It’s been two and a half years since Tommy James and his group have had a number one. “Crimson and Clover” was their second number one and, unfortunately, their last. But they have been busy. After the success of “Hanky Panky” back in 1966, they continued to record and put songs on the charts. They had two Top 10 songs in that time, “I Think We’re Alone Now” (#4) and “Mony Mony” (#3.) I think “Mony Mony” should have gone all the way to the top, and it’s too bad it didn’t. I used to DJ dances at my son’s high school back in the Eighties and “Mony Mony” was always a hit when I played it.

“Crimson and Clover” was a totally different song than their earlier work. It was the epitome of the psychedelic Sixties. The song was written by Tommy and his drummer, Peter Lucia and the intent of it was to move the Shondells in a new direction. It certainly succeeded in that. Tommy James said that he started with just the two words, crimson and clover, which were his favorite color and his favorite flower. Nothing else. But, he knew he could make a song out of it. And he did.

Peter Lucia tells a different story. According to him, he and his friends were watching a football game at their local high school between Morristown, New Jersey (home team whose colors were crimson) and Hopatcong, New Jersey whose team color was green (or clover) That’s when he got the idea for the title of the song. I like Lucia’s story because I lived in Hopatcong for two years in the early Seventies.

“Crimson and Clover” was recorded in late 1968, taking about five hours. It was one of the first songs to be recorded on 16-track tape. Tommy played most of the instruments on the song with only Mike Vale on bass and Lucia on drums. The rest of the Shondells sat this one out. When you listen to the song, you can hear what is called a tremolo effect with the guitar. It produces a warbling effect. It sounded so good with the guitar that they decided to use it for the vocals near the end of the song. To achieve this, they plugged the vocal microphone into the guitar amplifier and fed the sound through the circuitry that created the tremolo effect. That is what you hear as Tommy sings “Crimson and Clover” over and over near the end of the song.

Tommy James never had another number one,but he continued to hit the charts through the rest of the year, 1969. In 1970, Tommy James collapsed on stage and had to be hospitalized for several weeks. At this point, he was ready to quit performing altogether, so he broke away from the Shondells and went solo, having a number four hit in 1971 called “Draggin’ the Line.”

Other people have recorded “Crimson and Clover,” most notably Joan Jett who hit number seven with the song in 1982. Prince also recorded the song, but did not chart in the Top 40.

“Crimson and Clover” debuted in the Hot 100 in Billboard magazine on December 14, 1968. It took a month and a half to get to number one which it achieved on February 1, 1969. It stayed at number one for three weeks. One reason it got the boost to number one was that the group appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in late January and that gave it the momentum to go all the way. If you’re wondering what happened in January 1969, Marvin Gaye and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” held the number one spot for the entire month.