A Life of Music with Tommy James

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

iHeartPodcasts

Tv & Film, Music, Music Interviews, Arts, Performing Arts, Film Interviews

4.4 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tommy James started making music when he was 4 years old and he hasn’t stopped. Tommy is a musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and the frontman of rock band Tommy James and the Shondells. Known for timeless classics such as “Crimson and Clover”, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”, “Hanky Panky”, “Sweet Cherry Line”, and “Draggin’ the Line” Tommy James has amassed 23 Gold singles, 9 Platinum albums, and over 100 million records sold worldwide. He was honored with a BMI Five Million-Air Award for over 21 million radio plays and his music has appeared in over 200 TV shows and films, and in countless commercials. To date, over 300 musicians have recorded covers of James' music, including: Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Prince, R.E.M., Kelly Clarkson, Bruce Springsteen, and even The Boston Pops.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed Human.
0:05.9	This is Alec Baldwin,
0:07.7	and you're listening to Here's the Thing from IHeart Radio.
0:15.8	That is, of course, Mone-Money, the 1968 single,
0:23.1	by my guest today Tommy James and his band The Chondelles.
0:36.4	Known for timeless classics, like Crimson and Clover, Hanky-Panky, and Crystal Blue Persuasion, Tommy James has amassed 23 gold singles, nine platinum albums, and over 100 million records sold worldwide.
0:52.5	His music has also appeared in over 200 TV shows and films,
0:56.9	as well as countless commercials. Legendary musicians, such as Billy Idol, Joan Jet,
1:03.1	and Prince, have recorded famous covers of his music. Having started out during a more
1:09.6	primitive time for music and technology, I was curious
1:13.7	about the changes Tommy James has seen in both the way we consume music and record it.
1:20.6	Well, first of all, I'm so fortunate and blessed to be able to see the music business in a historical perspective because I lived there's so much of it.
1:32.8	I mean, we would have killed for the technology we have today.
1:36.4	It's quite remarkable.
1:38.0	Of course, when I started out, there were essentially three television networks.
1:42.3	There were a handful of 50,000-watt AM stations across the country.
1:48.2	But you could cover the whole country, and everybody was listening to the same records,
1:52.3	which was incredible.
1:55.1	So everything was so different.
1:57.0	My first record, for example, Hanky-Panky, was recorded in a radio studio in my hometown of
2:03.7	Niles, Michigan on a monot tape recorder. You know, what you saw was what you got. So what I'm saying
	...

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