While Berry Gordy Jr. was organizing his first Motortown Revue in 1961, a young man from Coopersville, Michigan, a small Dutch Protestant farming town west of Grand Rapids, was putting the final touches on what would become one of the year’s biggest hits. Del Shannon was born Charles Westover in 1934 and was inspired to play guitar from the recordings of Hank Williams. Drafted into the Army after graduating from high school, he won an Army talent show and spent the last five months of his duty entertaining troops in the Special Services.
After his discharge, he and his wife moved to Battle Creek where he sold carpets during the day and at night played and sang in a country music band using the stage name Charlie Johnson. It was after he changed his name to Del Shannon and added an Ann Arbor keyboard player named Max Crook to his band that he had a musical breakthrough. While he and Crook were jamming at the Hi-Lo club in Battle Creek, they came up with some chord changes that turned into the song “Runaway”.
Crook was friends with Ollie McLaughlin, the first black DJ on Ann Arbor radio, and Crook convinced McLaughlin to check out the band. Impressed by what he heard, McLaughlin recommended Shannon to music veteran Harry Balk, who had guided the careers of Little Willie John and Johnny and The Hurricanes.
Balk and his partner, Irv Micahnik, got Shannon a recording contract with Big Top Records out of New York. Recorded at the Bell Sound studios in New York with Balk producing, “Runaway” was an immediate smash hit, spending four weeks at # 1 on the Hot 100. In addition, “Runaway” honored at year’s end as Billboard Song of the Year for 1961.
Shannon employed his falsetto on the catchy “Why, why, why” refrain and thereby established a vocal trademark that he would use on future records. “Runaway” also featured a distinctive keyboard solo from Crook on the Musitron, an instrument he invented that was a predecessor to the synthesizer.
Crook was an electronics buff, and he built the Musitron from clavioline heavily enhanced with additional resistors, television tubes, parts from old appliances, and reel-to-reel tape recorders. Sadly, Crook was unable to patent his invention because most of its components were previously patented products.
Max Crook also played keyboards on Shannon’s follow-up hit, “Hats Off To Larry,” a # 5 hit in the summer of 1961. Crook then left Shannon’s band and signed a contract with Big Top as an instrumental artist, recording under the name Maximilian, but none of his releases charted.
Shannon was even more popular and influential in England where he had 7 Top 10 singles by the spring of 1963. While touring England to promote his latest hit, “Two Kinds of Teardrops”, he met the Beatles for the first time when they opened for him when he headlined the BBC’s Swinging Sound ’63 show at the Royal Albert Hall in April.
The Beatles had just released a # 1 hit in England called “From Me To You,” and Shannon loved the song. It was the first time that the Beatles performed at the Royal Albert Hall, and Del convinced them that he would help give them exposure in America if they let him record it. Del’s cover of “From Me To You” was not a big hit, only reaching # 77 in the summer of 1963, but it has the distinction of being the first song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney to chart in the U.S.
Unfortunately, Shannon’s career was stalled for a year over a dispute royalty issues with his managers and the Big Top label. Del then formed his own Berlee label, but only one of the two singles charted. After he patched things up with his managers, he signed with Amy Records in 1964.
Besides working with Shannon, Harry Balk also represented the Royaltones, an instrumental band from Dearborn, Michigan, and he brought them in to record with Del. The Royaltones’ lineup at this time included future Funk Brothers Bob Babbitt on bass and Dennis Coffey on guitar. The Royaltones would play on Del’s last hit singles of the 1960s. Starting with covers of “Handy Man” and “Do You Want To Dance”, Shannon was again a chart presence during the peak years of the British Invasion.
Shannon scored another Top 40 hit with “Stranger In Town” in 1965 along with his final Top 10 single with “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun).” He also provided Peter and Gordon with a Top 10 hit that same year when he gave them his composition of “I Go To Pieces” over the objections of his producer Harry Balk who wanted Del to release it as a single.
Del Shannon’s decline as a successful recording artist started after he moved to California and signed with Liberty Records. He had his last charting hit in the 1960s with his cover of “The Big Hurt” in the spring of 1966. In the fall, he appeared at Band Canyon in Bay City. It would be sixteen years, however, before he would see another Top 40 single.
Although the Liberty years were commercially disappointing, he did have some regional chart success with “He,” “Runaway ’67,” and his cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb.” In the meantime, he got into record production. He discovered country singer Johnny Carver and wrote and produced both sides of his debut single on Imperial Records.
In 1969, Shannon discovered the group Smith in Los Angeles and arranged their # 5 hit cover of “Baby It’s You.” The following year, he produced Bryan Hyland’s hit cover of “Gypsy Woman,” that reached # 3 on the Hot 100.
Del’s battle with alcoholism took its toll on his career in the 1970s, but he had quit drinking by the end of the decade and began working on an album with Tom Petty. The album, titled “Drop Down And Get Me,” took two years to record. Petty had been a big fan of Del Shannon over the years, and he and his band, The Heartbreakers, helped Del make a comeback in the early 1980s. Shannon’s cover of “Sea Of Love” was released as a single, and it became a Top 40 hit in early 1982.
This led to a resurgence of popularity that included a second re-recording of “Runaway”. Del wrote new lyrics, and his most famous song was used as the theme of the NBC series Crime Story. Del also appeared on an album by The Smithereens, and he started recording with both Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra on a new album at the end of the decade.
Shannon had been suffering from depression before the sessions that resulted in the album, “Rock On,” and he had recently started taking the drug Prozac. Although he was reportedly upbeat during the recordings and was excited about his new album, he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in California on February 8, 1990. He was 55 years-old.
