The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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TROY SHONDELL
“This Time”
Liberty 55353
(Chip Moman)
Liberty 55353
No. 6 October 23, 1961
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“I’m grateful for that one-hit,” said Troy Shondell, in an exclusive interview, “but it’s a shame that it had to
be ‘This Time,’ cause I’m a high energy guy that likes to rock and that song gave people-for all time–the
wrong impression about me.”
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Troy Shondell was born Gary Shelton, on May 14, 1944, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. For years, he worked hard,
learning how to play the guitar, organ, drums, sax, and trumpet. In 1957, he was discovered by a manager
to big band man Ted Weems. “Herb Gronower spotted me at this high school talent show,” said Troy. “The
girls reacted the way you’d want them to if you were looking for a deal. Anyway, he was impressed and
talked my parents into putting up the money to make a recording session in Chicago. Mercury Records put
out ‘My Hero,’ from the operetta “Chocolate Soldier,” but it got banned about everywhere cause of the
lyrics, ‘Come, come, I love you only.”‘
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Troy, under his God-given name, next recorded a wild Jerry Lee Lewis-like “Kissin’ at the Drive-in,” that
proved a major Midwestern hit. Despite the success, a change of producer brought an end to his stay with
the label. Troy left with Chuck Stevens to record with Alpine.
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“My dad died. He was a big band leader and the one who mainly encouraged me. After he passed away, I
thought it was all over. I went back to Fort Wayne to operate my parents’ instrument repair business. A
friend told me, ‘You’re too good. You ought to cut another record. I’ll put the money up if you’ll do it.’ I took
it around to every label in Chicago and was turned down by everyone. I told him, ‘I’m sorry I’ve wasted your
money.’ He said, ‘We’ll just start our own company.”‘
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The song was Chip Moman’s tear-jerking rockaballad, “This Time.” (Moman was later to write “Luckenbach,
Texas” and “Hey Won’t You Play Another Somebody’s Done Something Wrong Song.”) The company
became Gold Crest. And the name on the record became “Troy Shondell.” “I didn’t want to be associated
with all the tracks that Mercury still hadn’t released on me so I changed Shelton to Shondell, but there was
already a Chantells; and Troy Donahue was a popular actor. I figured I’d might as well go with the best.”
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When the disk was played on the radio, the local response was such that Liberty Records immediately
picked up Troy’s swamp-rock classic and released it nationally. Largely due to the support given the disk by
Jim Lounsbury on his “Record Hop,” “This Time” became a Midwestern monster and turntable perennial–
for some years to come.
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In the fall, Shondell entered the Valparaiso University as a music major. For years thereafter, he struggled
to keep a music career going. Both sides of his follow up, “Tears From an Angel” (#77, 1962) b/w “Island in
the Sky” (#92), charted; ironically, these tunes seem rather lame in comparison to some of his later, but less
successful 45s. Phil Spector produced “Na-Ne-No,” a dynamite disk that featured a wall of echoey voices
and the squeak of a doggy toy, but record-buyers passed on it. “That was cut back in the days when if
something went wrong you had to do the whole thing over; and Phil used like take number 52,” said Troy.
“It took from 12-noon to 12-midnight to please him. Phil’s kind of a strange guy. I’d never met him but a few
hours before the session. And he said, ‘Now take these songs and see what you think.’ When he was ready,
he’d never say what he didn’t like just, ‘Let’s do this again.’ It wasn’t like he knew what he wanted; but that
you’d have to find out what he wanted.”
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Troy’s “Some People Never Learn” and “Little Miss Tease,” for Everest, the latter a shaky Elvis knockoff,
were likewise solid but overlooked efforts. In the late ’60s, Shondell moved to Nashville and made some
country disks for TRX and Bright Star; notably, J. J. CALE’s “Head Man.” He became a song writer for the
publishing house of Acuff-Rose, and worked for ASCAP in the ’70s. He never stopped recording, though: the
Shondell name; in various spellings, appeared on, at the least, 14 different record labels.
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Troy Shondell went to the top only once, but his impact on aspiring rockers was apparently significant. A
young Detroit guitarist named Tommy James named his “Hanky Panky” group the Shondells; Jim Peterik,
later of the IDES OF MARCH, did the same with his first Chicago group; and when ROD BERNARD and
rockabilly legend Warren Storm teamed up to record for the La Louisianne label, they called themselves the
Shondells.
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