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Del Shannon

For Dell Shannon, the pen name of a police procedural novelist, see Elizabeth Linington.

Del Shannon (December 30, 1934 — February 8, 1990), was an American rock and roller who launched into fame with the No. 1 hit "Runaway" in 1961.

Biography

Del Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He grew up in Coopersville, a small suburb outside of Grand Rapids. There he learned ukulele and later guitar, and listened to country and western music, including Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell. In 1954, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called the Cool Flames.

When his army service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan and worked in a furniture factory, as a truck driver, and selling carpets. He also found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott's group, working at the Hi-Lo Club. When DeMott was fired in 1958, Westover took over as band leader and singer, giving himself the stage name Charlie Johnson, and renaming his band the Big Little Show Band.

In early 1959 he added keyboardist Max Crook, with his invention the Musitron, an early synthesizer, to the group. Crook had already made recordings, and persuaded Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin to hear the band. In turn, McLaughlin took the group's demos to Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists, Inc. in Detroit. In July 1960, Westover and Crook signed a contract to become recording artists and composers, recording for the Big Top label. Balk suggested that Westover use a new stage name, and they came up with "Del Shannon", combining a friend's assumed surname with "Del" from his favorite make of car, the Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

He was immediately flown to New York City, but his first sessions did not produce results. However, McLaughlin persuaded Shannon and Crook to rewrite and re-record one of their earlier songs, originally called "Little Runaway", using the Musitron as the lead instrument. On January 21st, 1961, they recorded "Runaway", which was released as a single in February 1961. It immediately climbed the charts, reaching #1 in the Billboard charts in April.

Shannon followed his first hit with "Hats Off to Larry", which peaked at #5 (Billboard) and #1 on Cashbox, and the less popular "So Long, Baby," another song of breakup bitterness. Both "Runaway" and "Hats Off to Larry" were recorded in a single day. "Little Town Flirt", released in 1962, also reached #12 in 1963, as did the album of the same name. After these hits, Shannon was unable to keep his momentum in the U.S., but continued his run of success in England, where he had always been more popular. In 1963, he became the first American artist to record a cover version of a Beatles song. It was with "From Me to You", which charted in the US before the Beatles first ever hit.

Shannon returned to the charts in 1964, with "Handy Man" (a 1960 hit by Jimmy Jones), "Do You Wanna Dance" (a 1958 hit by Bobby Freeman), and two more originals, "Keep Searchin'" (#3 in the UK; #9 in the US), and "Stranger in Town" (1965). Shannon opened with Ike and Tina Turner at Dave Hull's Hullabaloo, in Los Angeles, California, on December 22, 1965.

In 1966 Shannon released a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb". Peter and Gordon released the Shannon composition, "I Go To Pieces," in 1965. In the late 1960s, after not having a charted song for several years, he turned to production. In 1969, he discovered a group called Smith and arranged their hit "Baby, It's You," which had been a smash hit for the Shirelles in 1963. In 1970, he produced Brian Hyland's million seller "Gypsy Woman", a cover of Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions' original.

In 1972 he recorded, Live In England, which was released in June 1973. Reviewer Chris Martin critiqued the album favourably, saying that Shannon never improvised, and was always true to the original sounds of his music, and expressing the opinion that only Lou Christie rivaled his falsetto voice. In April 1975 Shannon signed with Island Records.

A 1976 article on Shannon's concert at The Roxy Theatre described the singer's performance as "personal, pure and simple rock 'n' roll, dated but gratifyingly undiluted." Shannon sang some of his new rock songs along with classics like "The Endless Sleep" and "The Big Hurt." Writer Richard Cromelin said "Shannon's haunting vignettes of heartbreak and restlessness contain something of a cosmic undercurrent which has the protagonist tragically doomed to a bleak, shadowy struggle."

