Del Shannon: Drop Down And Get Me : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

First, Bruce Springsteen and Miami Steve Van Zandt helped turn Gary U.S. Bonds into a present-tense treasure. Now Tom Petty's done it with Del Shannon, paying pop music's collective debt to the man with a production job that instinctively grasps the quick of Shannon's gifts.

Twenty-odd years after his first hit, Del Shannon is still a rock & roll Grandma Moses – a classic, primitive realist. Everything about Drop Down and Get Me is plain and simple, in the best sense of the words. Almost as good as any of his yesteryear gems, "Life without You" shows exactly what's right about this record. It's an Eighties prototype of a radio heartbreak: a million mythic beaches and bars, a million threadbare realities. Petty and the Heartbreakers make the melody surge and smolder, providing a perfect instrumental environment for Shannon's clear baritone and phenomenal lack of vocal mannerisms.

The remaining Shannon originals on side one are just as powerful. Side two suffers a bit, but no track on the LP is weak. Even the cover versions (Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love," Don Everly's "Maybe Tomorrow," the Rolling Stones' "Out of Time") hold up well. Del Shannon may not be a major artist, but this kind of honesty is a major accomplishment.