Del Shannon – "Runaway" (1961)

As I walk along

I wonder what went wrong

The late Dennis Farina spent 18 years with the Chicago Police Department’s burglary division before becoming an actor.

In 1981, director Michael Mann hired Farina as a police consultant for his heist film, Thief.  Mann also gave him a small role in that movie.

For the next several years, Farina kept his day job but moonlighted as an actor.  He left the police force after Mann gave him a prominent role in his 1986 movie, Manhunter. 

Michael Mann and Dennis Farina in 2012

Manhunter was the first Hannibal Lector movie, but in that film Dr. Lector was portrayed by Brian Cox, not Anthony Hopkins. 

Hopkins played “Hannibal the Cannibal” in Silence of the Lambs, which is a great movie, but isn’t as good as Manhunter.  (If you don’t believe me, turn the sound on your computer all the way up and then click here to watch the climactic scene of Manhunter.)

I saw Manhunter on October 15, 1986.  I know that because my twin daughters were born the next day.

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For me, Michael Mann’s Miami Vice was must-see television.  But Crime Story, another series produced by Mann, may have been even better.  

Crime Story, which starred Dennis Farina, originally aired immediately after Miami Vice on Friday nights.  But NBC execs decided to move it to Tuesday nights opposite the very popular Cybill Shepherd-Bruce Willis show, Moonlighting, and its ratings plummeted.  

Dennis Farina in “Crime Story”

The network ended up cancelling Crime Story after only two seasons, but the show made its mark as the first non-episodic TV crime series.  Other shows with season-long story arcs (like The Sopranos) owe a debt to Crime Story. 

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Crime Story had an amazing number of first-rate guest stars given that the show aired for only two seasons.  Julia Roberts’ first TV role was on Crime Story.  Other notables who appeared on the show included Kevin Spacey, Christian Slater, Pam Grier, Stanley Tucci, David Caruso, Deborah Harry (who didn’t sing), Gary Sinise, Ving Rhames, Michael J. Pollard, Eric Bogosian, Michael Madsen, Lorraine Bracco, and jazz legends Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon.  

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The opening credit sequence for Crime Story featured Del Shannon’s 1961 hit, “Runaway.”

Del Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1934.  After getting out of the army, he returned to Michigan and became the rhythm guitarist in a Battle Creek-based group called The Moonlight Ramblers.

Westover became the band’s singer when the original vocalist was fired for drunkenness.  He started calling himself Charlie Johnson and changed the band’s name to the Big Little Show Band – which may be the worst band name ever.  Charlie Johnson became Del Shannon in 1960 after signing a record deal. 

“Runaway” was Shannon’s first single, and it went all the way to #1.  His follow-up release (“Hats Off to Larry”) was a top ten hit, as was “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow the Sun).”

In 1963, Shannon became the first American to record a Beatles song.  His cover of “From Me to You” charted in the U.S. before the Beatles’ version did.

Shannon’s post-British Invasion records didn’t sell, so he became a producer.  In 1969, he discovered the band Smith and arranged their #5 hit “Baby, It's You,” a cover of a Burt Bacharach song that had previously been recorded by the Shirelles and the Beatles.  

Smith’s version of that song PONES the other versions, thanks mainly to the stunning vocals by the group’s lead singer, Gayle McCormick, who died in 2016 after a long battle with cancer.  

Shannon overcame a substance abuse problem but suffered from depression.  He killed himself with a .22 rifle in 1990 – just a few days after performing at a memorial concert for Buddy Holly.  

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The two most notable elements of “Runaway” are Shannon’s voice and Max Crook’s keyboard solo – which was played on a modified clavioline of Crook’s own invention, which he called a Musitron.

Click here to learn more about the clavioline, which preceded the Moog synthesizer.

Click here to view the opening credit sequence of Crime Story, which features a truncated version of “Runaway.”

Click here to listen to “Runaway” in its entirety.

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: