
Einer's label, and that was distributed by r C A.
And I had a number one Adult contemporary record with
three Times in Love and it went top ten on
the charts, and uh, then two more chart records on
Millennium after that, and then finally UM, I left Millennium

(01:24:48):
and UH, basically things were pretty slow in the eighties.
I got my a lot of my music back. Finally
in nineteen ninety I signed with Ronald Lexenburg at Aegis
Records and we had an album called High Five and
did okay, didn't blow the Doorstown, but it was okay.

(01:25:10):
So but all this time we're selling records. UH. Meanwhile,
Roulette Morris gets uh Morris and I kind of stayed
in touch. Morris gets arrested and gets convicted, uh for
racketeering and gets sentenced to ten years in prison. This
happened in eighty six and eighty seven, and he dies

(01:25:35):
of cancer before he can serve a day in prison.
And just before he died, he sold the company two Rhino,
who is this is very contortive, but he sells it
to Rhino, UH, and the masters and sells the publishing.

(01:25:57):
Two Fujifilm start a publishing company called Windswept Pacific. Windswept
Pacific themselves to E M I E M I, then
selves to Sony. Today I'm with Sony on on the
publish all the publishing. And they've brought me sixty three
movies uh in the past uh ten years or so,

(01:26:22):
sixty three of them. And um over on the masters
are now owned by Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers brought Rhino,
bought Rhino, and Warner Brothers now who by the way
is owned by the Russians, the Ukrainians. Um, there are
no more American owned record companies of the of the

(01:26:44):
big corporate labels. You know, Sony is owned by the Japanese, UH,
Universal is Vivendi by the with the French, and UH
Warner Brothers is the Ukrainians. So anyway, that's that's amazing.
But anyway, so uh Warner Brothers has uh put out

(01:27:07):
product licensed product my stuff all over the world. And
so today you know it's a licensing business and a
publishing business, and uh, frankly, I mean I'm kind of
embarrassed to say to this, I've never done better. Uh,

(01:27:29):
financially than then now any time in my career, not
to mention the booking price. You said you got the
rights back. What rights did you get back? I own
all of my masters after Roulette, in other words, the
five labels I was with, including my own. Now I
have my own label, our records, and I own all

(01:27:53):
of my material, all of my masters h after Roulette
from seventy four on. Uh. Now, UH Warners owns the
big Roulette catalog. And they're doing a magnificent job of
getting that stuff all around. And they pay. Okay, now,

(01:28:14):
you signed deals in the sixties. Never mind, you didn't
get paid in the sixties. Do they still pay you
at the same rate in the you signed the contract
you signed in the sixties a much better rate. How
did you come to how did you get to renegotiate that? Well,
there were certain statutory laws that they had to um

(01:28:37):
over the years. UM. I renegotiated with Rhino um because
otherwise I could have I was. I didn't threaten to
sue him or anything. I just said that, Uh, you know,
I never got paid, and I didn't excuse me. I
guess I put a bug in their ear. But they
were very eager to pay me the much higher rate.

(01:29:01):
And of course with movies and licens things, a lot
of the movies are very uh well paying, as is
SYNC licensing for other things television, uh licensing, and that's
a fifty royalty. Let's go back to your production era.
Were you the King? You talked about technology going from

(01:29:21):
four track to track? Were you pretty savvy in the
studio and how did you get the work with Clive
and other people as a producer. Well, I was very
lucky because I learned production. Excuse me, I learned production
with Bow and Ritchie. I went through all the phases

(01:29:43):
of production, producing records, writing songs, producing records, making records,
um at roulette, even album design and stuff like that.
Um I was I learned my craft from top to bottom.
And so yes, I was well versed in the studio.
And when I produced other artists, that really is a

(01:30:09):
rather thankless job producing other people. It's kind of uh,
you know, it's it's it's a hard it's a hard
thing to do and be successful at we we did. Okay.
The first record I ever produced for somebody else was Tighter,
Tighter by Live and kicking. Um I guess you remember

(01:30:30):
Tighter Tighter. I took it back to Roulette, and I
originally was going to do it for myself, and uh,
I didn't like the way the vocal was coming out,
so I brought a live and kicking in rewrote the
song as kind of a duet, did it with them.
They sang on the track that we had already done,
and then I added their guitar player and keyboard player

(01:30:51):
and so forth, um and had a We had a
top five record with Tighter Tighter on Roulette. Uh. I
kind of got my production shops together through Tighter Tighter,
and then I began producing other artists at Columbia and
stuff like that. But I kind of grew tired of

