Charles Westover (a.k.a. Del Shannon) is born in Coopersville, Michigan.
Del Shannon forms his first band, the Midnight Ramblers.
“Runaway,” Del Shannon’s first single, hits #1 in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Del Shannon’s version of the Beatles’ “From Me to You,” which he’d learned while touring with them in England, becomes the first Lennon-McCartney song to make the U.S. singles chart, reaching #77.
Peter & Gordon’s rendition of the Shannon-penned “I Go to Pieces” and Del Shannon’s own “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow the Sun)” both make the Top Ten.
At the height of the British Invasion, ‘Del Shannon Sings Hank Williams’, a tribute album to the late country & western legend, is released.
Del Shannon’s first outside production —"Baby, It’s You,” by Smith—becomes a Top Five smash.
‘Live in England’, recorded the previous year by Del Shannon, is released.
Tom Petty, an avowed Del Shannon fan, produces the comeback album ‘Drop Down and Get Me’. It yields a Top Forty hit in Del Shannon’s cover of Phil Phillips’ “Sea of Love.”
Del Shannon dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at home in Santa Clarita, California.
‘Rock On!’, the album that Del Shannon had been working on at the time of his death, is posthumously released.
Del Shannon is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the fourteenth annual induction dinner.
