Tommy James has a soft spot for Waukegan.
Consider that the cover of his 2019 album, “Alive,” is of a photo taken inside the Genesee Theatre, where he performed in 2018 and will again on Dec. 4.
Additionally, he and his first band played at Club Adrian in Waukegan long before he had formed Tommy James and the Shondells.
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He returned to the site recently to find it “now just a slab of cement,” he said. “But I had such memories of that place. My road group traveled all around the Midwest.”
Today, Tommy James and the Shondells has sold more than 100 million records, and produced 23 gold singles and nine platinum albums. James also hosts a Sunday night radio show on Sirius XM’s 60s on 6 channel.
He’s just released a new album, “Rock Party,” which was put together about 20 years ago for a Canadian label. When the license ran out, he released it in the United States.
“It’s a collection of our rock songs — some of them live, some of them in the studio. It’s never appeared on an album format before,” James said. “We thought it would be a great time to do it just before Christmas.
“It’s up tempo. It’s positive. I think we can all use a shot of positive right now.”
James, who has performed at Genesee several times over the years said when he looks at the concert crowd, he sees “three generations of people. They are ready to rock.”
The group didn’t perform during much of the pandemic, but recently they’ve done six shows. “They’ve all been packed and the people have been really wild,” James said. “Rock ‘n’ roll is more than just a style — it’s almost a way of thinking.”
Life hasn’t always been a rock party for James. In fact, he and his band found themselves signed up with a record label that was a front for an Italian crime family. “It was a very scary and tumultuous relationship,” said James, who wrote “Me, the Mob, and the Music,” published by Simon Schuster in 2010.
The book is being turned into a movie by the same name, James said, and will show among other scenes, how “Hanky Panky” came to be a hit.
He had recorded it in high school. “It didn’t go anywhere, but then in the spring of 1966, it came to life. It took us all off guard,” he said.
A disc jockey in Pittsburgh found a copy of “Hanky Panky” in an old record bin and got it played on a radio station.
“The switchboards lit up. It was the right song at the right moment,” James recalled. “It was the kind of record called party rock that would put people on the dance floor.”
He pitched the song to big record labels, who were eager to sign him on, he said. But one by one they dropped out and the only one left was Roulette Records. James learned that the record company strong-armed the others to get rights to the song.
“We began to learn who these people were,” James said. “Roulette was partnered up with the mob. We’d meet somebody and a week later, we’d see him being taken away by the cops,” he said. Roulette also kept all his record royalties to themselves, he added.
James also struggled with alcoholism and drugs, rehabbing at the Betty Ford Center. He said has “the Lord and his fans” to thank for helping him survive and succeed for more than five decades in the music business.
In a way, he also had Roulette to thank.
“Truth be told, at Roulette, I had opportunities I wouldn’t have had anywhere else,” James said. “They left me alone and allowed me to learn every aspect of the music business — production, writing, designing album covers, marketing. If we had gone with one of the big corporate labels, we would have been probably a one-hit wonder.”
Instead, they produced songs like “Crimson and Clover,” with reverb vocals, often referred to as psychedelic rock, and “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” one of his favorites.
He remembers how that No. 1 hit came to be. “We were playing a college in Atlanta. After the show, this dorky kid comes up to me with a poem and he said, ‘Tommy would you read this?’ It was called “Crystal Persuasion.” I thought that’s an interesting word combination. When we got back to the hotel room, we started fooling around with it. It was about the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
“We like the way it came together. It had a light airy feeling. But when we went into the studio with it, it was the hardest record I think I ever produced, “James recalled. “We had totally overproduced it. It just wasn’t crystal blue when we were done. We started un-producing, and pulling things out, so that nothing was left at the beginning except a bongo and a flamenco guitar.”
Though he’s performed these songs countless times, he said “It always feels like the first time if the audience is with you. It’s really about that magic between the performer and the audience.”
Tommy James and the Shondells with special guests the Box Tops
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 4
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Where: Genesee Theatre, 203 N. Genesee St., Waukegan
Tickets: $42.50-$89.50
Information: 847-782-2366; geneseetheatre.com
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.