How to go
What: ’80s Retro Party with Tommy Tutone and Troy Tipton, the former guitarist in Sly Fox; there also will be cash prizes for the best-dressed person in ’80s attire and for the “lady with the biggest hair.”
When: 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday, May 29, with the headliners at 10 p.m.
Where: Key West Lounge, 2740 Columbus Ave.
Tickets: $10 in advance or $15 at the door; call (937) 360-4070 for more info.
SPRINGFIELD — Every so often, Tommy Heath finds himself up against that kind of crowd — the one that stands around waiting to hear that song.
You know.
That song.
“That’s what really bothers you,” Heath explained. “The guy over there in the corner will just shout for it after every song.”
Wait.
Who’s Tommy Heath?
Well, that’s his real name — everybody else knows him as Tommy Tutone.
Oh, yeah!
That song!
So to avoid any confusion, all future quotes in this story will be attributed to Tommy Tutone, even though that technically was just the name of the band (just as Alice Cooper started out the name of the band and ended up the name of the guy).
Tutone is coming to town Saturday night, May 29, to rock an ’80s Retro Party at the Key West Lounge, and he’d like you to know something in advance.
Yes.
He’ll be playing that song.
Sooner or later.
Don’t scream. Don’t throw stuff.
He’ll get to it.
Until he does, though, please just listen to the brother.
“If you sit and listen,” Tutone promised, “I’ll knock your socks off.”
But, really now, if he just played that song — the eternally catchy “867-5309/Jenny” — it’d be a pretty damn short show.
Such is the fate of a so-called one-hit wonder.
“I used to have an attitude about it,” Tutone confessed.
You might, too, if it happened to you.
Once upon a time, the song scurried up the charts, peaking at No. 4 in 1982 and going gold.
Surely, with their feet planted more in power-pop than trendy new wave, the success of “867-5309/Jenny” heralded Tommy Tutone as a band with a bright future. (So bright, it could be argued, they’d have to wear shades.)
But no.
The band never had another hit.
“We weren’t really cool,” Tutone said. “In the ’90s, I ended up getting out of it.”
Tutone ended up getting a day job as a computer programmer. (Which you no doubt probably already knew if you saw the old episode of VH1’s “Where Are They Now?”)
And then it started happening.
“People meet me in the street and treat me like I’m really something,” Tutone said.
That song, he said, is bigger now than ever.
“It crosses all ages,” he said. “It’s some kind of thought control. People tell me where they were when they heard it, and how much it means to them. It’s just an accident of fate, I guess.”
Admit it.
You love it.
You’ve dialed the number.
On VH1’s perennial countdown of the “100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the ’80s,” the song came in at No. 4 — only “Come on Eileen,” “Take on Me” and that Flock of Seagulls song were deemed greater.
“It’s still fun to play the song,” Tutone said. “It’s deceptively simple, or deceptively complex, depending on how you look at it.”
Tutone moved to Nashville last June to work on new music.
“I’m trying to move to being known more as a guy with a cool voice and cool songs,” he said, “than just the guy who sang that song.
“But it gets you in the door.”
Inspired by soul music and old country, the new stuff has all the right ingredients for a great power-pop sound.
“My music is now called soul-twang,” he said. “It really suits me. When I got signed in ’78, I had a band that had a horn section and a pedal steel guitar.”
It’s not that far removed from what he did in the early ’80s, only he’s now calling the shots.
“We had to leave stuff off the edges I would’ve liked to get in,” Tutone recalled. “You couldn’t hear my influences enough.”
He’s also back on speaking terms with the former co-leader of Tommy Tutone, lead guitarist Jim Keller.
So could there be a full-fledged Tommy Tutone reunion in the near future?
“I don’t know about that,” Tutone said. “He’s grown up and I’m still a kid at 63.”
Wait.
Tommy Tutone is now 63?!
“I somehow got better looking than I did 10 years ago,” he said. “I’m proud to be who I am.”
And who is he, really?
Well, he’s actually not a one-hit wonder.
It’s a little known fact that the band’s first single, “Angel Say No,” made the Top 40 in 1980.
Just don’t tell anyone.
“There aren’t any two-hit wonder compilations,” he joked.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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