Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover on December 30, 1934, in
Coopersville, Michigan, to Bert and Leone Mosher Westover. He learned to play the
ukulele and guitar and listened to
country-and-western music by artists such as
Hank Williams,
Hank Snow, and
Lefty Frizzell. He was drafted into the Army in 1954, and while in Germany, played guitar in a band called the Cool Flames. When his service ended, he returned to
Battle Creek, Michigan, and worked as a carpet salesman and as a truck driver for a furniture factory. He found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott's group, the Moonlight Ramblers, working at the Hi-Lo Club. When DeMott was fired in 1958 for drunkenness, Westover took over as leader and singer, giving himself the name Charlie Johnson and renaming the band the Big Little Show Band. In early 1959, he added keyboardist
Max Crook, who played an instrument he called a Musitron (an early synthesizer of Crook's own invention, though modeled on the commercially released
Clavioline). Crook had made recordings, and he persuaded
Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin to listen to the band. McLaughlin took the group's
demonstration recordings (demos) to
Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists in Detroit. In July 1960, Westover and Crook signed to become recording artists and composers for
Bigtop Records. Balk suggested Westover use a new name, and they came up with "Del Shannon", combining Mark Shannon—a wrestling pseudonym used by a regular at the Hi-Lo Club—with Del, derived from the
Cadillac Coupe de Ville, his favorite car.
Berlee Records and Amy Records By August 1963, Shannon's relationship with his managers and Bigtop had soured, so he formed his own label, Berlee Records, named after his parents. He returned to the charts immediately with "
Handy Man" (a 1960 hit by
Jimmy Jones), "
Do You Wanna Dance" (a 1958 hit by
Bobby Freeman), and two originals, "
Keep Searchin'" (number three in the UK, number nine in the US), and "
Stranger in Town" (number 40 in the UK). In late 1964, Shannon produced a demo session for a young fellow Michigander named
Bob Seger, who went on to stardom much later. Shannon gave
acetates of the session to
Dick Clark (he had performed in one of Clark's tours in 1965), and by 1966, Seger was recording for Philadelphia's famed
Cameo Records, resulting in some regional hits, which eventually led to a deal with a major label,
Capitol Records. Also in late 1964, Shannon paid tribute to one of his own musical idols with
Del Shannon Sings Hank Williams (Amy Records 8004). The album was recorded in hardcore country honky-tonk style, and no single was released. Shannon opened for
Ike and Tina Turner at
Dave Hull's Hullabaloo Club in Los Angeles, California, on December 22, 1965.
Liberty Records, United Artists Records, and Island Records Shannon signed with Liberty in 1966 and revived
Toni Fisher's "
The Big Hurt" and the
Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb".
Peter and Gordon released his song "
I Go to Pieces" in 1965. In April 1975, he signed with
Island Records. After his manager and he jointly sought back royalties for Shannon,
Bug Music was founded in 1975 to administer his songs. By 2011, when Bug was acquired by
BMG Rights Management, its catalogue had grown to include 250,000 compositions. A 1976 article on Shannon's concert at
the Roxy Theatre described the singer as "personal, pure, and simple rock 'n' roll, dated but gratifyingly undiluted." Shannon sang some of his new rock songs along with classics such as "Endless Sleep" and "The Big Hurt". The
Los Angeles Times wrote, "Shannon's haunting vignettes of heartbreak and restlessness contain something of a cosmic undercurrent, which has the protagonist tragically doomed to a bleak, shadowy struggle."
Later career Shannon's career slowed down greatly in the 1970s, owing in part to his alcoholism. Welsh rock singer
Dave Edmunds produced the single "And the Music Plays On" in 1974. Shannon had a resurgence of popularity after re-recording "Runaway" with new lyrics as the theme for the
NBC-TV program
Crime Story. In 1988, Shannon sang "The World We Know" with
the Smithereens on their album
Green Thoughts. Two years later, he recorded with
Jeff Lynne of the
Electric Light Orchestra, and rumors arose that he would join
the Traveling Wilburys after the death of
Roy Orbison. Previously, in 1975, Shannon had recorded tracks with Lynne, along with "In My Arms Again", a country song he wrote and recorded for
Warner Bros. Records, which had signed Shannon in 1984. ==Death and legacy==