Jersey Boys Blog

By Pamela Singer, Jersey Boys Blog Special Correspondent

It always begins and ends with Jersey, friends. Okay, so this writer, a born and bred Jersey girl, may be biased, but everyone knows rock legends and New Jersey go together as naturally as, well, peanut butter and jelly, or cookies and milk. We’ve got Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi and, of course, Frankie Valli. Jersey Boys are, you know, ubiquitous. And for every star like Valli who for some inexplicable reason moves out of state, another rock legend seems more than ready to move in. There’s a revolving door on this place. I recently got a chance to talk with two of the most accomplished arrivals, the great Tommy James and Gene Cornish, co-founder of the immortal Rascals. They may be immigrants, originally from Ohio and Canada respectively, but they are proud to be Jersey Boys now. What better place could there be to keep their mojo working well into the 21st Century?

Before we get to the conversations with James and Cornish, I need to give a shout-out to the man who helped make the interviews possible: radio personality Teddy Smith, who is doing as much as just about anyone in the NY/NJ area to honor and preserve the legacy of rock and roll. His weekly Friday night show on WPAT, the Teddy Smith with Bob O’Brien All Access Show, is largely a 2-hour tribute to musical icons and deejays. Along with producer Jim Petrecca (a Jersey boy himself) Smith has hosted talent as diverse as Gary Puckett, BJ Thomas, and in his last NY interview, Davy Jones. Renowned deejays Cousin Brucie, Joey Reynolds, and Dan Ingram have all been guests.

Smith has been doing the show for 10 years, yet manages to keep its format and content fresh. An affable man with a deeply resonant voice, Smith recently gave me a tour of the WPAT studio in downtown NYC (the station originated in NJ, of course!), and offered insight into how the show, and its music, have survived. “We’ve always tried to be spontaneous and fun on the show, and really adhere to an unrestricted format. In a sense, we’ve recreated those glory days of radio, when deejays were major personalities, and radio stations were the primary vehicle for getting music out to the public. We actually play vinyl records on the show, which is almost unheard of in this day and age! I really feel that we’re helping keep rock and roll alive.”

Two of Smith’s recent guests, James and Cornish, would certainly agree. These men represent the best rock music has to offer, artists who have stayed true to themselves through an ever-changing musical and cultural milieu, and still remain vital and relevant today. It was my pleasure to sit in during their radio interviews, and speak with each of them afterwards.

Tommy James

This rock legend extraordinaire is more than welcome in Jersey. He’s a musician, singer, producer, and now the author of the fascinating memoir “Me, The Mob, and The Music.” Who among us has not had a “Tommy James and the Shondells moment,” a memory of where we were when we first heard one of their hits, “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” “Mony Mony,” and “I Think We’re Alone Now,” to name a few. And, yes, they’ve been covered repeatedly by numerous artists as diverse as Prince, REM, and Tiffany. As I write this, “Sweet Cherry Wine” is playing on the radio. Is that a sign or what?! Tommy is a warm, engaging, articulate man. After 40-plus years in the music business, and selling more than 100 million records, he remains refreshingly down to earth and impressively humble. I’ve interviewed Tommy three times now, and still find him to be extremely candid and insightful.

PS: Great to see you again, Tommy.

TJ: Thanks, Pam. You too.

PS: First of all, congratulations on the continued success with “Me, The Mob, and The Music.”

TJ: Thanks. We’re on our seventh printing already, and thrilled that people continue to respond so positively to this story.

PS: It’s a great story! I’m sure you have a whole new fan base too. How are the plans going for the movie and Broadway versions of the book?

TJ: They’re going great. We’ve got a terrific producer, Barbara De Fina, on board for the movie. She’s produced many of Martin Scorsese’s films, so we know we’re in good hands. The original Shondells and I are back in the studio working on the score, including a fantastic, new version of “I Think We’re Alone Now” for the last scene of the movie. We’re also producing eight new songs for the Broadway show.

PS: Terrific. Let’s switch gears for a minute. You’ve been in the music business a long time. Can you talk a little about the relevance of rock and roll today, and how it’s changed over time?

TJ: Sure. Rock and roll has been through a real revolutionary process. When I first started out, AM radio was king. Stations like WABC in New York and KRLA in Los Angeles dominated, and had around 30 million listeners at any given time. That’s a lot of listening power and clout for the deejays and whatever music they played. In turn, that dictated how the public went out and bought records. Radio was the machine that made rock and roll go, and it permeated everything. We ate, breathed, and slept rock and roll. And by “we,” I mean society, not the Shondells, although we did too! (laughs).

PS: How has that changed today?

TJ: What’s changed is that the target audience got older, and radio became less relevant. FM radio took over from AM with more stations. Then the Internet came along and completely changed the dynamics of the music business. No one goes out and buys a record anymore. Why would they when that same music is available 24/7 at home? Social media and technology now dictate how new music is heard and popularized. With high definition TV and other gadgets, cable channels and websites have become more important. There’s no more ladder of upward mobility for artists anymore. It’s like a wild West music show out there, every man or woman for themselves. It’s much harder for rock bands starting out today than it was when we started out.

