Me, the Mob, and the Music

by Tommy James

  When I walked into the reception room, I could hear Morris on the phone, growling and swearing as usual. Karin gave me a wink and waved me in, and I gingerly took a seat. Morris slammed the phone down and said, “Making you a fucking star is going to kill me.” He leaned back in his chair. “Well, we’re doing good,” he said. “Just don’t get the idea the second record is going to be as big as the first.” Vintage Morris. No pleasantries. No slap on the back. No mention of the tour we’d just busted our ass doing. “We need the next record,” he said.

  I began realizing that coming up with the next record was always going to be the essence of my relationship with this guy. It was like having to throw red meat to a hungry tiger at regular intervals in the hope that he won’t eat you. There never seemed to be any time to just enjoy the current success. There wasn’t any rest at all until the next single was in the can. “We’re working on a couple of new things,” I said, “and Henry just gave me a bunch of stuff to listen to.” Of course, I had absolutely no faith in Henry’s stack of dusty demos. “Well, make it fast,” said Morris. “We need another album too.”

  Another album? The Hanky Panky LP had been out only a month and he wanted another one? My mood swung from cool confidence to panic. It was the first time I was really beginning to feel that I was in over my head. I just did not want Morris to know it. “No problem,” I said. “I’ll get the guys up and we’ll start right away.”

  I walked out of Morris’s office in a daze. That was the moment I realized that when you boil it all down, I was doing this thing on my own. Oh, I could always get fatherly advice from Red and production tips from Henry, but what was painfully clear was that if I didn’t come up with the magic, nobody else was going to. As I passed Fisher’s office on the way out, he suddenly looked normal to me.

  A couple of days later, the band and I met in Glover’s office to plan the next album. Much to our displeasure, in addition to the acetates I already did not like, Henry had a new pile of crap that Morris was insistent we do. They were oldies from his catalog like “Ya Ya,” “Fannie Mae,” and “Shout.” An album full of this stuff could easily have me back in Niles playing the Elks Club within six months. We all felt that if we were just given a few weeks we could write enough songs ourselves to put a decent album together. But no one at Roulette was willing to challenge Morris. So off we marched to Bell Sound Studios to start recording.

  It was like grinding out hamburger meat. The first album had been so much fun. We were allowed to be ourselves while Henry was basically a creative spectator. But with the added pressure from Morris, Henry was now very uptight and intent on doing things his way. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of very stock, predictable-sounding stuff. The guys and I would lay down a good rhythm track, which Henry would try to jazz up with a bunch of studio horn players doing schlock arrangements. It was torture. But what really galled us was that Morris could be so shortsighted and greedy, that he would use us this way just to turn a fast buck with his publishing. In fairness, Morris wasn’t doing anything a hundred other record labels weren’t doing, but that didn’t make it go down any easier.

  The only high point that week was receiving our first two gold records. The “Hanky Panky” single had sold nearly three million copies and the album had sold more than a million. We all went to Morris’s office to take pictures for the trades. As we stood there holding our gold and smiling for the camera I remember thinking, “Enjoy it guys, because if this second album does not change direction fast, this may be as close to gold as we ever get again.” As we were leaving Morris’s office with the records under our arms we heard the voice. “Hey, where do you think you’re going with those fucking things? They stay here.”

  On my way out, I went to Red’s office for some consoling and to talk about the problems with the new album. Red was busy, so to kill time I began talking to Ronnie, his secretary. I’d had my eye on her for a while. She was three years older than I was, very sophisticated and very New York. I don’t know what possessed me. Maybe it was the pixie hairdo, or the fact that I was just down and feeling lonely, but I asked her if she wanted to go out that night. She looked at me like I was from Mars. “You know there’s a strict rule about secretaries going out with artists. I could lose my job.” Really, I said? But then she smiled and said under her breath, “I live at 888 Eighth Avenue. Come over about eight.” At least it wouldn’t be hard to remember.

