1971 Hit, Written After a Rock Star Quit Music Forever, Became His Biggest Solo Smash

By 1971, Tommy James thought his music career was over.

After suffering a medical emergency backstage in March 1970, and being pronounced dead before doctors revived him, the former Tommy James and the Shondells frontman walked away from the spotlight.

"He moved to the country. He bought a huge farm, from rockstar to homesteader," Adam Reader of Professor of Rock explained. "He vowed never to record again. He quit the industry."

However, a few years later, James returned with a song that not only launched his solo career, but it became his biggest solo hit.

"Tommy started working on solo material," Reader explained. "Now, his debut solo offering actually flopped. But his sophomore release, Christian of the World, yielded the biggest solo hit of Tommy's career with 'Draggin' the Line.'"

Originally released as a B side of "Church Street Soul Revival," the 1970 hit gained traction as radio DJs began pushing the track.

After being remixed, the song went on to sell more than a million copies, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

While many fans believed the song was a cryptic message about Tommy's history of drug abuse, the artist insisted that was not the case.

"Draggin' the line was an expression about working steady, staying after it, going for it, making a living the old hard way, as the lyric goes," Reader said. "Kind of like the idiom keeping your nose to the grindstone."

Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 7:39 PM.