The album may or may not be obsolete, but the fact remains: Listeners have long obsessed over individual songs. The Single File is The A.V. Club’s look at the deep cuts, detours, experiments, and ...

Enchanted by Del Shannon's "Runaway" as a boy, Tom Petty later paid the ultimate tribute to this No. 1 single and its singer: He saluted the tune in his own 1989 hit song, "Runnin' Down a Dream." ...

Rock ‘n’ roll was music for teenagers. That’s what was magic about it. The best of those ’50s and early ’60s singles are the ones that treat teenage concerns — life-altering crushes, soul-obliterating ...

A simple minor chord strummed on the guitar sets the mood for the 1961 smash hit “Runaway.” The tinkling piano, upright bass, drums, and baritone saxophone back the simple figure. Del Shannon would go ...

Perhaps you remember Del Shannon. He's the guy who sang "Runaway" ("and I wonder where she will stay, my little runaway, my run-run-run-run-runaway..."), which was a No. 1 hit in 1961 and was later ...

Del Shannon was a famous singer known for his 1961 hit “Runaway,” which became a chart-topper in the U.S. and the U.K. He stood out for his falsetto voice and emotional lyrics. Shannon had a string of ...

Charles Westover was a military veteran making ends meet as a carpet salesman in Battle Creek while moonlighting as a musician at the city's Hi-Lo Club at the Gilbert Hotel. It was 1960, and Westover ...

I got caught in the rain on a Saturday morning while walking on Warwick Boulevard. While standing, drenched, in the express line at the supermarket, I perused the Daily Press. In the lower left corner ...

Charles Westover might have been from Grand Rapids. But Del Shannon, the rock and roll legend, was "born" in Battle Creek. Del Shannon, Westover's stage name, came to be when he wrote and performed ...

If you’re not in the music business, you probably don’t know who Max Crook is. But you might know of his work. In the early 1960s, crooner Del Shannon released the ethereal hit “Runaway,” which went ...

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Rock ‘n’ roll ...