DEL SHANNON - Jim Colyer

My favorite singer before The Beatles was Del Shannon. His classic, Runaway, is about all that remains. But in the sterile music scene of the early 1960s, Del Shannon was a kind of link between Elvis and The Beatles. He was the first American to cover a Beatle song, From Me To You, in 1963. He wrote his own material and played minor chords on guitar with a beat. I had a bunch of his records on the pink Big Top label. Hats Off To Larry did well. I liked Little Town Flirt and his version of Handy Man. Shannon's lyrics centered around teenage angst and the pain of losing another girl friend. After years of playing revival shows, he committed suicide in 1990.