Home & Away: The Complete Recordings... : Del Shannon : Review : Rolling Stone

In 1961, Michigan-born Del Shannon shot to Number One with his first single, "Runaway," a galloping confection of gritty vocal hurt, searing falsetto and the alien-organ squeal of a Musitron, an early synthesizer played by Shannon's co-writer Max Crook. Shannon never made it back to the top, but he never stopped trying, and the first third of this wonderful box set thoroughly documents his attempts to match the magic of his debut: in the Top Twenty follow-ups "Hats Off to Larry" and "Little Town Flirt" as well as in the charming desperation of "The Swiss Maid."

Unlike many of his early rock & roll peers, Shannon did not fear the future, even when the hits stopped coming. His punchy 1963 version of "From Me to You" was the first U.S. cover of a Beatles song. Home and Away also includes the whole of Shannon's 1967 pop-psych session in London with Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham and half of the future Led Zeppelin (guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones) -- followed nine months later by an acid-swamp-rock date in L.A. with Dr. John at the ivories.

After a modest mid-Eighties comeback, with Tom Petty's help, Shannon finally surrendered to frustration, taking his own life in 1990. Yet the Shannon here is no struggling oldies act but the best kind of rocker: a singer-songwriter with a great formula and a searching spirit. He never sounds less than a star.