I have listed 10 songs that I have never heard or had forgotten about but now love. In some instances, where I can remember it, I will write about how I came across the song. This is the first song, 9 more to come over the coming weeks.
Walk Away, Del Shannon
I have always loved Del Shannon's voice but really only knew of one song by him, Runaway, his big hit from the early sixties. I have put the video for that song here, with a great performance from the Late Night with David Letterman program.
A couple of years back I was doing some research on an actor and director and stumbled onto the long forgotten but great TV series Crime Story.
Many say a big part of the vibe of the show was the theme, which was Runaway by Del Shannon. Because of that, I happened to look up the life story of Del Shannon, which I will post here as a link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Shannon
Just before he died, Del Shannon recorded his final album, and the best single on that album was Walk Away, a song that most have never heard.
If you listen to the song "Runaway" you will hear the lyric
"and I wonder, why I don't walk away, my little Runaway"
Many have said that Shannon knew he was close to the end and Walk Away was the completion of the story he started when he hit big with Runaway. It is well known that he never liked the spotlight and the fame he gained from having such a big hit so young. In some ways, he was walking away from all that when he realized he could not runaway from it. No matter what he did after that song, he was always going to be tied to it and in spite of his great talent, that seemed to eat away at him until he couldn't take it anymore. He had to "Walk Away".
Here are a few quick trivia facts about Del Shannon:
-his real name was Charles Weedon Westover. He changed it to
Del Shannon because his carpet store boss drove a Del, Coupe De Ville Cadillac and a wannabe be pro wrestler named Bob White who worked at the Hi Lo Club he performed at wanted to use Mark Shannon as his stage name but never ended up using it.
-There was talk that Shannon would join the Travelling Wilburys after Roy Orbison died, as he was friends and had worked with Jeff Lynne. But Shannon committed suicide before that could happen. Lynne produced and released Shannon's last album after he died in 1991.
-In 1963, he became the first American to record a cover version of a song by The Beatles: his "From Me to You" charted in the US before The Beatles' version.
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