(01:31:12):
that pretty quickly. It's a lot of work, especially if
you're producing more than one person at a time, and
I kind of tired of that. To be honest with you, Okay, now,
during this behight of your fame, you are partaking of
substances to the point one one dig you collapse in

(01:31:35):
or people. The rumor goes around that you're dead. So
tell us about your descent and your recovery there. Okay, Well,
I started popping pills, I started taking uppers. Uh started
early on about and it all caught up with me. Um,

(01:32:02):
what was your motivation for taking the uppers? I had
to write, I had to make records, I had to
be up a lot. But I also they also, I
was you know, uh they I liked them. I wish
there was a better excuse than that. I mean, yes,
I used them when I worked, but I also liked
the like the way I felt and uh, you know,

(01:32:24):
doing the sixties. Uh, and and you had the feeling
it was all right because everybody else was doing them too.
So anyway, as I moved on, then I I started saying, well,
I'm not gonna do pills anymore. I'm gonna I'm going
to rehab. So then I started drinking, and then so

(01:32:45):
booze became my drug of choice for a long time.
And then finally uh uh you know, I was very
very lucky because I never really got caught. There were
a couple of times, like the time you mentioned when
I collapsed on stage. I go back to Roulette and
they said what the hell happened? And I had to

(01:33:09):
explain what I was doing. But anyway, the bottom line
was that h I finally came to my senses in
n and I went to the Betty Ford Center, and uh,
it was the best thing I've ever done, one of
the best things I've ever done. Certainly it saved my life. Okay,

(01:33:31):
a little a little bit slower, Okay, get pushed? Did
you get pushed or did you jump? How did you
actually go into the Betty Ford Center? And what is
it like being a rock star taking pills and drinking
for decades and then going to rehab. It doesn't stick
with most people. So what was your experience and why

(01:33:51):
did it stick? But first, how did you actually go? Well,
I'll tell you, baby, U uh um, Well, frankly, I
couldn't stomach myself anymore. I couldn't stand waking up with
the hangovers. I couldn't, you know, because and I was
just barely getting by on my on my road shows,

(01:34:15):
because I was putting more and more away and uh
just barely uh not getting caught. And so I must
tell you, oh, well, I don't want to jump ahead.
So I basically couldn't stand myself anymore. And yes, my

(01:34:40):
dear wife was pushing me to do it too. Um
God bless her, she stuck with me all those years.
And so finally I we got on a plane and
went to the Betty Ford Center. And uh, the Betty
Ford Center is laid out like a campus. It's a
it's a wonderful place, Uh to get so ober and

(01:35:00):
too uh uh really reflect on what you're doing to
your life and to get to get better. And I
was there for six weeks. At that time, I was
cross addicted to valium and booge and that's a dangerous combination.

(01:35:22):
And Uh, all I can say is that I've been
very fortunate. I never relapsed after I left the center.
I I wanted. The truth is I wanted to stop.
If you really don't want, if you're badgered to go
into rehab, it's not gonna work. Uh. You know they

(01:35:42):
say a man convinced against his will is of the
same opinion still, and it's the truth. You can't if
you're badgered to go by somebody, it's not gonna work.
You have to be sick of yourself. You have to
want to go and want to quit. And I did.
And that's really the story. And I and I a

(01:36:03):
couple of things going back. Hey, what did you learn
and rehab and be you had somewhat of a religious
conversion there well, yes, that had actually happened several years
before that, but my faith played a big role in
my recovery. Um, I'll tell a very personal story if

(01:36:27):
you'd like me to. I. UM, while I was in
the Fourth Center, I uh had a Bible, had my
Bible with and I years before had done this and
and uh open just opened my Bible up, thrown it

(01:36:49):
down on the bed and saying, wherever it opens up to,
I'm gonna know God's talking to me. I'm gonna read
that page and I'm I'm gonna know I's talking to me. Well,
I did it at the Betty Ford Center and I
one afternoon, I just threw my Bible down on the
bed and I and it opened up to some thirty

(01:37:12):
two and it was a conversation between David and God.
First David's talking and then God's talking. And basically I'm paraphrasing,
but God told David, don't don't make me treat you

(01:37:33):
like a wild donkey where I have to put reins
on you and pull you this way and pull you
that way. I'm paraphrasing, but do the right thing, do
what you know I want you to do, and don't
make me treat you like a wild animal. Well, I
believe in my heart to this day that God was

(01:37:55):
telling what's talking to me through that, and I knew
he meant it and that he was looking out for
me because I had always felt God was looking out here.
I've had so many little miracles, some of them I
told you about happened in my lifetime that there was
no doubt about it. And so that's what I did.

