Tommy James and the Shondells and The Jaggerz become Pittsburgh Rock ‘N Roll Legends
The biggest honoree at the fourth annual Pittsburgh Rock ‘N Roll Legends induction tonight at Jergel’s in Marshall was born 250 miles away in Dayton, Ohio, and launched his career in Niles, Mich.
By now you might know the story of Tommy James, the inductee in the Modern Era Legend category for solo performers or bands with 20-plus years in the business.
He formed his first band in Michigan, and it was there in 1964 that he recorded “Hanky Panky,” originally a B-side written by Jeff Barry and Elle Greenwich for their group The Raindrops.
“I had heard another group play it live at a dance,” he says, “and I saw what it did to the audience. I said, ‘ We gotta do that record.’ I couldn’t remember the words, so I just made up the words. All I could remember was, ‘My baby does the hanky panky.’”
His single did not hit and the band broke up, but in late 1965, Pittsburgh DJ Bob Mack started playing it at his dances and on the radio and shot it to No. 1 in Pittsburgh, which is the kind of thing that could happen in those days. The local Fenway label pressed 80,000 copies of it and sold them in 10 days, he says.
In the spring of ’66, James was on the road with another band, playing a twoweek stand in Janesville, Wis.
“And right in the middle of my two weeks, the guy went belly up because the IRS shut him down for not paying his taxes,” he says. “And we went home feeling like real losers, and that’s how the good lord works, because as soon as I got home, I got the call from Pittsburgh that changed my life. If I hadn’t been home, I might not have gotten that call, and we might not be talking today.”
Mack wanted him to come to Pittsburgh and do some shows and TV, but there was one catch.
“I got there and I had no band,” he says. “The band I originally made the record with, a couple of them were drafted and they were all over the place, so I had to put a band together. I happened to see a group playing in Greensburg called the Raconteurs and thought they were really great and they agreed to come with me and be the new Shondells. A week later, I was in New York selling the record to a major label.”
Of course, that label was Roulette Records, run by the notorious mob-related Mo Levy, who scared off all the other labels so he could have James and the Shondells. They went on to record a total of 23 gold singles, including “I Think We’re Alone Now,” “Crimson and Clover” and “Mony, Mony” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” cowritten with Shondells members Eddie Gray and Mike Vale.
The long, twisted tale would become the subject of his 2010 autobiography, “Me, The Mob, and The Music,” which will go to the big screen with a screenplay written by Matthew Stone and producer Barbara De Fina, who produced Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas,” “Casino” and “The Color of Money.”
“She’s choosing the director as we speak,” he says.
He’s also working on his first studio album in 10 years. James regrets that he will be on tour in California on the night of the induction ceremony, but the Shondells will stand in for him.
“I’m very honored to be chosen,” he says. “Pittsburgh is where it all started for me. My wife came from Pittsburgh, my career came from Pittsburgh, so I owe Pittsburgh a great deal.”
Rapping with The Jaggerz
This is only the fourth year of Pittsburgh Rock ‘N Roll Legends, but Donnie Iris is already going in for a second time.
The legend from Beaver Falls was inducted in 2015 as a solo artist for giving us hits like “Ah! Leah!” and “Love Is Like a Rock.” Now, he enters as a founder of The Jaggerz, best known for shooting to No. 2 on the charts in 1970 with “The Rapper.”
The Jaggerz began, more or less, in 1964 after he graduated from Slippery Rock University and wrapped things up with this college band, Donnie and the Donnells. He formed the blue-eyed soul band with Benny Faiella of Gary and the Jewel Tones, joined a year later by Jimmie Ross and Jim Pugliano from the Bell Boys, and Billy Maybray.
“We were fortunate to have three lead singers in the group,” Mr. Ross says.
The band name came from those “Western Pennsylvania jagger bushes, those burrs that stick to your jeans,” Iris told the PG in 2015. “And it kind of fit in
with the whole Rolling Stones/Mick Jagger thing, too. It was originally spelled with an S and we changed it to a Z, for some reason, I don’t know why.”
