Why Del Shannon?
What is so special about Del Shannon, that it drew my attention to him? Part of it is that he’s not very well known on the mainland of Europe. Actually my interest in his work started in the same way as with Roy Orbison. I clearly recall the days when I was working in a metalworking company. Indoors it was quite noisy there, most of the times to such a degree that one needed to wear earplugs. However, there was still a radio on the shop floor that sometimes was audible when the noise subsided temporarily. One day this happened between 12.00 and 14.00 hours, right at the time that a program was aired on Dutch Radio 2, hosted by Frits Spits. Without any disrespect, you can call Spits a “dinosaur” of Dutch radio. This deejay was and still is on the radio for as long as I can remember, that is over thirty years at least. In his program “the album of the week” was a regular item. That time it was Rock On by Del Shannon. The songs hit a string inside me that couldn’t be silenced afterwards,