(01:38:20):
And when I left the Betty Ford Center, I I
just knew in my heart that that was going to
be it, and it was. I've never relapsed and ah,
thank God, everything in my life changed after that for
the better. True story. Okay, you were on the road

(01:38:41):
with Hubert Humphrey. You knew him a little about lew
him a little bit. What was that experience like and
also compare the state of the country and your view
of it from then to now. Yeah, a lot of similarities.
Um Well, basically I told you that Hubert Humphreys office

(01:39:03):
called Roulette and we went out and I'll never forget.
We were watching uh Richie and I Mike Vale and
I from the from the group. We were watching the
Democratic Convention in Chicago where all the kids got beat up,

(01:39:24):
and the reporters got beat up and everything. It was real,
real UH riot and everything, real chaos. And we're watching
this and we had just agreed the week before that
we would meet Hubert Humphrey UH and the and the
campaign in UH. I believe it's rolling out Virginia, UH,

(01:39:48):
the following Wednesday after the convention. And so we're writing
and and this UH convention comes on and we, my god,
what have we got our selves into? Is every campaign
stopped gonna be like this? What in the hell are
we gonna do? Should we back out? What? So we

(01:40:08):
decided to go ahead and we met him the following Wednesday,
and they gave us our own private jet UH to
go back and forth whenever we could make it. And UH,
he couldn't have been nicer and we so we opened.
We opened for him, you know, like a like a

(01:40:29):
rock act. And it's the first time that I'm aware
of that a rock act and a and a politician
linked up to do a campaign. We ended up. He
asked me if I would do the whole campaign. We
did it. We did the whole damn campaign. And what
a what a learning experience that was? Um? Uh? He

(01:40:51):
told me how he was gonna He told all of
us how he was going to end the Vietnam War.
He was going to have a national referendum. I mean,
I remember thinking to myself how lucky we were to
hear this. I mean that the press would have gone
nuts to hear this a national referendum. He says, it
will show the world what a democracy really is, and

(01:41:12):
it will save twenty kids. And he was right, that's
almost exactly the number. And uh he ended up writing
the liner notes to my Crimson and Clover album. If
you turn the album over, Hubert Humphrey wrote the liner notes,

(01:41:32):
and um, it was just an amazing time. He asked me, uh,
if I would be President's advisor on youth affairs if
he won, and I said something to him like some
stupid and like you know, like believe me, the youth
are having affairs and I'm just a guy to look into.

(01:41:54):
I thought that was uh. But the bottom line was that, uh, my,
my career could have gone in a very different direction
if he had won. But of course, uh he did.
He did lose, and but a lot of people thought,
I don't know if you remember that night, uh, in

(01:42:18):
of the presidential election, but uh, the voting machines in
uh Cook County in Chicago, suddenly we're an operative. They
broke and three hours later, oh and he was winning.
And three hours later, um, voting machines came back on

(01:42:41):
and he lost. So um and Nixon one. And at
breakfast that day, everybody wanted him to do a recount
because everybody felt that Daily had mayor Daily had uh
you know, fixed the election because he was so he

(01:43:02):
was so upset with the Democrats for the fool they
made of him at the convention. Do you did you
watch any of that? Oh? Yeah, I know, yeah, absolutely
so at any rate, Uh, they wanted him to do
a recount. He and he says, oh, he says, the
nation has been through enough. We don't need to do
any of that. He says, this guy, this guy, Dick Nixon,

(01:43:24):
has a habit of getting himself in trouble. So hiss
our support. That's what he said at breakfast. And so anyway,
it was a major experience and right in the middle
of my generation, I guess, and how did you get

(01:43:45):
out of the draft? Well? I always feel really squeamish
about saying this, but it was probably Morris Levy, Morris Levy,
this is a true story. Happened to be on the
board of directors of the Chemical Bank in New York.

(01:44:07):
Talk about the cat garden, the chicken house, you know. Um,
And one of his best friends on on the board
was the head of the Selective Service in New York
was also on the board, and I I'm almost certain
that he used his influence for that. I I don't

(01:44:30):
know if I'd have been accepted anyway, because I was
really it was the height of my pill usage. We
had just done the Ed Sullivan Show that Sunday night,
and this is February, early February, and I went down
to the Whitehall Street in New York, which was the

(01:44:52):
UH induction center and took my physical and I had
been up for two days in the studio and Uh,
it turns out I was color blind to night time colors.
I didn't know that. So you have a new album
rock Party out this year. What does it contain and

(01:45:14):
how did you decide to put out a record? Now? Well, um,
if you if you don't mind me telling you one
more thing. UH. Two years ago in we put out
the Alive album. It was my first studio album in
probably ten years. And we went Top twenty with the

(01:45:37):
album Adult Contemporary, and we went top twenty with both
of the singles from the album in Billboard. Um. Uh,
so it was great to be back on the charts
and that that was really a big big deal for me. Um. Secondly,
we're putting out this new album called, as you say,
Rock Party. Uh. This was an album that we uh license.

