In essence Del Shannon next to Don Gibson are two of my favorite singer songwriters of the music era that I grew up in although in the case of Del, his first big hit Runaway became so popular he would never follow it up like that again. But his songs were based on the paranoid it seems, Keep Searching and Stranger In Town come to mind.
There was more to Del than just Runaway and the Rhino Best Of Del Shannon combined the majority of his big hits but stops at Sister Isabelle his failed 1970 single for ABC Dunhill. The best overall retrospective was the Raven Anthology which came out in the mid 90s and Raven Records, an Australia label manages to get most of his well known hits for Big Top, Amy, Island, Liberty, United Artists, Elektra/Network and Silvertone/MCA Gone Gator.
While Del's albums have fallen out of print in the US, across the pond most of his album are available in 2 on 1 CDs. Taragon pairs his Runaway album alongside One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty One seconds which came out on Amy, the latter album featuring Dennis Coffey who later go on to Motown and later Sussex and had a major hit with Scorpio in 1971.
His Liberty albums were spotty at best, and paired with pop producers didn't help either although The Liberty Years cherry picks the best of the bunch as Del worked with Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell and Dallas Smith later on. In 1967 he worked with Andrew Oldham, the Rolling Stones producer on Home And Away with sounded like a fascination with Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound sound. Or Pet Sound. The two albums beforehand Total Commitment and This Is My Bag didn't work, Liberty saddled him with some subpar hits of the 60s and they pretty much all bombed. The Liberty Years pretty much has Home And Away as a complete album as well as collected singles, and even though Shannon was perceived as a pop singer, some of his darker content was more compelling, check out the You Don't Love Me to which Del works up into a frenzy towards the end of song. A curio album The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover shows Shannon going more toward hippy dippy and to me it's the best of Liberty years, no commercial potential but gallant effort of doing something different.
Del really didn't make albums all that much but he co wrote a few songs with former teen idol Brian Hyland to which Hyland scored a big hit with a remake of Gypsy Woman for UNI in 1970 and Smith, a band featuring Gayle McCormick got a hit with Baby It's You to which Del produced. In 1981 a big fan of his music Tom Petty, produced and The Heartbreakers played on Del's comeback album Drop Down And Get Me, one of Del's finest moments but it didn't sell and the singles came out in the offshoot Network label. When that failed, Del went country and did a batch of songs for Warner Brothers but outside of a few singles, nothing came of that either. But Del remained popular on the oldies circuit and there was even a rumor going around that he was going to replaced Roy Orbinson in the Traveling Wilburys till depression took hold his life and ended it on a shotgun blast on February 8, 1990. Before that he was actually back in the studio with Tom Petty and another big fan Jeff Lynne to which Del would score a posthumous single with Walk Away in 1991, originally on Silvertone in the UK but when the one in the US refused to release it, Tom Petty released it on his Gone Gator imprint. A good follow up to Drop Down And Get Me, Rock On did have some excellent stuff on it, Who Left Who, Walk Away and a revisit of I Go To Pieces.
The spirit of Del lives on, in the music of The Smithereens, The Townedgers and countless others. The Rhino Best of covers the bases but the Raven Anthology is the home run of a complete overview. The Varase 25 Greatest Hits does offer the last two Shannon albums and is better than the Rhino comp. And there's plenty of imports that do a good job as well. Either way, everybody at least needs a Del Shannon best of in their collection. That's what I think.
The Albums (incomplete)
Runaway (Big Top 1962) B+
One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty One Seconds of Del Shannon (Amy 1965) B+
(Both albums are on a 2 on 1 CD from Taragon)
Sings Hank Williams (Big Top 1964) B+
Total Commitment (Liberty 1965) B-
This Is My Bag (Liberty 1966) B-
Home And Away (Liberty 1967) B
The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover (Liberty/BGO 1968) A-
Drop Down And Get Me (Elektra 1981) A-
The Best Of Del Shannon (Rhino 1988) B+
Rock On (Silvertone UK/Gone Gator/MCA USA 1991) B+
The Liberty Years (EMI 1991) B+
The Anthology (Raven Import 1995) A+
25 All Time Greatest Hits (Varase 2001) A-
The Essential Collection (Music Club Import 2012) A-
The Complete UK Singles (and more) (ACE Import 2013) B+
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Crabby: When I was a kid, I had Del's So Long Baby/The Answer to Everything single on Big Top -- would love 2 have it back, remember it was great stuff, Del was pretty haunting whether he was doing rockers or mush. Strange thing is I can remember the choruses to "Answer to Everything" & can't remember "So Long Baby" AT ALL now, even tho I thot it was the better song when I was about 6....
ReplyDeleteYa know I have not heard neither song although both are on the new Import best of from Ace. Most of Del's stuff is very dark in nature although I do love Drop Down And Get Me, his 1981 record with Tom Petty and company. I read back in 83 that he signed up with Warner Brothers in a move to go country but haven't heard any of those cuts and the only time they came out was on a Cassette EP. Over 20 years gone and people in the UK still love his music better and do a better job keeping it print than the yayhoos over here.
ReplyDeleteI did find a mint copy of Runaway at Goodwill a few years ago. Originally whoever had it wanted 10 bucks for it, but got it for 88 cents. Ah, thrift stores! ;)