Shannon's career slowed down greatly in the 1970s, in part due to alcoholism. English rock singer Dave Edmunds produced the Shannon single, "And the Music Plays On", in 1974. In 1978 he stopped drinking, and began work on "Sea of Love", released in the early 1980s. This song came from Shannon's album Drop Down and Get Me, produced by Tom Petty. The album took two years to record and featured Petty's Heartbreakers backing up Shannon. RSO Records, which recorded Shannon, folded. The LP was recorded by Network Records and distributed by Elektra Records. Seven of the songs are Shannon originals with cover renditions of tunes by the Everly Brothers, Rolling Stones, Frankie Ford, and "Sea of Love" by Phil Phillips. It was Shannon's first album in eight years.

In February 1982 Shannon appeared at the Bottom Line. He performed a mix of pop-rock tunes and his old hits. New York Times reviewer, Stephen Holden, described Shannon as possessing an "easygoing pop-country" manner. He was not an "anachronism," yet there seemed no comparison with the newer songs and the best of his vintage material. On "Runaway" and "Keep Searchin," Shannon and his band rediscovered the sound "in which his keen falsetto played off against airy organ obbligatos." The 1980s Shannon performed "competent but mundane country-rock"

In December 1983, Shannon served as Grand Marshal of the Coopersville, Michigan, Christmas parade and also performed a benefit concert at Coopersville High School.

Shannon enjoyed a resurgence in audience interest after re-recording his song "Runaway" (with new lyrics), as the theme song for the short-lived NBC-TV television program Crime Story. Producer Michael Mann felt that this was one of the definitive songs of the era in which the program was set. The newly-added lyrics replaced "wishin' you were here by me... to end this misery" with “watchin’ all the things go by... some live, while others die,” reflecting the violent, mob-related theme of the show.

In 1988, Shannon sang guest vocals on the song "The World We Know" with The Smithereens on their album Green Thoughts. Shortly thereafter, in 1990, he recorded a comeback album with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra and there were unconfirmed rumors he would join The Traveling Wilburys after Roy Orbison's death. Previously, in 1975, Shannon recorded some tracks with Lynne, along with In My Arms Again, a self-penned country song. This tune was recorded by Warner Brothers, which signed Shannon in 1984.

In all, he recorded for Big Top, Berlee, Amy, Liberty, Dunhill, United Artists, Island, and Elektra.

Death and legacy

On February 8, 1990, Shannon committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a .22 caliber rifle. Shannon's wife, Bonnie, found his body at 11:25 P.M. in their Santa Clarita, California home, 35 miles north of Los Angeles. The rifle was found next to his body in the den. His wife has expressed the opinion that his death might have been related to his recent use of the prescription drug Prozac. Newspaper reports also indicated that Shannon had been recovering from dental surgery, and also that he had a bad cold at the time of his death. His final album was released after his death, titled Rock On!.

During the summer of 1990, the country band Southern Pacific released a cover of Shannon's hit "I Go To Pieces" (also a hit back in 1965 for Peter & Gordon), with the song's video being dedicated in Shannon's memory.

Shannon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Filmography

It's Trad, Dad! (aka Ring A Ding Rhythm) (1962)

TV Appearances

Shindig! (1965)
Hollywood A Go Go (1965)

Hit singles

Release date	Title	Chart positions
Release date	Title	US Charts	UK Singles Chart
3/61	"Runaway"	#1	#1
6/61	"Hats Off to Larry"	#5	#6
9/61	"So Long Baby"	#28	#10
11/61	"Hey! Little Girl"	#38	#2
6/62	"Cry Myself to Sleep"	#45	#29
9/62	"The Swiss Maid"	#64	#2
12/62	"Little Town Flirt"	#12	#4
4/63	"Two Kinds of Teardrops"	#50	#5
6/63	"From Me to You"	#77	-
8/63	"Two Silhouettes"	-	#23
11/63	"Sue's Gotta Be Mine"	#71	#21
3/64	"Mary Jane"	-	#35
7/64	"Handy Man"	#22	#36
9/64	"Do You Want To Dance"	#43	-
11/64	"Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow the Sun)"	#9	#3
2/65	"Stranger in Town"	#30	#40
5/65	"Break Up"	#95	-
5/66	"The Big Hurt"	#94	-
12/81	"Sea of Love"	#33	-