Todays Music Box tune comes from Coopersville, Michigans Charles Westover. Our featured song was written Westover & keyboard player, Max Crook, (who invented his own Clavioline-based electric keyboard). The two performed together around the Battle Creek area as members of Charlie Johnson & the Big Little Show Band. The group won a recording contract with Big Top Records in 1960 and went to New York City to record. It was at this time that Westover became Del Shannon. That first session ended in failure. Their manager, Ollie McLaughlin persuaded them to rewrite and re-record an earlier song they had written, Little Runaway to highlight Crooks unique instrumental sound. On January 24th, 1961, they recorded Runaway at the Bell Sound Studio ... it was released the following month. On April 10th, Del Shannon appeared on Dick Clarks American Bandstand. By April 30th, Runaway had reached the number one spot in the country, where it remained through May 27th, 1961, becoming the third biggest song of the year. (On a personal note, I grew up a huge fan of Del Shannons. In the late 80s, shortly before his death, he appeared as part of an oldies show at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit. I happened to be the emcee for the show. The airline had lost his luggage. For that evenings shows it got rather chilly. Dels manager came up and relayed the lost luggage message to me and, asked if Del could wear my jacket on stage. I was thrilled, here was one of my music heroes from my youth, on stage performing his hits, wearing my station jacket, with the name Jim McKenzie, (my air name) on the lapel. I still have that jacket today). Tomorrows featured song comes from an actor, who became a teen idol, with a string of hit records. And, coming up shortly day two of our 31 Days of Halloween.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 09:50:15 +0000
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