Red’s Book Review: Me, the Mob, and the Music by Tommy James (with Martin Fitzpatrick)

This was a quick 220-page read, written pretty much chronologically starting with Tommy’s musical roots at about 10-years of age while living in Monroe, Wis. The allure for me, as I’ve written before, is that Tommy James and the Shondells were probably my first favorite band. Starting as early as pre-school, I’d put his greatest hits album on our Fischer Price turntable and listen to it while playing pretty much every day.

Considering that early interest, I have to admit to knowing little or nothing about Tommy James or any of the Shondells before reading this book, other than some vague memories of seeing him be one of the pitch men on one of those late-night Time Life album infomercials several years back during my journalism/drinking days.

This is an interesting look at the 60s music scene through the eyes of a guy that I guess probably fits on the second-tier of stars from that era. It’s hard for me to judge that because I do have such fond nostalgia for his music, and I sensed he might be overstating the success of his songs some in the book. He’s not on the level of the Beatles, Stones, or Beach Boys. He’s below that, but I am not sure where he fits in the lexicon of popular music. Maybe Snake could assess that better.

Because Tommy was instrumental in almost all parts of his career, you get a good peek into the business aspects of the music industry during that era, and also the technical aspects of making a record. Looming over the story is Roulette Record’s kingpin Morris Levy, who ran the label like a crime family because, well, it was a crime family. It’s an interesting relationship between Tommy and Morris. It’s almost father-son like in many aspects, just that the father is skimming money from the son to the tune of about $40 million over a five-year period and the father has a history of having people killed. Just an FYI, Morris and other members of his “family” became the inspiration for key characters in the Sopranos.

If you dig that musical era, I’d recommend this one. It’s filled with interesting behind-the-scenes stories, and it has a very easy-to-read style.