The No. 1 Song On July 21, 1966 Is Even More Danceable Today
"Hanky Panky" is a gritty and provocative song for the relatively conservative 1960s, but it's so catchy and easy to dance to that by July 21, 1966, it had reached No. 1. "Hanky Panky" was an early salvo by Tommy James and the Shondells, who all but faded into obscurity until No. 1 covers revived their legacy in the 1980s. Back in the '60s, however, they were a pop-rock hit machine, churning out danceable songs that take boomers back to their first high school party. And their intial run of over a dozen Hot 100 hits all started with "Hanky Panky."
Quite ribald and audaciously blunt, "Hanky Panky" features a narrator bragging about picking up a young woman who quickly became his girlfriend. A sharp and clanking rocker, "Hanky Panky" is so hooky and groovy that its powers couldn't be denied. Here's the story behind the long journey of "Hanky Panky" from Midwestern indie label to the top of the charts.
Hanky Panky was a local hit twice before it got heard nationally
Associated with garage rock, a genre left for dead then brought back to life, Tommy James put together the first version of the Shondells in Michigan in the late 1950s, when he was in junior high. After their self-released single "Long Pony Tail" raised their profile, just-beginning small area label Snap Records recruited the band. James knew he wanted to cover and release a version of "Hanky Panky," a ribald single by a group called the Raindrops, which he'd heard in a club in Indiana and could only partially recall. He came through, and the Shondells' take on "Hanky Panky" became a huge seller in 1964 throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, which is as far as Snap Records could distribute its products.
By late 1965, a copy of "Hanky Panky" had made its way to a Pittsburgh disc jockey, who turned the song into a radio hit. Moreover, 80,000 bootlegged 45s of the song were selling briskly, inspiring James to decamp to Pittsburgh to perform on its TV shows and in its concert venues. The rest of the Shondells weren't interested, so James convinced a Pittsburgh band called the Raconteurs to be his new Shondells. Then Roulette Records acquired the rights to the proven hit and took it national. That new pressing of the original, years-old recording of "Hanky Panky" debuted on the Hot 100 in early June 1966, and six weeks later, it made it up to No. 1.