Apr 022008
Since the first time I heard it, probably at the age of 5 or 6, Del Shannon‘s “Runaway” has been one of the most fascinating songs I’ve ever heard. It sounds as fresh, yearning, and alien as ever. As much as I love this song, however, I don’t recall hearing any other song by Shannon except “Hats Off to Larry”, his other minor hit. (That is the name of that song, right? Pince Nez me if you must.) Oh, I think a friend once played me his psychedelic album, the one with his real name in the title. I barely remember a thing about it.
Tonight I came across this old Del Shannon clip.
All I can say is, it’s time I finally check out this artist in more depth.
I really like hi song “Searching” in addition to his big 2 hits.
I put him in the same bucket as Gene Pitney, but Gene was much more of a songwriter I think.
How come chicks don’t dance like that anymore? Damn!
iTunes, man. Here I went to buy this tasty garage nugget and it isn’t available. Grrrr.
This kind of rave-up, groovy as it is, is not typical for Shannon. He was actually a good songwriter — he wrote the Peter & Gordon hit I Go To Pieces.
Kind of a depressive character, he died by his own hand. He made a record with Tom Petty producing in the early 80s called Drop Down And Get Me that I recommend highly. It included a semi-hit, a fine version of the swamp pop classic Sea of Love.
I forgot that he wrote “I Go to Pieces”. That’s a good one. At the time of that Petty album, wasn’t he also slated to replace Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys? Or was he originally slated to fill that role?
I’m in the middle of re-reading Dead bassist Phil Lesh’s autobiography and Del Shannon gets a namecheck in describing ‘the first full-scale Acid Test’ at the Big Beat night club:
‘Also in the evening, Ken Babbs showed us what may have been the world’s first music video – his smoking little three minute film inspired by and illustrating a pop hit by Del Shannon called ‘Keep Searchin (We’ll follow the sun)’. The later Tests and Trips Festival would see the evolution of these compositional audiovisual works into a fully improvisational art form: the rock and roll light show.’
Whoda thunk?
I had no luck finding the film referenced, though some innaresting Neal Cassidy footage here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VibWdUGcLNg
anyone with mad interweb skills care to try?