Biography

Tommy James was born on April 29, 1947 in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Frequency (2000), Zodiac (2007) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). He has been married to Carol Ross since April 5, 2025.

Tommy James & The Shondells' first hit song, "Hanky Panky", was recorded for Snap Records, a small Michigan label, in 1964, but nothing came of it and the group broke up. Two years later, a DJ in Pittsburgh mistakenly played the record on the air instead of the one he meant to play, and he was soon inundated by calls from listeners wanting to know who did the song. It quickly shot to #1 in the Pittsburgh area and then took off in the rest of the Northeast. James, not being able to find any of the members of the original Shondells who had recorded the song, hurriedly put together a new group. The "Hanky Panky" masters were bought by Roulette Records of New York, which distributed it nationwide and signed James & The Shondells to a contract.

Musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and author.

James came up with the title for one of his biggest hits while in a hotel room in New York City. Trying to come up with the title for a song, he glanced out the window and saw four huge red letters on the top of the headquarters building of the Mutual of New York Insurance Co.--"MONY". He was struck by the name--a familiar one to New Yorkers, but James wasn't from New York and had never heard of it--and used the acronym as the title for what eventually became one of his biggest hits: "Mony Mony".

James and his band, Tommy James & The Shondells, were asked to appear at the legendary Woodstock concert in 1968. All he was told, however, was that he had been offered a chance to play in a concert "at a pig farm in upstate New York". He turned it down, and later said that it was probably the biggest mistake he ever made.

He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Performing Arts.