Me, the Mob, and the Music

by Tommy James

  Yet as great as this success was, we knew that if we couldn’t get the 50,000-watt stations in Chicago and Detroit to notice us, it was all going to end. In a strange way, the bigger the record got locally, the farther away we felt from the “big time.” I remember thinking if we couldn’t break out with a record like “Hanky Panky,” what the hell could we do it with? By the end of February, it was becoming clear that “Hanky Panky” was not going to fly. All the electricity and hopefulness ground to a depressing stop.

  The excitement surrounding the record had allowed me to put my situation with Diane on hold for a few weeks but reality was closing in. I began to feel like I was sleep walking, as if I were watching myself but I was somebody else. Diane and I were married on March 27, 1965. It was a small wedding at Saint Mark’s Catholic Church in Niles. We were married by Father Timons, and Larry Wright was my best man. We had to take the Catholic marriage instruction course called Pre-Cana before we could get married, which was a little late in the day—Diane was eight months pregnant. My parents attended the wedding, and I think Diane’s parents came as well, but if they did they stayed well in the back of the church. We moved into my folks’ house, and three and a half weeks later, on April 22, exactly one week before my eighteenth birthday, I was discreetly handed a slip of paper in study hall that read: “Congratulations, it’s a boy.” I got permission to leave school and immediately drove to the hospital, where I saw my son, Brian Thomas Jackson, for the first time. It’s very hard to appreciate certain things when you are young. As great as it was, for the first time in my life, everything I did, every decision I made, would affect other people, not just me. For the first time in my life I felt completely unqualified for this gig.

  Six weeks later, I graduated, but just barely. As hard as I tried to concentrate on it, my schoolwork suffered, and if it had not been for a sympathetic teacher who gave me a merciful D minus in a must-pass civics class, I would not have made it. I remember feeling very sad that night, not only because I knew this would probably be the last time I would see most of these people, but because I was very aware that this was the end of my adolescence. For years, I had been straining to run away from my youth. I was always playing the part of being older than I was; fooling people into thinking I was not a kid. My adolescence was over and there was no going back. Just to keep things in perspective, the school hired me and the band to play at the graduation party.

  After graduation, Diane, Brian, and I moved into a small one-bedroom apartment in Niles. I guess it was then, Diane resting in the bedroom, Brian colicky in his crib, a baby bottle of milk warming in a pan of hot water on the stove, that reality hit me in the face. I had to support my family. In a last-ditch attempt at normal, responsible behavior, I actually told everyone I was quitting the band, and the next day I applied for a job as a manager at a John’s Bargain Store in South Bend. What was really scary was that they called me back and said I was hired. I got about halfway between Niles and South Bend and turned the car around. I could not do it. Somehow, the thought of selling curtain rods and Preparation H for the rest of my life sent a chill up my spine. Family or no family, I determined I would rather starve and be a musician.

  A few days later, and still in a mist, I got an unexpected call from Hank Randolph. I thought he was finally going to scream at me for grabbing “Hanky Panky,” but instead he told me that the Spinners had broken up. Hank wanted to go on the road and his brother, Chuck, did not. He asked me if I was interested in starting a new group that would travel and play six nights a week. Hank said he already had commitments from club owners in the South Bend area for the whole summer. He knew several booking agents that could keep us working full-time. It would be hard, but the money would be good. And most important, no John’s Bargain Store. For me, it would mean some unsettling changes because I would have to quit the record shop and the Shondells. But I was a married man with a baby. I said yes.

  The only other member from the Shondells who was free to play six nights a week was Larry Coverdale. Hank said that the Spinners’ old lead singer, a girl named Kathy, was also available. We were an instant quartet with Larry and me on guitars, Hank on drums, and Kathy on vocals. We called ourselves Kathy and the Koachmen. Rehearsals went smoothly. After all, each of us had been playing the same stuff for years. We sure as hell all knew “Hanky Panky.”