It was ruled a suicide but questions remained because there was no note and the fact that a .22 rifle was an unusual choice for a suicide weapon. Del Shannon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2004. “Runaway” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
Ollie McLaughlin worked very closely with Del Shannon at the start of his career. He accompanied him to his early recording sessions in New York and formed a company that took care of Shannon’s music publishing on all of his early hits. McLaughlin even went to England with Shannon when he first met the Beatles.
McLaughlin was a very popular at WHRV in Ann Arbor, and his nightly Ollie’s Caravan show was a big hit. He was something of a marketing genius for the station, and his Scooby Doo Club provided members with a card that gave its bearer certain perks at businesses like discount prices or coupons to buy one and get another at half-price. Besides being a very talented DJ, he cleverly tied his sponsors into the benefits of a Scooby Doo membership and, as a result, had an audience that included all of the Ann Arbor area. At the peak of his popularity at WHRV, Ollie’s Scooby Doo Club had over 10,000 members.
McLaughlin had always been a jazz fan and had promoted numerous concerts in Ann Arbor. He formed Omack Records in the 1950s, a small jazz label that issued a few singles including one by future Funk Brother Joe Hunter. It was Ollie’s interest in jazz that led to his second important discovery.
Following the birth of his first daughter, McLaughlin formed a new label in her honor called Karen. His first release was by Barbara Lewis, a young lady from South Lyon, Michigan. Barbara came from a musical family and played several instruments. Ollie learned about her after meeting her father when his band played at one of McLaughlin’s jazz concerts.
After an audition at which Barbara sang a cappella, McLaughlin signed on as her manager, and he produced her upbeat composition of “My Heart Went Do Dat Da” at the Chess Studios in Chicago. for her first single. McLaughlin then drove her to record hops all around the Detroit area to promote her debut single, and Barbara performed with a number of up-and-coming local artists including Marvin Gaye and the Spinners.
“My Heart Went Do Dat Da” was a local hit in Detroit, and it was picked up by Atlantic Records for national distribution. Her single did not chart nationally, but Barbara became the first Michigan artist to be signed to the legendary R&B label.
After a second single, recorded at Motown’s studio, failed to chart, McLaughlin took her back to Chicago in early 1963 to record a song Barbara had written called “Hello Stranger.” He hired the Dells to provide the memorable “shoo bop shoo bop my baby” backing vocals. Released in the spring of 1963, “Hello Stranger” was a monster hit, spending two weeks at # 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart and crossing over to # 3 on the Hot 100.
Taking a cue from what Berry Gordy did with his female Motown artists, McLaughlin put Barbara through finishing school and had gowns made for her. She was then presented to the public on a Dick Clark tour and then in a series of shows in night clubs and at colleges. Things slowed down for her somewhat during the early days of the British Invasion, but she had a Top 40 hit in 1964 with another original composition called “Puppy Love”.
In 1965, McLaughlin produced Barbara’s next session in Atlantic’s studio in New York along with Bert Berns. “Baby I’m Yours” was written especially for Barbara by Van McCoy. The song was another solid hit, reaching # 5 on the R&B charts and # 11 on the Hot 100 during the summer when “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and “Help!” by the Beatles were dominating the charts.
Because of the success of the single, Atlantic Records threw together an album titled “Baby I’m Yours” that contained the hit along with some older singles and unused songs from earlier sessions. Curiously featuring a white couple on the cover, it would be the only Barbara Lewis album to chart on the Billboard 200.
Barbara followed it up three months later with “Make Me Your Baby”. The song was again produced by McLaughlin and Bert Berns in New York, and it hit # 11 on the Hot 100 in the fall of 1965. She recorded one more Top 40 hit in 1966 with “Make Me Belong To You” but left Atlantic in 1969 to sign with Stax Records in Memphis.
After three singles on the Stax subsidiary. Enterprise Records, failed to chart, Barbara became disenchanted with the music industry and returned to Michigan. Following a divorce, she stayed out of the public eye for years.
Barbara was rediscovered after Yvonne Elliman had a hit with her cover of “Hello Stranger” in 1977. Her original recording of “Baby I’m Yours” was then featured in two hit movies, Moonlight and The Bridges of Madison County. She started doing shows again, but health issues forced Barbara to retire from singing in 2017.
Besides his success with Barbara Lewis, Ollie McLaughlin also had a deal with Atlantic Records to distribute the records that he put out on his three Michigan labels, named after his daughters Karen, Carla, and Moira. Although he put out some quality singles, he wasn’t able to compete with Motown and went out of business by the end of the decade.
Ollie’s most memorable releases were “Cool Jerk” by The Capitols, and “Love Makes The World Go ‘Round” by Deon Jackson – both from 1967. “Cool Jerk” was the biggest hit released on any of Ollie McLaughlin’s labels, reaching # 2 on the Billboard R&B chart and # 7 on the Hot 100. It’s also special because the backing track was secretly recorded by the Funk Brothers and arranged by Motown’s Mike Terry.
The song, written by Capitols’ lead singer Don Storball, was “Pimp Jerk.” It was inspired by the neighborhood pimps. They would dance in Detroit clubs but thought they were too cool to do the jerk like regular folks. Ollie McLaughlin wisely changed the title to ‘Cool’ because he knew that ‘Pimp’ would cause it to be banned on the radio. Sadly, Ollie McLaughlin died in Detroit in 1984 at the age of just 58.
