Del Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. He grew up in Coopersville, a small town near Grand Rapids. In
1954, he was drafted into the Army, and while in Germany played guitar
in a band called the Cool Flames. In early 1959 Max Crook, a keyboard
player joined him and played the Musitron (his own invention of an early
synthesizer). On January 21, 1961, they recorded "Runaway",
released as a single in February 1961. It reached #1 in the Billboard
chart in April. Used as the theme song for the TV series Crime Story.
On the advice of his doctor, on January 24, Shannon began taking Prozac,
an antidepressant. Fifteen days later, he died by suicide, shooting himself
with a .22 caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California,
on February 8, 1990.
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