I remember it like it was yesterday. Since (thank God) I've yet to lose a close friend or member of my immediate family, February 8, 1990 remains the saddest day of my life.

What made me feel especially sad was the feeling that I could have helped him. I'd interviewed him nine months earlier for Goldmine, but was then so wrapped up in my own existential melodrama—compounded by being days away from college graduation, with no job lined up—that I was oblivious to signs of his depression. I know now that, realistically, there was little, if anything, that I could have done, being an outsider (and a reporter at that), but the thought of having been in any kind of a position to have helped Del weighed heavily on me for some time after his death.

My guilt was compounded by the memory of having sensed at the time that Del was not long for this world. Specifically, after the interview, I had a bizarre and completely irrational feeling that I would never see him again. It didn't make sense; he was only 49 years old (or so his publicity bio stated—it later came out that he was five years older), and seemed to be in excellent health. Yet, on the morning of the following February 8, when I heard WCBS-FM's Harry Harrison back-announcing "Runaway," saying, "Born Charles Westover in Coopersville, Michigan . . ." I froze. I knew he wasn't just giving the listener extra bits of trivia, as the CBS-FM DJs often do. Something terrible had happened.

Another of my regrets was not having written up my interview with Del before his death. It finally appeared in Goldmine in the spring of 1990. I wish I still had it on my computer so I could share it with you. Instead, I'll excerpt my liner notes to the CD This Is . . . Del Shannon, which includes quotes from the interview. These excerpts are from my own manuscript, so they're slightly different from the final edit:

When I met Del Shannon, nine months before his death, he had a childlike innocence unlike anyone I'd ever seen. It was backstage at an oldies show. While his contemporaries on the bill were all jaded to various degrees, Del's eyes sparkled brightly. When he took the stage, his whole body was infused with the youthful brio of one for whom rock was a genuine means of expression. In other words, he sure as heck wasn't just going through the motions.

Yes, Del was sensitive, but not just in the "sensitive artist" sense. He reached out to friends and strangers alike, taking a genuine interest in their well-being. But the flip side of sensitivity is vulnerability, something he knew only too well.

The feelings of loneliness and isolation in his songs were real. However, as he noted to me, he didn't compose them through a veil of tears. "When I wrote 'I Go To Pieces,' I was in a great place. I usually write when I'm in a great place. When I'm depressed, I don't usually write. So I take all of when I'm depressed and throw it into when I'm feeling good. Weird, I guess."

He was born Charles Westover on December 30, 1934 in Coopersville, Michigan. (Once he became a recording artist, he knocked five years off his age.) He began playing guitar while in his teens, honing his skills while stationed in the U.S. Army in Germany. Upon his return to Michigan, in 1959, he formed his first band, landing a residency at Battle Creek's Hi-Lo Club. One patron there claimed that he was going to be a famous wrestler—"Mark Shannon, the wrestler." Westover liked the surname and decided to use it himself. "Del" was a contraction of Coupe DeVille, a car he liked at the time.

Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin liked Del's songs and produced demos of them, which he played for Big Top label owners Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik. The pair signed Del not only to their label, but also to their management and production companies. Although their hold on Del's career would ultimately prove limiting, his tenure with them brought forth his best-known songs. The tracks on this collection are all from that period, 1961-1965.

Del's first single would be the biggest hit of his career. He never made a secret of the true subject of "Runaway." "I ran away from myself. . . . I always want to run away from A to B, and then I get to B and I wanna go back to A. I think everybody wants to run away. That's why that song seems to live on."

Aided by Max Crook on Musitron (a prehistoric synthesizer), Del wrote the song at the Hi-Lo Club one night in 1960. Onstage. As they were playing with Shannon's band, Crook hit upon a chord progression that Shannon liked. He asked Crook to keep playing it, over and over, while he worked out a melody. "Got in trouble with the club's manager, too," he recalled, "who finally came up on the stage and told us we were nuts: 'Stop playing that! What are you doing?'"

A worldwide hit, "Runaway" topped the charts for a month in both America and England in the spring of '61, catapulting Del to stardom. He and Crook quickly composed a follow-up, "Hats Off to Larry," which went Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic that summer.

During the next year and a half, Del had five singles, none of which made Billboard's Top 20, although "So Long Baby" did manage to make it up to #28. Then, in January 1963, "Little Town Flirt" brought him back into the public consciousness, peaking at #12. The song, like much of Del's material, was inspired by personal experience. His then-collaborator, Robert McKenzie, suggested the title, sparking Del's memory of a little town flirt he once knew.

. . . . While many of his contemporaries would eventually confine their recordings to remakes of their hits, Del was forever true to his muse. He always wrote from the heart, and he loved performing, whether for 1,000 or 10,000. He recalled to me, "Jeff Lynne said to me, years ago, 'Del, you seem to be lost a bit and you don't know which direction you're going in.' [But] the last time I worked with him, there was no doubt. We just sat down and we just did it. I'm not afraid to risk now at all. I don't have to follow, 'cause if it isn't successful, it's OK. It's successful to me."