Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Last Summer my band played at the Cleveland Rib Burnoff where we saw Tommy James & The Shondells, who played after we did (Spyo Gyra played before us). Talk about a flashback!

I love the lead break in Hanky Panky, was a different band though, whoever played that lead had that style down to a T, they weren't bubblegum either.

That'd be Tommy James and the Shondells (on "Hanky Panky," unless you count the Sonics' version). A contender for a bubblegum title, methinks.


Bubblegum rock = good

Wait, someone said that already (about Tommy James). Oops!

I played "Yummy Yummy Yummy" in a band once, we played it like the Who would have. I'd do it again.

Kenny, I meant it was a different Tommy James band that played Hanky Panky than the later one that had all the hits. On his website he explains that he had recorded the song a few years before it hit with another totally different band. I liked his first band better.

Bob, it was a different band but he didn't re-record the song. His original high school Shondells recorded Hanky Panky in Michigan and later broke up. When it (the same recording) broke out in Pittsburgh a couple of years later, he came to Pittsburgh and recruited a local band to be the new Shondells.

It was written by Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich (a Brill Building songwriting team - they wrote quite a few major hits). The original was done by the Raindrops, which was Jeff and Ellie's own group. It's quite different than the Tommy James version, maybe that's the one you mean.

http://www.spectropop.com/hjeffandellie.html

Dave, I reread my response and I wasn't very clear, I know it was the same recording that was the hit, I just meant that the band that recorded Hanky Panky was a different band than the one he had later on after that song hit.