Rock on [Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered]

Del Shannon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 10, 2007)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Import, Original recording remastered
• Label: Acadia Records
• ASIN: B000ULLSFU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,661 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Walk Away

2. Who Left Who

3. Are You Lovin' Me Too

4. Callin' Out My Name

5. I Go To Pieces

6. Lost In a Memory

7. I Got You

8. What Kind Of a Fool Do You Think I Am?

9. When I Had You

10. Let's Dance

11. Hot Love

12. One Woman Man

13. Nobody's Business

14. You Don't Know What You've Got (Until You Lose It)

15. Songwriter

Editorial Reviews

Originally released in 1991 ROCK ON proved to be one of DEL SHANNON'S greatest sellers and sadly the last album he made before his untimely death. Produced by JEFF LYNNE (ELO/TRAVELING WILBURYS) who also plays on the album with fellow WILBURY TOM PETTY. There was a strong rumour at the time that Shannon was due to replace the late Roy Orbison in the TRAVELING WILBURYS. We have re mastered this album from original tapes and added a number of bonus tracks including "Songwriter", a cassette demo and the very last song DEL ever recorded.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rock On, Del !!, March 8, 2003

By 

Kevin B. Hovis "Sir Kevin" (Canton, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rock on (Audio CD)

Del Shannon is one of the most underrated artists of rock n' roll in the 20th century. I happened to notice this album,"Rock On" in a cutout bin a couple years after Del committed suicide with a gun due to a deep depression and under the influence of prescription drugs. I am sure there are many people like him who have to deal with this.

Before he died, he left this album for Jeff Lynne (of ELO and, another underrated act), Tom Petty and Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers) to finish producing. Their voices as well as Mike's solid guitar work help make this a great album which also features beautiful slide guitar by another soul who just left us a year ago, George Harrison. Jeff Lynne also helped produce George's last 2 albums,"Brainwashed"and "Cloud Nine". All of the songs are good but some are great. WALK AWAY, and a new version of I GO TO PIECES(a song that Shannon wrote for Peter and Gordon who also covered songs written by Lennon/McCartney as well in the mid 1960's).

Del was the first person to have a hit covering the Beatles in the USA with "From Me To You". When his version came out in the middle of '63, the Beatles were pretty much unknown in the USA and the Lennon/McCartney song was given a big boost by Del.

Sadly, Del was pretty much considered an oldies act by the 80's. He did have a minor US hit in 1980 with his excellent version of Phil Phillips SEA OF LOVE(aided for the first time again by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) and he had a hit in Australia of all places with the Divinyls(Yes, that Aussie group famous for the orgasmic 1990 rock song, I TOUCH MYSELF) in 1985. However, people in America had a short attention span and the most played song of Del's in the 80's was Del's new version of his signature song, RUNAWAY, that he rerecorded for NBC's series, "Crime Story".

By the time he died, his story was a tragic sidenote but Del left one final and optimistic piece for his fans but "Rock On" should have been at least top 10 in the USA.

Oh well, if you dig this music, go back and get almost any album that Del put out. All had his passion. He recorded a traditional country homage album to that grandfather of rock 'n' roll, Hank Williams, called appropriately enough "Sings Hank Williams. He also worked on a couple albums in England produced by Andrew Loog Oldham (producer of "The Rolling Stones" among others. In the 70's, he did a trio of studio songs and a live album with "The Electric Light Orchestra"(and band shamefully ignored by the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame) as his backing band. If any of this appeals to you, you will not be disappointed by "Rock On" or for that matter almost any other any album he made.

He was posthumously inducted into the Rock 'n'Roll Hall of Fame a few years back (2000 I think). You can rest assured that Del is creating beautiful music in Heaven with the likes of George Harrison, John Lennon, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley and, yes, Hank Williams Sr. Rock On. Del!!!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly Brilliant, June 9, 2008

By 

Gianmarco Manzione (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rock on (Audio CD)

By the time Del Shannon took his own life on February 8th, 1990, he had nearly completed this record with Jeff Lynne in the wake of Lynne's monumental success producing The Traveling Wilburys' debut and Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever" album. Shannon was no stranger to success himself--his hit single "Runaway," the song he would sing for the rest of his life, sold at a clip of 80,000 copies a day back in 1961--but, as with so many pop stars of Shannon's era, the world with its ever-diminishing attention span quickly moved on to the next fad and the next (prog rock, punk, disco, new wave--none of them exactly suited to the quivering falsetto of a country rock has been.) Shannon's response was not an unusual one: he drank. A lot. Such cruel reversals of fortune are not easy on anybody, but for a former truck driver who worked his way out of a furniture factory and into the big time on nothing but raw talent and a song he wrote while working at a carpet store, it had to be an especially difficult wound to his pride.

