911 Tommy James and the Shondells “Hanky Panky” 1964, 1966

“In early 1966, a dejected Tommy James arrived home in Niles, Mich., from what appeared to be the last road gig with his then-group The Koachmen, just in time to answer a phone call that would change his life. Two years before, the group had recorded their first single, ‘Hanky Panky,’ which was recorded at a radio studio by a local DJ, Jack Douglas, and issued by a small local label. ‘The record just came and went.’ he says. ‘I graduated from high school in ‘65, and I took my band on the road. We played Rash Street in Chicago and up through the Midwest, and we came home very out of work and depressed.’ But then James received that telephone call. ‘Hanky Panky’ had sprouted new legs in Pittsburgh, thanks to numerous bootleg pressings from the original single. ‘They sold 80,000 pieces in 10 days, and it was the Number One record in Pittsburgh,’ he recalls. James had a hit on his hands. ‘If I had missed that call, there wouldn't have been a Tommy James’” (Matt Hurwitz, Mix, March 2008). 

Tommy James and the Shondells “Hanky Panky”