  Two weeks later, we were on stage at the High Hat Club in South Bend, a hole-in-the-wall reminiscent of the Cavern Club where the Beatles were discovered. Playing six nights a week in a club was a very different animal from playing teen dances at the YMCA on weekends. We had to be on stage promptly at the top of the hour, off stage at forty past the hour, and we were expected to play four to six sets a night. Club owners let you know real fast that you were not “playing” anymore, you were working. It was grueling work but I was making enough to feed my family and pay the rent.

  Hank did a good job booking the band and we had steady work throughout the summer. In August, while playing a joint in South Bend called the Club Normandy, the owner took a shine to us and called a booking agent from Chicago to come see us. He was an old fox named Bert Wheeler and he loved us. Bert wanted to make us a real road band and he wanted us to start at the end of August at one of the clubs on the north side of Chicago called the Ups and Downs Show Lounge.

  Hank and I were ecstatic. Larry was a little more subdued and Kathy gave her notice. Diane was definitely not thrilled because it meant I would be home only one night a week. But it was about a fourfold increase in pay and we figured we could do it for a few months and then take a couple of months off. We were actually just one of several dozen bands that Bert Wheeler booked throughout his Midwest club circuit. The theory was as long as you had as many clubs as you had bands, everybody stayed employed.

  Because Kathy quit, we hired a sax player named Del Slade and became just the Koachmen. That summer I traded in my Dodge for a particularly ugly, olive green 1960 Chevy wagon that I thought would be good for hauling equipment. We all piled into the wagon and took off for the Ups and Downs. About three quarters of the way there, the retread peeled off the tires and the radiator exploded, but somehow we managed to limp into Chicago and found the club.

  The Ups and Downs Show Lounge turned out to be a swanky supper club that catered to Mob types and high rollers. It was thoroughly intimidating to a bunch of young hick musicians. We were expected to play from eight in the evening until four in the morning in staggered sets with another act, a Latin trumpeter named Ziggy Gonzales and two go-go dancers. The dancers were dating the Mob bosses who owned the place, two bent-nosed gorillas that nobody in their right mind would argue with.

  Within two weeks, Larry had had enough. He said he just could not take the insane schedule and life on the road anymore. I felt terrible. Larry was like an older brother, but for me, there was no turning back. I needed that weekly paycheck and the only place I could earn it was on the road. Hank and I had to come up with a replacement, fast. I called an old bass-playing friend named Bob King, and he came on board with another sax-playing friend of his named Jimmy Havens. Since we now had two horn players, we began doing a lot of jazz and rhythm and blues, more sophisticated material.

  We played James Brown songs like “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and “I Got You (I Feel Good).” We made our own arrangements of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s hits like “Taste of Honey” and “Spanish Flea,” plus “Watermelon Man” by Mongo Santamaria. We did a blues-jazz version of “The ‘In’ Crowd” as well as standard rock stuff of the day like “Hang On Sloopy” and Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”

  For the next six months we worked constantly, six nights a week, all over the Midwest. We worked go-go clubs on Chicago’s Rush Street and in towns all over Illinois, like Peoria and Waukegan. We played Muskegon and Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Davenport, Iowa. We played two to four weeks in each place. I was really worried about leaving Diane on her own with a new baby, so while I was away, Diane spent a great d
eal of time with my folks, who loved the idea of being grandparents. With any luck, maybe this thing would work out after all.

  As if we weren’t busy enough doing dates, we also began work on an album at Chicago Sound Studios. The studio was on a hot streak, having recently recorded a Top 10 single by a local group named the New Colony Six. We thought we could submit some original material to Mercury Records, which was just down the block from the studio. At least, that was the plan.

  In February of 1966, we found ourselves booked in another club somewhere in Janesville, Wisconsin. One day, in the middle of our first week, the club went bankrupt. When we showed up for work that night, the doors were chained and padlocked. There was nothing to do but go home. The long drive back to Niles was awful. We felt tired and beat up. We had grown sick and tired of living out of suitcases. The only thing that made sense was to live at home and find local gigs. At least the money we were throwing away on hotels and restaurants could be invested in our album project. But it all had a hollow ring to it. I’m not sure I believed anymore.

