Sunday, March 10, 2024

Tommy James And The Shondells - Crimson And Clover

Sunday Classics: I recently was going through my unsorted 45 boxes (as some of us record hoarders do) and I cam across the reissue of this 45. I had read somewhere where the reissue used the LP cut and not the 45 cut. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that was the case. This inspried me into having a periodic upload of a classic song that I may have normally avoided. 

The story of this song is classic. If you have not read about the WLS release I would encourage you. Brief synopsis is that Tommy took the song to WLS in Chicago and played it as a world premier. WLS recorded and started playing it as they received requests. Roulette ended up pressing up 800 of these for WLS to give out as a promotion. The song was a rough mix and more was to be done but they apparently never was able to complete it. Could you imagine what the song would have ended up sounding like? I have many copies of this from a variety of countries and was fortunate to locate a WLS copy years ago. I sure wish Roulette would have continued putting out picture sleeves for TJ 45's...shame they only put out 4...this one would have been cool

















 



2 comments:

porcupine said...

This record is a cornerstone; my older sister had it and we kids loved it. Was just listening to the CD yesterday and had forgotten Rhino "corrected" the pitch problem at around 2:00, it's where they spliced in the FM elements (wah wah guitar etc) and the tape speeds didn't match.

I have never seen that gold label "WLS copy" you posted. I and perhaps many other TJ fans don't even know it exits. Any back story on that?

Poppacool said...

Thanks for the follow. I added a clipping I found from Billboard Magazine.