COOPERSVILLE – Del Shannon had an inkling "Runaway" might be a special rock song, so he played it again and again long before it was released in 1961 and shot to the top of the charts. His wife, ...

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 ...

Enchanted by Del Shannon's "Runaway" as a boy, Tom Petty later paid the ultimate tribute to this No. 1 single and its singer: He saluted the tune in his own 1989 hit song, "Runnin' Down a Dream." ...

The album may or may not be obsolete, but the fact remains: Listeners have long obsessed over individual songs. The Single File is The A.V. Club’s look at the deep cuts, detours, experiments, and ...

Del Shannon was a famous singer known for his 1961 hit “Runaway,” which became a chart-topper in the U.S. and the U.K. He stood out for his falsetto voice and emotional lyrics. Shannon had a string of ...

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 ...

Charles Westover was a military veteran making ends meet as a carpet salesman in Battle Creek while moonlighting as a musician at the city's Hi-Lo Club at the Gilbert Hotel. It was 1960, and Westover ...

If you’re not in the music business, you probably don’t know who Max Crook is. But you might know of his work. In the early 1960s, crooner Del Shannon released the ethereal hit “Runaway,” which went ...

Del Shannon’s posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame happens on March 15, but don’t look for Max Crook in the audience. Who’s he? Only the co-author of “Runaway,” the debut hit that ...

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Rock ‘n’ roll ...