A Conversation with Tommy Roe – HuffPost 4.6.12

Mike Ragogna: Hey, Tommy, what the story behind your song “It’s For You And Me” from your new album, tentatively titled Devil’s Soul Pile?

Tommy Roe: I’ll tell you the story… I wrote this song for my wife. We’ve been married 30 years, and, of course, after you’ve been married 30 years, you have these spats along the way. So we had this little spat, and I bought flowers, and I took her to dinner, and I did all the things that you’re supposed to do, but it didn’t really seem to help. So I thought the only thing left is to write her a song. So I wrote this song for her, and, of course, we are now on a beautiful relationship again, and this song worked miracles.

MR: Nice, it just takes a song, gotta remember that.

TR: Yeah, it just takes a song. So that’s one of the advantages of being a songwriter, but it’s interesting what I’m doing with this particular song. Yesterday, I did a session over the internet, in Nashville — musicians were in Nashville while I’m in Los Angeles. I actually produced a session, with a producer back there, and it’s an incredible way to record. We used Skype, talking to one another in the studio, and I could actually hear the musicians playing and change things around, telling them to try this or that. So I did a completely new track on this song. That’s actually the demo, which you played, and I love it, but the track is even better because we have a four-piece band in there, and it’s incredible.

MR: What’s nice about playing demos sometimes is that you get the essence of the song.

TR: I agree completely. In fact, there is a funny story about “Sweet Pea.” It was actually a demo. I kept “Sweet Pea” as a demo to submit to Burt Berns in New York for some of his artists, so I did that, sent it to him. I was in the Army at the time, and I was just trying to write songs for other people. Burt Berns produced The McCoys, and I sent this song for them. I never heard a word from him, so I told my producer, “I like this song, I think we should record it and make a good record out of it.” He said, “You know what, I love the demo, let’s put the demo out.” The demo was the hit, so you just never know.

MR: And you had hits with “Sheila,” “Dizzy,” and songs like “Everybody.”

TR: “Everybody” is one of my favorites to do in our show, especially.

MR: Let’s talk about that for a second. You’re constantly playing, aren’t you?

TR: Well, I just started back last year. I backed off in 2005 — call it retirement of whatever you want. Well, an entertainer “retired” is kind of joke.

MR: Yeah, Cher is on her, what, 12th farewell tour?

TR: (laughs) Yeah, that’s right. I like to joke that since I was 14 years old, I wrote my first hit “Sheila,” and I’ve been retired ever since, so it’s kind of a joke. Anyway, my good friend Rick Levy — I know you know Rick — he lives down in Florida. He was my bandleader for many years, and he said, “You know, I keep getting these calls, people wanting to book you and I don’t know what to tell them.” I said, “Tell them I’m retired.” But he kept bugging me, calling every so often saying, “I just got this call from Canada, someone wants to book you up there, so why don’t you try.” He finally talked me into it and last year, we did three dates in Canada, and I had a blast, I really enjoyed it. So, now we have nine dates booked already this year, and we’ll do it. I don’t want to go out barnstorming like in the old days, but if I can pick up a few days here and there, a few choice dates, and I’m having a lot of fun with it, I guess, “Why not,” you know?

MR: And of course, you’re playing songs from Devil Soul Pile, including the song.

TR: Yes, “Devil Soul Pile” is another one of my songs that I’ve just written, it’s a new song. It’s a departure from my expected style and I got the idea for this song through living in Los Angeles. You hear a lot about street crime and a lot of violence with the gangs and everything, and every day on the news, I hear this and think, “You know, I’m going to write a song about this.” This song is really about dysfunctional families and the effect is has on the communities and the cities around the country, and the hope is, of course, having faith. Whether it’s in religion, God, or whatever it is, you must have faith in something, yourself even. It all stems from the family environment, so the family has to really support the children that it brings in the world with that faith, that conviction that there is something bigger than they are and there’s something to work for. That’s kind of what the song is, although it’s a fast tempo, a rock ‘n’ roll song.

MR: On Devil’s Soul Pile, you include new songs like “LA I Belong To You.” What’s that song’s story?

TR: Well, I moved away from LA at one time, and I thought I didn’t want to live in LA anymore — you know, the smog, the traffic, and all the negatives that we have out here. I stayed away for about three years, and decided that I’d come back, so it’s a song about missing my adopted home of Los Angeles.

MR: And you re-recorded your song “Kick Me Charlie.”