  We found a steady gig at a rather dumpy old place called the Indiana Café in South Bend. We became the house band and more or less went through the motions of enjoying ourselves four sets a night. But the truth was, we were right back where we started and we all knew it. Up until that time, whenever I hit a dead end, something unexpected always seemed to turn up. I felt as if I were walking on water, and each time I took another step the next stone suddenly appeared in front of me. This time I saw nothing.

  In early April, I got an unexpected call from Dickie at the Spin-It. I had been so depressed about having to play the Indiana Café that I had not bothered to tell anyone I was home again. “Tommy, where have you been? Jack Douglas has been trying to find you. He says it’s very important.”

  When I called Jack he was frantic. He shouted down the phone at me, “Tommy, we got a hit.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Our record is number one in Pittsburgh.”

  “What?!”

  “‘Hanky Panky’ is number one!”

  I still did not understand what he was talking about. “Never mind,” said Douglas, “just stay where you are and I’ll have the people in Pittsburgh call you.”

  About two minutes later I got a call from a fellow who said he was a promotion man at a company called Fenway Distributors in Pittsburgh.

  “Is this Tommy Jackson of the Shondells?” His voice was tense and almost out of breath.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve been looking all over for you. You’re not going to believe this.…”

  Then he told me exactly what happened. Apparently, a local dance promoter named Bob Mack, by some miracle, found the Snap recording of “Hanky Panky” in a used record bin. How our record wound up in Pittsburgh we never did figure out. Bob Mack had several dance clubs and he was always on the lookout for obscure, up-tempo rhythm and blues records to play at his clubs and keep everybody sweating, screaming, and dancing.

  When he saw our record, he thought it looked like an interesting title. He listened to it, liked it, and took it along to play for the kids at his clubs. Everyone went wild, just like they had done at Shula’s. The more he played it, the more everyone wanted to know about it. Who are these guys? Nobody knew. There was no history connected to it that anybody could discover. There were no other Snap recording artists.

  Mack finally took his copy to Fenway Distributors, who pressed up a batch of records on their in-house Red Fox label. They circulated them throughout the Pittsburgh area and the records flew out of the stores. Mack, sensing a bonanza, called for more pressings. All the kids from his dance clubs were buying them up. By the time the local radio stations picked up on it, they could not bootleg the record fast enough. Radio switchboards all over Pittsburgh were lighting up. Within ten days, Fenway unloaded 80,000 copies and the Shondells were sitting on the charts at number one. Luckily, Douglas had put his name on the record along with place of origin—Niles, Michigan. They found him by doing what anybody would have done back in the sixties under similar circumstances. They called the center of the musical universe in a small town like Niles, the local record shop, which was the Spin-It. Dickie called Douglas and Douglas called me.

  The Fenway man ended the conversation emphatically. “You’ve got to come out here. This is the biggest single we’ve ever had and Pittsburgh is a major market. This thing could break nationally.”

  I hung up the phone and tried to put the pieces together. I was playing covers in the Indiana Café. The Shondells did not exist anymore. I had the number one record in Pittsburgh. I was numb. I did not know what to do. I called Douglas back and he said, “Tommy, next weekend we are going to Pittsburgh—do you understand? I am picking you up at the Indiana Café next Thursday after your last set and we’re leaving, so be ready.”

  I went to the band that night and told them the whole story. I also told them that they would have to muddle through without me over the weekend. I was going to Pittsburgh. They all wished me luck but none of them seemed particularly interested. None of them had been Shondells, and since our Bert Wheeler tour, they were through with traveling. That Thursday, Douglas showed up around midnight in his ’59 Lincoln, waited until the band and I finished, and the two of us set off for Pittsburgh at around 2:00 A.M.

  We drove all night on Interstate 80. It was about a seven-hour trip. I was exhausted and nervous. I tried to sleep in the backseat. The Lincoln was a nice big boat, good for sleeping, and somewhere along the way I dozed off. By nine o’clock, as we approached the city limits, I woke in the middle of a tunnel. Douglas yelled back to me, “Hey, we’re in Pittsburgh.”