Even more tragic was the quality of the music he'd been brewing with Lynne in these sessions, from which this posthumous release, poignantly titled Rock On!, emerged--an album that went on to become one of Shannon's best-selling records. There was something about Lynne's signature pop sound and the enduring miracle of Del Shannon's voice that culminated in some of the finest music the man had ever made--tracks like "What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am" or "Walk Away" restored Shannon to the throne of his forgotten legacy, one that Richard Cromelin described as "haunting vignettes of heartbreak and restlessness [that] contain something of a cosmic undercurrent which has the protagonist tragically doomed to a bleak, shadowy struggle." How was anyone to know, though, that all along he was singing about himself, that somewhere amid all the gloss and syrup of early '60s pop production stood a man alone with demons he could only face in front of thousands of fans? Maybe that's what Joan Baez meant when she said that "the easiest relationship is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one."

That's both the mystery and tragedy of Shannon's premature demise. He took his own life just as it seemed he was catching on again. Tom Petty, a friend of Shannon's who infuriated him by stealing the equally doomed Howie Epstein from Shannon's band when Ron Blair quit The Heartbreakers in 1976, reconciled enough with him to produce his surprisingly good "Drop Down and Get Me" LP in 1982, which featured Shannon backed by Petty's Heartbreakers ("His voice is like a siren," Mike Campbell would say.) The album wasn't exactly a commercial success, but it earned Shannon a minor hit with his cover of Phil Phillips's "Sea of Love," reawakening critics to the flame of a talent that still burned as brightly as ever. Shannon scored another hit a few years later when Michael Mann chose "Runaway" as the theme song for his short-lived TV drama "Crime Story" in 1986. And it was yet another irony in Shannon's life that another legend who died in the midst of a stunning resurgence--Roy Orbison--left a spot open for Shannon on the next Traveling Wilburys album, a no-brainer given Shannon's established relationship with Petty and Lynne.

Though Shannon had reportedly quit the bottle years before when he returned from a creative oblivion to pair with Petty for "Drop Down and Get Me," no amount of resurgent glory was powerful enough to push away his pain. "Rock On!" is not only a great album; it is a tragic document of self-destructive genius--something American culture is, unfortunately, all too familiar with.

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shannon's last release with additional songs, November 17, 2007

By 

Music Loft "50's 60's fan" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rock on (Audio CD)

Originally released in 1991 with the first 10 tracks after Shannon's death, the cd showed Del Shannon's voice and writing skills were in fine form. "Walk Away", written by Shannon, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne is the most commercial of the songs complete with his falsetto. "Who Left Who" is a powerful breakup ballad that could be sung by LeAnne Rimes or George Jones. Of the first tracks listed, only "What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am" wasn't written by Shannon. He covered the Tams version (later a hit by Bill Deal and the Rondells) and does it well. His updated version of "I Go To Pieces",the Peter and Gordon hit which was written by Shannon, is a winner as is the pop rock uptempo "Are You Loving Me Too".

This re-issue has 5 additions tracks: "Hot Love", "One Woman Man", "Nobody's Business", "You Don't Know What You've Got (Until You Lose It)", and "Songwriter". Of these 5 tracks all were written by Shannon except for "You Don't Know What You've Got", the sixties Ral Donner hit. "Hot Love"and "One Woman Man" are both terrific songs as is his rendition of the Ral Donner hit. A special mention has to be made of the last track, "Songwriter". It is voice only of Del Shannon singing and composing into a home recorder. While it has tape stops where he starts over, it shows a songwriter at work creating a song. The sad part is when he sings, "songwriter, give me back my life".