Del Shannon
I
n the fall of 1965, Del Shannon
was fed up. During a trip to Gun
Lake, a popular recreational area
just south of Grand Rapids, Michigan,
his frustrations with the music business
came to a boil.
“Del was upset that both [of his 1965
singles] Break Up and Move It On Over
bombed,” his close friend Dan Bourgoise
recalled to music writer Brian C. Young.
“He thought he was staying on the cutting
edge with a new sound, but neither of the
songs were accepted by the public. He sailed
copies of the 45s into the lake. Not one or
two, but a whole box of 45s! One at a time.
‘Forget this, I want out!’ he said. I tried to
calm him down and yelled, ‘The record’s
great! You’re crazy, Del!’”
It was not the fi rst time Shannon had
seriously considered ending his music
career, nor was it the last. Many aspects
of his character heightened the confl ict
between the desires to create art and
achieve stardom. Shannon was a creative
songwriter who also excelled at interpreting
the lyrics of others; a positive and ambitious
man who often struggled with depression
and alienation. He was an innovative and
forward-thinking musician who found
himself pigeonholed by his early hits.
Born Charles Weedon Westover on 30
December 1934 in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Shannon was drawn to music at an earlyage. Country was his fi rst love, but he also
enjoyed pop by groups like The Ink Spots,
who inspired him to push his vocal range
and send his voice soaring from his crackly
tenor to a stratospheric falsetto.
By 1960, Shannon was living in Battle
Creek, Michigan, with his wife and two
children, and fronting a popular bar band
featuring keyboardist Max Crook on the
Musitron, an early synthesiser Crook
invented. Shannon’s vocal range and
the unique sound of the Musitron garnered
the attention of a local DJ, who pitched
their demo recordings to Harry Balk
and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists in
Detroit. Balk secured the pair a contract
with the New York-based Bigtop Records
and suggested a name change for Charles
Westover – to Del Shannon.
Shannon’s fi rst single, Runaway, was an
infectious rocker built around the themes
of lost love and loneliness, spotlighting Del’s
amazing
vocal delivery
and the
unusual
sound of the
Musitron.
Released in
February
1961, the
single quickly
shot to No. 1in the US and also took the top spot on the
UK chart. More hits followed – Hats Off To
Larry, So Long Baby, Hey! Little Girl, Little
Town Flirt and more.
While Shannon was scoring hits on both
sides of the Atlantic, his records generally
performed better in the UK, where a
fanatical fanbase led to multiple tours
there and an appearance in the 1962 British
rock’n’roll movie, It’s Trad, Dad!
After an April 1963 performance at the
Royal Albert Hall, sharing the bill with
The Beatles, Shannon recorded Lennon-
McCartney’s From Me To You, making him
the fi rst American to cover what was soon to
be the biggest band in the world.
In the summer of 1963, Shannon broke
ties with both Bigtop Records and his
management team, Balk and Micahnik,
over unpaid royalties and the desire for
more creative control of his work. Unable
to attract the attention of a major label,
Shannon founded Berlee Records.
By the end of that year,
Shannon had resolved
his diff erences with his
former management and
secured a new recording
contract with Amy Records,
including a higher royalty
rate and greater artistic
freedom. Over the next
two years, Shannon cut60 years on from the chart success of Runaway, we look back at
the troubled life of Del Shannon – the revolutionary songwriterwho struggled to break away from his early pop hits
WORDS BY RANDY FOX