Turned out, there was already a band called The Jaggers that they saw advertised in a magazine. The Jaggerz were signed to Gamble Records and recorded 1969’s “Introducing the Jaggerz” in Philadelphia with Philly Sound pioneers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, who went on to massive success with the O’Jays and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
“When we did ‘Gotta Find My Way Back Home,’” Mr. Ross recalls, “Huff sat down at the piano in the studio and instead of having music there, he put a Billboard magazine up there, and he would play along when his part came in and then turn the page and read some more while the song kept going on. They had their own style.”
After the moderate success of the debut album, Iris turned down an offer to join the Shondells, and Ross was approached by Lou Christie’s collaborator Twyla Herbert to go solo. They decided to stick around and what followed was a switch to Kama Sutra for 1970’s “We Went to Different Schools Together,” which included the funk-rock single “The Rapper.”
“That was just from playing clubs,” Iris said of the song. “I noticed a lot of guys at the bar would go up to chicks and started rapping to them. Another way of saying hitting on a girl. Not what rap means nowadays. We were basically an R&B band at the time, and I thought I’d give it a shot at pop music.”
The hit put The Jaggerz on “American Bandstand” and other shows, and they did some touring outside of Pittsburgh. It turned out to be a one-hit wonder.
“One of those things, something just clicks,” Iris said. “We tried a few tunes after that and they were pretty decent, but they didn’t have whatever ‘The Rapper’ had.”
Mr. Ross notes that after “The Rapper,” he bought a race car and spent about a year drag racing in Indianapolis. When the long-awaited follow-up album, 1975’s “Come Again,” went flat, Iris left to go solo and Mr. Ross went on to join the Skyliners.
The Jaggerz reunited without Iris in 1989 and released “And the Band Played On” in 1998 and “Re-Rapped” in 2001. After two of the early Jaggerz members died — singer and bassist Maybray in 2004 and Pugliano in 2010 — Mr. Ross and Mr. Faiello formed a new incarnation of the band to release “The Walk” in 2014.
Thanks to Joe Rock, who managed them as well as The Skyliners, The Jaggerz were able to reap the rewards from “The Rapper.”
“A lot of guys got cheated out of money from their record companies,” Mr. Ross says. “We were fortunate to be with Joe and he made sure we got what we were due. And ‘The Rapper’ is still selling and still being played across the country, and there’s still money coming in from somewhere. We were real lucky.”
More legends
The Music Broadcaster Legend honoree is Chuck Brinkman, the Dormont native and Kiski Prep School grad who was a popular DJ on KQV from 1960 to 1972 (doubling as music director for part of that time) and introduced the Beatles at the Civic Arena in 1964.
He went on to become DJ/music director for WTAE-AM and WFFM/WMYG, and he left Pittsburgh for a job in Dallas in 1988, eventually becoming part owner of an oldies station in Greenville, Texas, where he still lives. He is recovering from heart surgery. Honored for Music Industry Professional Legend (producer, promoter, manager, etc., with 20-plus years in the business) will be Jerry Reed, the late founder and owner of the Beaver studio Jeree Recording, where The Jaggerz, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers, the Iron City Houserockers, The Silencers, B.E. Taylor and Billy Price all made popular records.
“When we walked in the door at Jeree, it always felt like we were stepping from New Brighton to Muscle Shoals, Ala.,” says singer Billy Price. “The atmosphere that Jerry and Don Garvin set up over there was so comfortable and welcoming that it made the long drive from Pittsburgh along 65 worth suffering.”
In addition to those inductees, Alan Leeds (manager), Eric Leeds (saxophonist) and Matt Blistan (trumpeter) will be recognized for their work with Prince, and there will be an all-star jam session.
Inductees were selected through weighted ballots cast by more than 1,400 registered voters from the general public and the Pittsburgh Rock ‘N Roll Legends Awards Academy of Voters, comprised of more than 200 local music industry professionals.