We're all about the history of rock & roll at BoomtownAmerica.com!
Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).
Join us this Wednesday as we play "The Songs Lennon & McCartney Gave Away!"
As the 50s became the 60s, many thought rock & roll was on the way out. Buddy Holly was dead. Little Richard had quit rocking to join the ministry. Elvis was in the army (and would never be quite the same after he came out). Chuck Berry was on his way to jail.
Even scarier, folk music was threatening to become young America’s favorite genre.
But there was one man who kept the flame of rock & roll burning until the Beatles brought the British Invasion to our shores. That man was Charles Weedon Westover. Perhaps you know him better by his stage name – Del Shannon!
Shannon was born in 1934 and raised in Michigan. He spent his childhood listening to country artists (as rock & roll hadn’t been invented yet) and his voice never lost that country twang. Following a stint in the army, Shannon began playing part-time in a Battle Creek, Michigan band called the Moonlight Ramblers. By 1958, the Ramblers ditched their lead singer, who seemed to have a bit of a drinking problem, and promoted Del to group leader.
By 1960, Del and his keyboard player, Max Cook, signed as songwriters and recording artists with Big Top Records. Their first couple of tunes went nowhere. Then, local DJ Ollie McLaughlin suggested they take an older song from their repertoire, rework it a bit, and add the strange organ hybrid Cook had invented and was using in their live show (named the Musitron). Of course, the song was “Runaway,” and it lived up to its title becoming a runway smash that went to #1 not just in the United States, but all over the world.
Shannon managed to follow up that success with a string of other hard rockers that also found chart success, including “Hats Off to Larry” (#5), “Little Town Flirt” (#12), “Handy Man” (#22), “Keep Searchin’” (#9), and “Stranger in Town” (#30).
On a tour of England in 1963, Shannon played on a bill with the Beatles and liked what he heard. When he returned to the States, he recorded his own version of “From Me to You.” While it only managed to make it to #77, it was the very first Lennon-McCartney tune to chart in America.
Once the Beatles started putting their own records on the U.S. charts, times got hard for a lot of American recording acts and Shannon was no different. By late 1965, the hits stopped coming.
As the hits slowed down, Shannon’s drinking increased, which certainly didn’t help his career. He found sobriety by 1978 and began putting his career back together. In 1982, Shannon recorded a cover of “Sea of Love,” a tune composer Phil Phillps took to #1 in 1959. That song, part of an album produced by Tom Petty, actually gave Shannon his first top 40 hit (reaching #33) in 16 years.
In 1986, his career got another shot in the arm when NBC launched Crime Story and used a new recording of Shannon and his signature tune, “Runaway,” as its theme song.
By 1990, Shannon was hard at work on a new album. He put himself under a lot of stress to finish the project. That led him to a doctor who prescribed the antidepressant, Prozac. Big mistake. According to Shannon’s wife, Shirley Westover, Shannon’s personality underwent a dramatic shift as soon as he started taking the medication, developing severe insomnia, extreme fatigue, and other disturbing symptoms. Just 15 days after he began taking Prozac, Shannon took his own life with no note and no goodbye. His wife swears that suicide was totally out of character for her husband.
Having worked with both Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, there were rumors that he might replace Roy Orbison in The Travelling Wilburys. Those rumors died along with Del.
Del Shannon was posthumously elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. His music is still frequently featured in movies and TV shows. Any true rock fan owes a huge debt to the guy who kept rock alive in the early 60s.
Local TV Horror Hosts – most of us had ‘em.
In New York and northern Jersey, it was Zacherley (aka John Zacherle). In L.A., it was Vampira. Milwaukee had Dr. Cadaverino and Tampa had Dr. Paul Bearer. They were the “creatures” who brought us monster movies, good and bad, usually on the weekend and ideally late at night.
For Halloween, here’s a look at some of the men and women who brought us Monster-Horror-Shock-Chiller-Nightmare-Theater!
It was an era when local stations actually did quite a bit of their own programming because the networks weren’t sending out shows around the clock. The hosts also gave the station an advantage. If they were showing a really bad movie, we didn’t care. We’d tune in anyway just to see what the host was up to.
See if your favorite is here:
Dr. Cadaverino (Milwaukee) / Dr. Shock & Bubble (Philadelphia) / Tarantula Ghoul (Portland)
Morgus the Magnificent (New Orleans) / Moona Lisa (San Diego) / Svengoolie (Chicago)
Crematia Mortem (Kansas City) / Dr. Paul Bearer (Tampa) / Sir Cecil Creep (Nashville)
Vampira (L.A.) / The Count (Seattle) / Karlos Barloff (Washington, D.C.)
Jonathan (Roanoke) / Count Graves Ghastly (Cleveland) / Sivad (Memphis)
The Vegas Vampire (Las Vegas) / Selwin (Indianapolis) / The Ghoul (Cleveland)
When we were first adopting blue jeans as our official look, many times our parents would refer to them as dungarees. Ever wonder where that name came from?
The word traces all the way back to 1600s when a rough, cheap cloth was imported to England from India. The cloth took the name from the seaside village that produced it, Dongri. The Hindi name for the cloth was dungri. In the UK, that became “dungaree.”
As the cloth was cheap to produce and very long-lasting, it became a favorite of the poor working class in the UK. The same held true when it was imported into the United States many years later. The most typical pieces of clothing made from this cloth were men’s pants and overalls. As it took two pieces of dungaree to make pants, those pants became known as dungarees – even after denim became the fabric of choice for their manufacture.
Their traditional use by poor laborers and farm field hands is another reason your parents (and your school dress code) typically frowned on blue jeans back in the day.
It’s bad enough that, as we age, our metabolism slows down, forcing us to eat less if we want to maintain our weight. But experts also say that trying to lose weight can actually cause you to gain weight in the long run.
That’s because our bodies are built to maintain whatever our current weight is. Studies show that 80% of the people who lose weight regain it all within 5 years. Additionally, as we lose weight by dieting the body will slow down our metabolism further and also release more of the chemical that tells you you’re hungry.
So how do we lose weight and keep it off? Again, the experts say to stick with whole grains, lean protein, low-fat dairy, and plenty of fruits & veggies. Also, avoid processed foods and added sugars.
Good luck!