TR: That was a song that was on the Sweet Pea album in 1966. I get a lot of requests to do that in my show for strange reasons. It’s very interesting how the fans have been around for so long, they really know the body of my work and I get requests to do really obscure songs, b-sides, and songs that sometimes were never even released, but the fans seem to know about them. I got so many requests to do “Kick Me Charlie” that I thought I would just re-record it, and that will be on the new CD.

MR: About the album, Larry Klein, your executive producer who works for Dick Clark Productions, says, “Get ready to party. Tommy Roe sounds better than ever!”
TR: Well, he’s an old friend. Of course, I worked with Dick for many years…Where the Action Is. I came up to California to do that show, and just ended up staying here, made it my home. But, of course, I did American Bandstand in Philadelphia before I moved to Los Angeles, so Dick has been very inspirational for a lot of the artists, and he certainly helped my career along the way.

MR: What first got you into music?

TR: Well, that started very early. My dad played guitar and my mom played the piano in the church. I used to sing in the choir in church when I was a kid. I started at 10, 11 years old. I wrote these poems… I would write very immature poems. My dad taught me three chords on the guitar when I was about 14 years old, and I had this poem that I’d written about a girl I was going to school with. Her name was Frieda, so I wrote this poem, “Sweet Little Frieda / you know if you see her / blue eyes and a ponytail. / Never knew a girl like little Frieda / man this little girl is fine.” So when my dad taught me the three chords, I thought if I could put some music to my poem, maybe I could become a songwriter. That’s how it all started for me. I took that poem, put three chords to it, and it turned out to be “Sheila.” After I wrote this song as “Frieda,” I did sing it as “Frieda.” I had an opportunity to audition for a record producer, he liked the song, but he didn’t like the name “Frieda” for the title. He sent me home to work on it and I came up with “Sheila,” so that’s how it all started for me. A very simple, very innocent way, but one thing led to another.

MR: Looking back at that kid and looking at yourself now, what do you say is some of the biggest growth that happened to you, either as an artist or as a person?

TR: Well, I think I grew very fast once I got into show business. I had a scholarship out of high school to go to the Atlanta Art Institute. I was a pretty good artist — still dabble in it a little bit — but I never really pursued it after I got in the record business. But once “Sheila” became a hit, I had just turned 21 years old. I forgot about school and I really started pursuing this. It’s a funny story about this. I was working in General Electric when I got out of high school, and I had a job making $60 to $70 a week. Back in those days, that was normal for a young person, an average salary for that time. So, I was still working in General Electric after I recorded “Sheila” and I didn’t realize that it was a hit. It was getting played. It was played in Atlanta, where I was living, but I didn’t realize it was being played all over the country. I got a call at work one day from my producer, my music publisher in Atlanta, Bill Lowery. He told me he wanted me to come by the office after work, that he had a proposition for me. I went by the office, and he said, “You know, it looks like your song is going to be a big hit. It’s 30-something in Billboard with a bullet.” I said, “What’s that?” I didn’t even know what Billboard magazine was, or a bullet, or anything. He said, “It means that your song is climbing the charts. As long as it has a bullet, it’s climbing the charts. I think you should consider quitting your job at General Electric.” I thought, “No way I was going to quit my job at GE.” I was married, had a little child, and thought this was something I can hang on to. General Electric is a big company and I can have a pension and the whole thing. I was thinking that way as a young adult with a child. He laughed, and he said, “Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you an advance against your royalties. I’ll write you a check.” He wrote me a check for $10,000, and I didn’t make $10,000 in a year working. I was shocked and said, “My goodness, that’s incredible.” I went home, talked it over with my parents, and they said, “Go for it, kid!” So I took the check and as we like to say when there is nothing left to say, “The rest is history!” That was it.

MR: Nice story. What advice do you have for new artists?

TR: Oh boy. Just persistence. I think it’s much harder today. There are so many great musicians and entertainers, there is a lot of talent out there, and the competition is just incredible. But I think if you’re persistent and you work on your songwriting, I think songwriting is the key to anything in the music business. You have to create your music somehow, so if you depend on other people to get your music and songs, I don’t think it will happen for you. Concentrate on songwriting, and hang in there. Struggle with it, fight with it. It may take time… I think it takes more time today. I don’t think it’s as easy to get record deals. Record companies are very reluctant to sign artists today, the business is in a lot of trouble. The main thing I think you have to do is depend on your live performances, doing concerts, doing stage shows, and make it that way. You just have to hang in there and go for it.

MR: By the way, speaking of stage shows, you also do Q&As with your live shows, don’t you?