  The 888 building was only a couple of blocks from the City Squire, and at eight sharp I rang the bell. When Ronnie opened the door and said, “Hi, come in,” I knew I was crossing a threshold into dangerous territory. I was a married man and had no business being there. But she was beautiful and with the bliss of a sleepwalker, I crossed the line.

  Her place turned out to be a small studio apartment that she shared with another girl. There were a few sticks of furniture, a couple of rollaway beds, and a record player. Ronnie told me to make myself at home while she finished dressing. Of course I went straight to the record player and started flipping through her stack of 45s, and I was surprised to come across an acetate demo. The title was “Hold on to Him” and the flip side was “World Down on Your Knees.”

  I asked Ronnie what the story was with this demo and she told me it was something her roommate’s boyfriend had done. He was a songwriter at Kama Sutra named Ritchie Cordell.

  I put it on the turntable and it was great. In fact, it sounded like a smash. I played the flip and that sounded great too. It was the best new stuff I had heard in months. “Damn, this is great,” I said. “Can I do these songs?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you want to talk to Ritchie? He’d love to meet you.”

  That night, Ronnie and I did the town. We went to all the hot rock clubs: Trudy Heller’s, Max’s Kansas City, the Phone Booth, the Scene, even the Latin Quarter. We took taxis everywhere. Somehow between Ronnie and the lights of the city I felt like I was in a Fred Astaire movie. Everything seemed terribly elegant and exciting. We made plans to do the same thing the next evening.

  The following night I arrived at Ronnie’s apartment and was welcomed by her roommate, Linda, and that was when I first laid eyes on Ritchie Cordell. What a character. He was a cross between Dr. Zorba and Harpo Marx, with granny glasses he wore on the tip of his nose that made his eyes look four times their normal size. We hit it off right away. Within twenty minutes, we’d talked about everything, music, politics, science… I really liked the guy. I also told him I loved his songs and that I wanted to do “Hold on to Him.” He said we should get together to write, and that I should meet his writing partner, Sal Tramachi, that “Hold on to Him” was already a couple of months old and that I should hear their new stuff. He was very animated and very serious.

  While we were talking, I could not help noticing that Ritchie had nonchalantly pulled out a vial of pot from his leather bag and started to roll a joint. Everybody else in the room seemed to think this was perfectly normal behavior. I had never smoked pot in my life and was getting nervous, and they all seemed to know it. I guess I still had a hayseed in my mouth. Ritchie casually lit the joint, took a deep drag, and passed it to Linda, who took a deep drag and passed it to Ronnie, who took a deep drag and passed it to me. They were all staring at me and giggling. I slowly put the joint to my lips and took a puff. I held in the smoke for as long as I could and blew it out. Nothing. I took another puff and held it longer. I blew it out. Nothing. By now Ritchie and the girls were laughing. I had no idea what was so funny. I took another puff and held it until I almost passed out, then blew the smoke into the air. I was not sure what was supposed to happen but whatever it was, it wasn’t. Then I turned to Ronnie and asked her if she had a beer. With this they all went into convulsions.

  Finally I grabbed Ronnie’s hand and we headed for the door. Ritchie, in between coughs and fits of laughter, said he would be up to see me tomorrow at Roulette. Ronnie and I had another big New York night. This would become a pattern. Every night I was not in the studio,
I was with Ronnie. No doubt about it, we were falling in love and this was going to complicate things.

  The next day Ritchie brought Sal Tramachi up to Roulette and we all met in Henry’s office. Sal was skinny, about five foot seven, and very theatrical. He was so hyper he made Ritchie look calm by comparison. They played me about a dozen demos they had recently made: they had great hooks, great melodies, and I liked them all. I thought one in particular, “It’s Only Love,” really sounded like a hit. I was so excited, I immediately took them down to meet Morris. We walked in and I introduced them. I told Morris that these guys had a batch of new songs and I wanted to work with them.

