Tommy James & the Shondells - Saturday, August 04, 2007
The music of Tommy James is played continuously, everyday, in every country in the world, and has been for over a generation. His songs have become so ingrained in modern culture, it's difficult to go for more than a couple of days without hearing one of them on the radio, TV, in films, or one of the 300 plus cover versions of his songs by other artists. He has sold, to date, over 100 million records and has been awarded 23 gold singles and 9 gold and platinum albums. In 1959, at the age of 12, he formed his first rock band, "The Tornadoes", and began playing local gigs around the area and developing a sizeable following. In 1964 a local DJ asked Tommy and the group to sign with his new regional label, "Snap Records". One of the 4 sides they recorded was an obscure song written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich called "Hanky Panky". The group changed their name to "The Shondells" and released it as a single. It was an instant local hit but didn't break nationally and was soon forgotten. Two years later, in May of '66, amazingly the record exploded out of Pittsburgh and "Hanky Panky" was a smash! Unable to put the original group back together, Tommy went to Pittsburgh alone and hired the first local band he could find to be The Shondells. Two weeks later the new group signed a record deal with Roulette Records in New York and "Hanky Panky" became the biggest hit of the summer of '66. Thus began one of the longest strings of non-stop hits in the record business. Tommy then added producers Bo Gentry and Ritchie Cordell to the team who, over the next two years, produced 7 more back-to-back gold singles including: "I Think We're Alone Now", "Mirage", "I Like The Way", "Gettin' Together", "Out Of The Blue", "Get Out Now", and the party rock icon... "Mony Mony" By the end of '68, after three months on the road with Vice President Hubert Humphrey's Presidential campaign, TJ and company began writing and producing their own records. Their first project, releas
Venue:
EQC I-5 Showroom
Saturday, August 04, 2007 , 8:30:00 PM
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