PS: What advice would you give to someone today?

TJ: My best advice would be to team up with a good music publishing company. The idea is to get the music in front of people in a way that keeps it relevant and accessible.

PS: Great advice, Tommy. Finally, what can you tell us about the Jersey connection?!

TJ: I’ve lived there for some time, and love it. New Jersey has great energy, and it just makes sense all around. There’s nowhere else that I feel more like myself than in New Jersey.

PS: Spoken like a true Jersey Boy! Thanks, Tommy.

Gene Cornish

So if a group technically gets together just across the Hudson River but has its first professional gig in New Jersey, can we then claim it as our own? Well, why not? And that means we can claim Gene Cornish, a founding member of the Rascals. Easily one of the most artistically important bands of the 1960’s, the Rascals (originally the Young Rascals) were known as a blue-eyed soul group that seamlessly integrated jazz into their pop-soul sound. Ironically, Gene was the only original member with blue eyes! Between 1966 and 1969, they had 13 singles that reached Billboard’s Top 40, including “Good Lovin’,” “How Can I Be Sure,” and “A Beautiful Morning.” In 1997, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Talking with Gene about his background and thoughts on rock and roll was a thrill. Singing the chorus of “Good Lovin’ ” with him and others in the WPAT studio was priceless.

Gene is a charming, amiable man with a devilish gleam in his eye. Still every inch the ultimate Rocker Dude, he remains unjaded, down to earth, and playful.

PS: Gene, how did a nice Canadian boy like you end up in a NY/NJ band?

GC: Good question, Pam. I was born in Canada, but moved with my mother to Rochester, New York, at an early age. Guitar and harmonica were my passions, and I started playing in local clubs and bars when I was a teenager. This was the early 1960’s, a great time to be starting out in the music business, especially on the East Coast. The New York music scene was just taking off. In 1964, I joined Joey Dee and the Starliters (“Peppermint Twist”) and met Eddie Brigati and Felix Cavaliere, who were also in that group. We had all fronted our own bands, and were looking to start something new. We all liked each other and admired the others’ talent, and thought it would be a good blend. (Jersey Boys fans know what a positive portent that is!). Later that year we met up with Dino Danelli and formed the Young Rascals. Eddie and Dino were Jersey boys, and in fact, our first gig was in Lodi, NJ, at a place called The Choo Choo Club. The great Sid Bernstein discovered us soon after at the Barge in Westhampton, Long Island, and became our manager.

PS: And what a legend Sid Bernstein is. Is it true that Sid had the Rascals name flashed on the jumbo screens at Shea Stadium during that seminal Beatles concert in 1965? (Bernstein introduced the Beatles to America).

GC: It is! Talk about a genius and a special man. Sid is really one of the pillars of the rock and roll community. He’s still with us, and God bless him.

PS: Very touching that you mentioned him in your Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech. Unlike a lot of bands in the 1960’s, the Rascals were very vocal about civil rights and equal opportunity, at a time when that wasn’t necessarily the political norm. “People Got To Be Free” really became an important anthem, not to mention commercial success (5 weeks at No.1; 9 weeks in the Top 10). Twenty years later, Dave Marsh included the song in his book, “The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles of All Time,” saying “Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be: Dated, but never out of date.”

GC: Very cool. Those were definitely heady times, no pun intended! Civil rights were really important to us. In fact, the band refused to play on any bill that wasn’t fully integrated, with at least one Afro-American act. We ended up cancelling a lot of gigs because that wasn’t the case. The Rascals really tried to make music that cut across racial and gender barriers, and encouraged freedom of speech for everyone.

PS: Great stuff, and a good segue to my next question. Any regrets about those times?

GC: None that I can mention here! (laughs) Musically speaking, the quality and longevity of the 1960’s can never be repeated. That music defined sections of our lives, and songs became seminal events themselves. Growing up, my musical heroes were Elvis Presley and Little Richard. We were part of a post-Beatles generation, or second generation of rock and roll. Then MTV came along and ruined it.

PS: How so?

GC: MTV and the like really shortened the life of an artist. They were like a continual kaleidoscopic dispose-all of music. It’s like that song “Video Killed The Radio Star”.

PS: I hear you. Let’s switch gears for a minute. Can you tell us what you’ve been up to lately?

GC: Sure. Listen, I survived colon cancer, so every day since then is a gift and a blessing. I’m in a band now called the Guitar Club for Men. Check us out on our Facebook page for updates and schedules. We just had our first gig this month. Stevie Van Zandt is our manager, so it’s been great. I love being out there again, just hoping to make people smile and feel like they’re the most important people in the world. Later this month, I’m being inducted into the Rochester Hall of Fame by my pal Felix Cavaliere. And I live in NJ now, so I guess that makes me a Jersey Boy!

PS: Definitely! Congratulations, Gene. It’s been great talking to you. I hope to see your Guitar Club For Men someday soon. Great name by the way!

GC: Thanks, Pam.