  Morris stood up like Caesar in the senate as if to say, “I’ll take it from here.” He glared at Ritchie and Sal and said, “Who are you guys signed with?” “Kama Sutra,” they said. Morris yelled out the door, “KARIN, get me Artie Ripp.” The three of us just looked at one another and it did not take long before Karin yelled back, “Artie’s on line three.” Morris pushed a button on the speakerphone so we could all hear. “How are you, bubbe? Listen, I got two of your writers up here. My artist wants to work with them.” Morris and Artie talked some mumbo jumbo about publishing rights for a minute until Artie finally said, “Whatever you want, Moshe.”

  That was it. We were apparently going to be one big, happy family. When the meeting with Morris was over, I felt a thousand pounds lighter. A few days later we were all in the studio recording “It’s Only Love.” But this time the atmosphere was great. We used the demo as a blueprint and everything clicked. We finished the record in less than three hours. Even Morris loved it and agreed that “It’s Only Love” should be the next single. Ritchie and Sal had really pulled this one out for me, and I knew I wanted these guys permanently.

  It was right around this time that Bob Mack, who had not been heard from in nearly two months, made an unexpected appearance at Roulette. Technically, he was still my manager, and he came to see Morris in the hopes of getting more money. Even I had to laugh at that one. Morris detested Mack. I hid with Red in his office and waited for the explosion. We were not disappointed. The meeting lasted three minutes and Morris went nuts. He wasted few words on Mack other than obscenities and instead picked him off his feet by his collar and smashed him against the wall of the office. “You’re fucking with my artist.” The sound was horrible. He threw Mack toward the door and Mack kept on walking, fast.

  Even though I had my own bones to pick with Mack, he did not deserve that. After all, if it hadn’t been for Mack, there wouldn’t have been “Hanky Panky,” or Tommy James for that matter. I owed him a lot. As he walked by me he was visibly shaken and pale. Hell, he was scared for his life. I stopped him and asked, “Are you all right?” All he said was “I’ll call you later.” That was the last time I ever laid eyes on him. I went into Morris’s office. “What happened?” “You don’t need that fucking guy,” said Morris. “Well, what am I going to do for a manager?” I said. “You want a manager? I’ll get you a fucking manager. KARIN, get me Lenny Stogel.”

  Who the hell was Lenny Stogel? I had to be very careful around Morris because he took everything I said very seriously and he reacted instantly whether I wanted him to or not. He fixed problems I did not know I had, problems I did not necessarily want fixed. Every time Morris yelled “KARIN!” my life changed. In two minutes, Lenny Stogel was on line three. “Hey, bubbe, how are you? Got something for you.”

  In the ten minutes they talked, Morris told Lenny my life story and strongly suggested how great it would be for all of us if Lenny took me on as a client. He hung up the phone and told me I had a 2:00 appointment with Lenny the following afternoon at his apartment. “Don’t be late.”

  Lenny Stogel, as it turned out, was a young, up-and-coming whiz kid in the industry who, at the time, managed Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, the Royal Guardsmen, and several other acts. He was also married to Harry Fox’s daughter. Harry Fox was the guy who collected the worldwide publishing royalties for nearly everyone in the music business. No wonder Morris liked Lenny so much. At 2:00 the following day, I was knocking on Lenny’s apartment door.

  Lenny lived in a gorgeous penthouse on the East Side of Manhattan, and for a thirty-two-year-old guy, he was doing okay. He gave me one of the best song-and-dance sales pitches I ever heard: the best venues, the biggest TV shows, never-ending publicity. If even half of what he said actually happened, my life was going to be pretty amazing. And even more incredible was that he was moving his whole operation into Ronnie’s building at 888 Eighth Avenue. If that wasn’t a sign, what was?

  We shook hands and I had a new management team. Ironically, that week, Morris found out about me and Ronnie and fired her. We were both pretty upset about it but we knew we were playing with fire and breaking company policy. There wasn’t much I could say to Morris as an excuse so I didn’t say anything and neither did he. I am not sure what I was thinking but in the craziness of the moment, between being glad we did not have to hide anymore and feeling guilty for getting her fired, I did what I thought seemed right. I got my own apartment at 888 Eighth Avenue and Ronnie moved in with me. It was a one-bedroom efficiency on the eleventh floor, but after three months at the City Squire it felt like a suite at the Ritz. Ronnie fixed it up great with real plush carpeting, a mirrored wall, and new furniture from Maurice Valency.

