Rock ‘n’ roll was music for teenagers. That’s what was magic about it. The best of those ’50s and early ’60s singles are the ones that treat teenage concerns — life-altering crushes, soul-obliterating ...

A simple minor chord strummed on the guitar sets the mood for the 1961 smash hit “Runaway.” The tinkling piano, upright bass, drums, and baritone saxophone back the simple figure. Del Shannon would go ...

Decades ago, “when the Clash was falling apart” – as the band’s bassist Paul Simonon tells it – Joe Strummer wanted to return to his roots busking in public. So he and the band journeyed to the north ...

1960's teen idol Del Shannon released a string of hits in the early 1960s ("Runaway," "Hey! Little Girl," "Handy Man") that had a profound effect on emerging British Invasion groups such as the ...

Del Shannon never phoned it in. Best known for tortured early ’60s hits like “Runaway” and “Hats Off to Larry,” the Michigan-bred singer-songwriter combined the hard-living soul of a honky-tonk ...

As he surfaced in 1961, Shannon would inevitably become lumped in with contemporary US male teen-pop singers. Fair enough to a limited degree as he had the moodiness of Roy Orbison and the edge of ...

Jim Clash: You once called Del Shannon’s “Runaway” tune an opera. You toured with Del. What are your memories, and did you ever think he would take his own life? Dion DiMucci: Never, never. In fact I ...

Charles Westover might have been from Grand Rapids. But Del Shannon, the rock and roll legend, was "born" in Battle Creek. Del Shannon, Westover's stage name, came to be when he wrote and performed ...