Del Shannon's "Runaway" is the third bone fide classic covered so far and we've only just entered spring. But while "Apache" is a spectacular display of guitar dynamics (along with some production brilliance) and "Blue Moon" an irresistible slice of nonsensical hooks and scatting, "Runaway" is a much more conventional pop outing, albeit one with shifts in style while also being a perfect spotlight for Shannon's magnificent vocal range.
"Runaway" begins by deceiving the listener into thinking that it's a country number — Shannon (under the guise of Charles Johnson; his real name was less rock 'n' roll/more professorial Charles Weedon Westover) had been in a C&W group in his native Michigan prior to his rise to fame — before quickly settling into a brisk R&B groove with a seemingly out of place twinkling piano. Things proceed normally until just after a first pass of the chorus when the song's most distinctive element arrives in the form of what keyboardist, co-writer and inventor Max Crook had dubbed his Musitron, a proto-synthesizer set to a pitch that could just about cut glass. Until now simply a catchy pop song, this clavioline-type instrument lifts it into a whole other level - a good song suddenly becoming great.
The overall experience of listening to "Runaway" for the first time is startling but it manages to hold up over repeated plays as well. The after-effects of the space-age sound of the Musitron is such that the opening with the county guitar I already eluded to makes it seem like you've put on the wrong song. Seldom has a piece of music started one way only to end up in such a radically different place. Meanwhile, Shannon's voice seems to get better and better the more you listen to him. From guttural all the way to hitting a sweet falsetto ("Why-why-why-why-why"), Shannon proves why he was one of the great, if sadly overlooked, vocalists of his era.
There is one tiny problem though. At two minutes and fifteen seconds, "Runaway" ends a little too abruptly and it feels as if another sixty to ninety minutes could have been tacked on with perhaps another Musitron solo or, better yet, some other out there instrument or technique. I'm all for brevity and would much rather a pop song that leaves me wanting more than one that can't bring itself to wrap up but there's a nagging feeling here that there's unfinished business. The coming wave of album orientated rock would have found a simple solution; release this short version as a single and save the full, five or six minute epic for the LP.
The pop/rock boom of the mid-sixties that was ushered in by The Beatles resulted in a great deal of futuristic singles — The Byrds' "Eight Miles High", The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations", the Fab Four themselves with their peerless run of hits — but it wasn't something that just started off with Ed Sullivan introducing those "youngsters from Liverpool". Rather, the groundwork was being laid by others while the future superstars were still a struggling beat group playing the Cavern and the Hamburg dive bars. The Tornados with the extraordinary "Telstar" (we'll be getting to it in a few weeks) was a huge step forward but the sound of Sputnik orbiting the Earth was something that Shannon and his crew were already mining in the first half of '61. Psychedelic and progressive rock, meet your Rosetta Stone.
Score: 9
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Wait...What???
Though I write about pop, I'm also quite the jazz fan. Trouble is, I don't know anything about it so my attempts to review the genre have been laughably bad. While it's nice to see traces of some of the jazz greats pop up, I'd rather, say, Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus or Thelonious Monk than Cannonball Adderley. I know a lot of budding alto sax players cite him as an influence but I've never been crazy about him listening to him. (Though generally considered to be a jazz classic, his 1958 album Somethin' Else makes for a pleasant listen but nowhere near as good as the high placings on many Greatest Jazz Albums of All-Time lists would have you believe) Luckily, Adderley's often dull and methodical style of playing is covered up by bandmates on surprise minor CHUM hit "African Waltz". With the likes of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman taking the jazz solo to new and unexplored (and, frankly, often unlistenable) heights, this frenetic group performance would have made for a refreshing change of pace. Still, it's quite a racket without a trace of subtlety. I don't know if anyone asked for a spy thriller theme song as played by gathering of tribal elders but I'm glad it's something they embarked upon. I just won't be listening to it as often as something like "Runaway".
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