  That same week, Lenny Stogel and Associates took over most of the fifth floor at 888. The day he moved in, I went right down to see his new offices and to meet my whole management team who, up until then, had been nameless faces and were now all finally under one roof. Zac Glickman, Lenny’s partner, handled the day-to-day operations with an amazing amount of poise considering he was only twenty-two years old. Janis Murray, a very soft-spoken woman with short, curly black hair, handled public relations and media. But most impressive to me was Herb Rosen, a funny-as-hell, fast-talking promotion man who owned New York radio. In fact, he was the greatest independent promo guy I ever saw. He was already a legend in New York and Lenny hired him to work all the Stogel and Associates acts. Herb and I developed a close friendship. He worked every one of my records in New York from that point on, and New York was the toughest market in the country. Red loved him and Herb became an integral part of our record success.

  Even though the second album was not finished yet, Roulette had gone ahead and released “It’s Only Love” as our third single, and it was starting to break. Morris was on Lenny’s back to finish the album now! Lenny called me down to his office for an emergency strategy meeting. We decided the fastest way to get this album out was to combine the new stuff we had cut with some of the throwaway songs from the Hanky Panky album. All we needed was a cover photo.

  Zac told us about a young female photographer up on the seventeenth floor in our building. Her name was Linda Eastman and she was extremely talented but not very experienced. He thought she was worth a try. Zac made the appointment and the next day the Shondells and I went up to her studio. The place was almost empty except for a few photos on the walls, pictures she had taken, mostly of rock and rollers. There were some props scattered about and a huge ceiling-to-floor, translucent screen with a slide projector behind it. She was very friendly but nervous. She told us this was her first studio session. Instead of making us apprehensive, her honesty and frankness reassured us. The whole shoot took less than an hour. When we saw the pictures a few days later, we were amazed at how good they were. We picked one shot and used it for the “It’s Only Love” cover. Years later, when Linda Eastman McCartney, wife of Paul McCartney, published her award-winning compendium of her career in photography, she mentioned that Tommy James and the Shondells gave her her first professional job and featured the picture.

  Two weeks later, the album was in the stores. Before we could catch our breath, Lenny hit us with a barrage of appearances we had to make, starting with the Dick Clark show Where the Action Is, in L.A. We flew out the night before the taping and stayed at the infamous “Riot House,” the Hyatt H
ouse on Sunset Strip. This was our first trip to the West Coast and our first network TV show. We were very excited to be on television and even more thrilled about meeting Dick Clark.

  The next morning we got up, jumped into a couple of cabs, and made our way over to Dick Clark Productions to catch a chartered bus out to Malibu, where the show was being taped. Somehow we got the departure time confused and missed the bus. We were frantic. Now we had to get both cabdrivers to take us all the way out to Malibu Beach and somehow find the location.

  About two hours and six hundred dollars later, we found the spot, and the producer was pretty upset with us. After a browbeating lecture about “time is money, kid” and the finer points of professionalism plus a lot of groveling from us, we were forgiven, absolved, and allowed to meet Dick Clark, who could not have been nicer. We had a great talk while the other acts were performing. It turned out Dick was friends with Red Schwartz from the old days back in Philly, and he had been following my career from the start. I felt very honored that he took this much time with me.

  We were on with Paul Revere and the Raiders, Tommy Roe, and the Cyrcle.

  It was amazing watching the Raiders do their celebrated guitar fight. The lead guitarist and the bass player would swing the necks of their guitars over each other’s heads, just barely missing, as they each ducked in the nick of time to the beat of the music. Man, were we impressed. The show came off great, and the next day we were flying to Bermuda to play a weeklong gig at a place called the Forty Thieves Club in Hamilton.