Friday, December 3, 2021

Del Shannon - Beyond Runaway - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Collard Greens"

On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM you heard a real groover by Del Shannon titled Move It Over. The song has a similar feel to Ray Charles's What I'd Say and Sir Douglas Quintet's She's About a Mover, so be sure to check it out if you dig those songs. 

Although most people know Shannon from his song Runaway, he had a fairly expansive discography which ranged from country to sunshine pop and soft rock. If you feel like taking a deep dive into Shannon's work, I suggest listening to his dreamy pop album Home and Away which flirts with psychedelia and sounds completely at odds with much of his earlier output. The story goes that Shannon was on tour in the UK when he met Andrew Loog Oldham, a producer that most famously worked with The Rolling Stones. Oldham had heard Shannon's cover of The Rolling Stone's Under My Thumb and liked it so much that he asked to produce an album for Shannon. A few singles from the session were released to disappointing sells figures, leading to the album being shelved for quite some time. One of the strangest, but most interesting, tracks on the album is a re-imagining of Shannon's top hit Runaway, this time titled Runaway '67.

If you'd like to continue your Del Shannon exploration, I'd suggest you also listen to Shannon's 1981 album Drop Down and Get Me which was produced by Tom Petty and features Petty's backing band The Heartbreakers. If you are a fan of Petty's, this album is especially worth listening to because many of the tracks sound like outtakes from Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's own album Damn the Torpedoes, especially the title track Drop Down and Get Me and, another Rolling Stones cover, Out of Time

Shannon worked with Petty and The Heartbreakers again on his album Rock On! which features songs that I'd argue are written better than Drop Down but suffer from worse production values. Imagine Roy Orbison's 1989 album Mystery Girl but with worse sounding gated and compressed 80s drums. A particularly bad example is the opening track Walk Away where the drums sound like they were lifted straight from a Casio keyboard. Perhaps one day someone might be able to tweak the album and make it more palatable to modern ears but I doubt it.

Anywho, before I finish this post, I'd like to quickly suggest you check out the punk compilation Let Them Eat Jellybeans which features songs by DOA, Dead Kennedys, and Flipper. I briefly mentioned the compilation after you heard The Jelly Bean Bandits play their song Tapestries. The compilation has been out of print for some time now and features an alternative version of Black Flag's Police Story as well as some other rarely heard treats!

Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm or through KUCR.org! If you'd like, you can also listen to KUCR through Radio Garden or Tune-In.


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