  The most amazing thing was that as soon as we came out of the tunnel, Douglas turned on the radio, and “Hanky Panky” was playing. When we tried another station, they were playing it too. We tried four stations, and the DJs were either announcing that our song was just coming up or that it had just been played. It was all over the dial. I could not believe my ears. All I remember clearly was Douglas saying over and over again, “Oh baby, oh baby.”

  Downtown Pittsburgh was the most confusing city I had ever been in. It was a maze of streets that all seemed to be laid out in triangles. None of them went north to south or east to west. We spent over half an hour dodging pedestrians and old-fashioned electric trolley cars until we finally found Bob Mack’s office.

  Mack did business in a building at the intersection of Grant and Liberty Streets and, like everything else in Pittsburgh, it was triangular; in fact, it looked like a slice of pie. It was cramped and very narrow at one end. The office was packed with people waiting to see us. The Fenway boys were there, as well as people from the local TV and radio stations, plus Mack’s own crew that helped him promote all his dances. It was like walking into a beehive. Before Douglas could get a word out, Mack ran up to me and gave me a hug and said, “Tommy,” like we were old friends who had not seen each other in years. Mack was skinny with a slight build but he was clearly running the show. He was very well dressed and dapper, in a sharkskin suit, with manicured nails. He was a showman all the way.

  All of a sudden, everything was set in motion. Someone shuttled me over to KQV radio for the first of a series of interviews. I was pulled into a studio by a popular DJ named Chuck Brinkman, who was one of the biggest musical cheeses in town. We talked live for an hour. Then on to KDKA radio for another interview and eventually over to Channel 2 to do the Clark Race TV show. Clark Race was the Dick Clark of Pittsburgh and his show followed an American Bandstand format. I was interviewed again and had to lip sync “Hanky Panky.” Next was the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, where I was interviewed yet again, this time for a feature article. Before the day was finished, I did more than a dozen interviews of one sort or another and I hadn’t even shaved in thirty-six hours. I finally got to a hotel room and collapsed.

  That night, Mack, Douglas, and I had a strategy meeting and it was agreed that I would come back to Pittsburgh the
following weekend for more interviews and to play at three of Mack’s dance clubs. The next morning, as we were leaving Pittsburgh, “Hanky Panky” was still playing over and over on the radio. The song had set a record for most sales of any single in the city of Pittsburgh. The irony and lunacy of the last few days became clear the farther we drove from town. The record seemed to disappear. The closer we got to Niles, the more my star faded. It was like a beautiful dream receding into obscurity.

  Back in Niles, Douglas and I realized that this time we would have to go to Pittsburgh with Shondells of one kind or another. The question was who? Douglas did not go for the Koachmen. He thought they were too old and too jazzy for the kind of stomping rock and roll that the creators of “Hanky Panky” would be expected to play. “You guys sound like a Vegas revue with those horns.” Out of loyalty, I felt that the Koachmen should at least be given one last opportunity to turn down the offer, which they did. I cannot begin to express my depression playing for the usual bunch of weeknight drunks and how sad and frustrated I was that these guys who had been my family out on the road and from whom I learned so much were not going to be a part of “Hanky Panky.”

  I considered putting the original Shondells back together, but by then Jim Payne had joined the service; Larry Wright had moved away and no one could find him; Hank Randolph, from the Spinners and the Koachmen, would have been perfect except that, unlike me, married with a child, he was single and got drafted. Everyone else had either gotten married or quit the business. It would have been more trouble putting together the old band than starting with a new group of guys. And there were only a few days left before I had to return to Pittsburgh.

  But Jack Douglas, who proved to have an uncanny ability for pulling rabbits out of hats, told me not to worry. Sure enough, later that week, he found a bunch of young kids who he said could pose as Shondells, at least for the coming weekend. They were a nice bunch of guys who had been playing in the South Bend area as, believe it or not, the Shandells. They reminded me of me and the Tornadoes back in the early sixties.