TR: I do, and it’s fabulous. After being in the business so long — this will be 51 years I’m going on in performing and traveling all the word — you have a base of fans that have grown up with you, and the ones that are still with us, they come to the shows. When I go into the audience and say, “OK guys, what’s on your mind,” some of the questions they ask me are just great. They take me back, like you just did with the “Sheila” thing. They ask me about certain songs, and it triggers memories about other instances in my life along the way, and it’s a lot of fun and the people love it. It’s very ad lib — we never know what’s going to happen. They can ask some really crazy questions sometimes, but it’s a lot of fun.

MR: Speaking of your live act, do you still play “Hooray For Hazel” and, one of my favorite titles for a song ever, “Jam Up and Jelly Tight?”

TR: Oh yeah, I do all the hits. I couldn’t leave the stage without doing “…Hazel.” People love “…Hazel,” “Jam Up…,” “Dizzy,” of course, “Sweet Pea.” Sometimes, I’ll do “It’s Now Winter’s Day,” which was not a big record, but I get a lot of requests for it in the cold parts of the country since it’s a Winter/Christmas song.

MR: And you have your trusty guitarist, your old pal, Rick Levy, who we talked about earlier, by your side.

TR: Oh yeah. Rick’s with me and he’s now sponsored by Epiphone, so he’s really excited about that. He’s playing Epiphone guitars on our tour and he’s really happy about it.

MR: Nice plug for Epiphone, young man.

TR: (laughs) Yeah, well Rick deserves it!

MR: Now, you’re going to be playing at the Riverside Casino in Iowa on April 7th and 8th, so we want to throw that out too.

TR: That’s right, and then we go to Seneca Casino in Buffalo, New York, Niagara Falls.

MR: Then you’re in Canada for a little bit, then you’re in Tennessee. You’re all over the place.

TR: I’m getting back on the road, it’s just fun. I even got a call from an old friend of mine. We were in the business together, he used to manage Dennis Yost and the Classics IV, and he lives in LaGrange, Georgia. He’s doing a fundraiser in LaGrange and asked me if we could come up after we do our show in at The Villages on the 19th and do a show with him up there, so I’m going to go up and visit my old friend. It’s a lot of fun.

MR: Well, I can’t let you get away without telling me about saying a little something about the Classics IV.

TR: You mean Dennis Yost and the Classics IV?

MR: Yep.

TR: Dennis was a terrific singer, he passed away a couple of years ago. He formed this group, and the amazing thing about it is, somebody registered the group’s name, and Dennis was never able to go out on the road as Dennis Yost and the Classics IV. He had to go out as Dennis Yost which really hurt the whole marketing of his performances, because the Classics IV was such an integral part of all those hits, you know, “Stormy” and “Traces” and a lot of big records. He had a hard time with that, and that passed into several groups and several artists in the years, which is very unfortunate. That’s another thing young entertainers should always remember, to always register your trademark or your name. If you’re a band, especially, just make sure that you control that name. It’ll be very important later on in your career.

MR: Wow. I’m asking this gently, and I want to be sensitive to the fact that this might still be a painful thing. Roy Orbison. Do you think of him now and then?

TR: Roy and I met in England… well, I met him before in Nashville, but we worked in England a lot. He was touring there while I was touring with The Beatles and all the British acts. We hung out together in England when we would travel to do our tours over there. He was just tremendous. I spoke of Paul, my old friend who lives in LaGrange. Well, Paul used to book me and Roy on dates down in Clearwater, Florida. Paul used to book the Clearwater auditorium there and we would go down and perform together on shows there. Great artist. We’re losing a lot of great artists, but they live on in their music, and boy, Roy had some beautiful and incredible records.

MR: I want to throw out there, your version of “Stagger Lee.”

TR: Well, thank you. Yeah, we do that in the show as well, that’s a big number.

MR: I want to tell everybody who’s listening here that you’re going to be in Dubuque, Iowa on August 31st, and then September 1st, you’re in Sloan.

TR: That’s correct. I’m being inducted into the Iowa Music Association Hall of Fame, which is a real honor for me. My old friend Kevin lives in the area and he wanted to invite me to come back and be a part of that show and that induction, so I’m looking forward to that.

MR: Tommy Roe, really great talking with you, and when you’re in Iowa — you’re going to be here a couple of times — let’s do this again really soon. You’re one of us now.

TR: Well, I appreciate it Mike. Thanks for your interest and thanks for having me on this show.

MR: Absolutely, all the best.

TR: Thanks, bud.

Transcribed by Narayana Windenberger