(01:46:03):
I actually put this album together twenty years ago. Uh,
and we licensed it to a Canadian label called Direct Source,
and um, they had it out and the license is up,
and we got the album back and they sent us
the copies of the album that they had put together. Basically,

(01:46:26):
it's a it's a compilation of my favorite rock songs
that I have produced over the years. Um. Uh. And
and so we suped it up a little bit with
extra crowd noises stuff and uh it really it really

(01:46:46):
sounds most of the many of the cuts are live anyway,
and so it's a it's it's a rock album and
it's uh things we have recorded at various spots around
the country back then. Um. What happened with this album
was we got it back and decided since we've never

(01:47:09):
released it in the United States, had only been had
only been released in um uh in Canada. We decided
to release it first of all digitally in the United States,
which we did on Spotify and and uh iTunes and
all of the those digital platforms, and then secondly we

(01:47:30):
released it physical product of c d s November five
all over the country, ah through our distributor. And now
we're going to be releasing it all over the world.
So Rock Party is going to get around and uh,
I hope, I hope people dig it. It's uh uh

(01:47:52):
never been released here before. So that's the story of
Rock Party. Okay. Now these are on your own label, yes,
and how do you actually promote them and market them
in today's world of cacophony, Well, Ira we go. We
we're going to retail with it everywhere, and retail has
taken it everywhere from Walmart to cost Go to uh

(01:48:16):
target uh uh. Ira is our marketing director for our
records and and our distributor is m v D and
the physical the Orchard does uh digital Yeah, and uh

(01:48:36):
so uh we get it. We're getting around and radio
all over the country is playing cuts from it, tracks
from it, and Carol does a wonderful job with radio.
She does radio all over the world. As a matter
of fact. Okay, you've had quite a career, and unlike
many people, you're still very active, not only in the

(01:48:57):
road but in other endeavors. Recording. It's anything left to do,
anything you know, reach you know, they use that term
bucket list, anything you want to achieve before you leave
this mortal coil. Well, we're doing a movie right now.
The book Me, the Mob and the Music is being
turned into a film. It's being produced by Barbara Dafina,

(01:49:20):
who produced Good Fellas and Casino and Hugo a few
years ago with Martin Scorsese and going all the way
back to the Color of Money with Paul Newman back
in the in the age, just a great string of hits.
And she's producing our film, and uh, Kathleen Marshall is directing.

(01:49:42):
Who made her bones on Broadway, and they want to
do a Broadway show after the film. And so the
next couple of years are going to be real interesting.
And uh, Hollywood shut down, as you know, for about
a year and a half. So they're now just getting
up in a running again. And uh so I love

(01:50:03):
watching all this come together. I'm getting another education they're
putting the technical crew together right now, and uh they'll
be casting. They have their money. Uh, they're gonna be
casting soon. And I'm gonna be helping produce the movie
and I'm going to be technical advisor and the music.
And what's amazing to me, by the way, is how

(01:50:25):
many of the young actors, uh, the the young male
actors started out in rock bands and so so many
of you know, because Jamie Fox really raised the bar
and Ray by doing his own vocals and and uh
he even looked like Ray Charles, So he really has

(01:50:46):
raised the bar uh for that sort of musical movie
getting made. And so whoever they get uh in the
lead role is going to have to play and sing
and actually re record some of these songs. And whoever
they get from Marris Morris is really the star to

(01:51:07):
show because uh, you know, all of us were kind
of jumping around pleasing Morris and he really, uh was
the center of attention. So but I hope they get
it right, and I'm gonna try to see to it,
for example, that they on this in the in the

(01:51:28):
studio scenes, that they actually have equipment that was used
in the sixties. It's very important you know so many,
so many of the people who try to recreate the
sixties don't get it right. Oh listen, you're you're you're
preaching to the converted on that. So Tommy, you know
you're great. You remember everything, you haven't lost a step.

(01:51:52):
It's both impressive and interesting, and I want to thank
you so much for taking the time. We could talk
for hours more. We've just hit the surface, but you
tell a great story. They're all interesting. I want to
thank you so much. God bless you, Bob. I love
reading your stuff. I'm very honored to do this show
and thank you for everything. Until next time. This is

(01:52:14):
Bob left Stocks

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Bob Lefsetz

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