Fact #15137
When:
Short story:
Del Shannon arrives at Bell Sound Studios, 237 West 54th St, New York City, USA, to record his latest composition, Runaway.
Full article:
Harry Balk (producer) : I loved that organ of Max's. To be honest, I didn't care much for Del's voice, but I really wanted to do something with Max Crook and that organ!
Max Crook (keyboardist on Runaway) : I've got suitcases. I've got a secret black box. I've got the Musitron, gadgets, and gizmos. Gizmos meaning contact microphones, mechanical volume control vibrators, pedals, and other effects. We get into the studio, and they had open mikes already strategically placed. That's not what I wanted, and I immediately crawled under the piano.
I then started setting up all of these little boxes. Needless to say, the entire studio came to a halt. Everyone came out of the control booth and gathered around me to scope what I was doing. They were maybe hoping to pick up a trick. But in those days, I had all of my equipment camouflaged, because I didn't want anyone to steal my ideas.
I hooked up a box that had a hole on the top. What that did was control slap echo. I arranged it myself with a garden spring, and when I played a note on the keyboard, it would fade out : 'wap, wap, wap, wap.' I could control the speed and amount of feedback. It wasn't reverb, it was true echo.
Johnny Beinstock : In 1961 I was running Big Top Records, based in the Brill Building in New York. I was present at the session when Del Shannon recorded Runaway and Jody.
Del was a nice boy, and a talented boy, but he couldn't hit that top note during Runaway. We had him do it over and over, but he was always flat and it spoiled one of the most important parts of the record.
After Del had gone home, we went over to the editing studio and decided to see if there was anything we could do to make that top note sound right. In the end we speeded the whole thing up by ten seconds, which brought the top note out sounding good. It means that the rest of the track seems a little sharp, but that really didn't matter so much.
Harry Balk (producer) : We finally got Del on key, and it sounded great, but it didn't sound like Del. We mixed it anyhow, and it came out wonderful.
Johnny Beinstock : Another interesting part of the record was that instrumental break played by Maximillian Crook on an instrument he called a Musitron, which was a sort of early synthesiser. He was very protective of it and wouldn't even let us see it or see him play it. He kept it under a blanket whenever we were around.
Max Crook : I built the Musitron out of a variety of things. A clavioline was part of it, but I also threw in some resisters (too early for transistors), tubes from television sets, parts from appliances, and other such household items. That's basically what it consisted of.
The Musitron is a three-octive, monophonic keyboard with a slide on it that will allow me to play at a range of two-cycles-per-second up to beyond human hearing. Also, I can bend the notes, which was something uncommon at the time for mini-keyboards. I bent the notes in the middle of Don't Gild The Lily, Lily, the B-side of Hats Off To Larry. The Musitron is also totally tunable. I can tune it to anything.
Freddy Bienstock : At the same session we recorded a couple of instrumentals by Maximillian, one called The Snake and one called The Wanderer.
Joann Crook (wife of Max Crook) : One thing I remember clearly about the session, was that they were short of people. Harry had Shirley [Del Shannon's wife) and I stand in and clap our hands on The Snake. They wanted one more handclapper and so they literally dragged some guy off the street. Some man came in and clapped on the number with us, and I guess he was paid $40 or something to do it. I'll never forget that!
Harry Balk (producer) : When the instrumentals were finished, the session musicians, who were hard-assed musicians making big, big bucks and doing three or four sessions a day, came into the control booth and said, 'Oh man! I'll give you $15,000 for a piece of the thing!' I just smiled and said, 'No thanks. I don't need any more partners, thank you.'
Johnny Bienstock : Anyway, I used to test out records by sending them to a deejay friend of mine, Dick Bartel at W.O.L.F in Orlando, Florida, USA. I sent Del's and Max's records to him on the Friday and he called me first thing on Monday morning. He said he'd played Runaway for the first time at 2.00am on Saturday night and even then the phone lines immediately went crazy. He said "You've got a massive hit on your hands."
Remember, this was just a test pressing I'd sent out to one guy, but next thing I know, my distributor rings up and tells me that a shop in Orlando had already ordered a box of 25 records. He wanted to know if the record actually existed, because I hadn't even told him about it. He said that if that shop ordered a couple of records, you knew you had a hit. If it ordered ten, you had a big hit. And here it was ordering a full box.
Harry Balk : When I brought Ollie and Del into my office to hear it, Del had a bit of a fit. He said, 'Harry, that doesn't even sound like me!' I just remember saying, 'Yeah but Del, nobody knows what the hell you sound like!'
Johnny Beinstock : Once I'd got it pressed up and released officially, WMCA in New York played it right away, and we had an immediate orders through my distributor for
36,000 copies.
Shirley Westover (wife of Del Shannon] : They broke the record in Detroit, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the disc jockey that played it. It was almost scary. It was exciting because I remember the energy that went into the song, but at the same time it made me feel sad. I think I knew then that I would lose my husband to the music.
Harry Balk : Two weeks after its release, forget it! It's selling 50,000. It's selling 60,000. Eventually, it topped off selling 80,000 records a day. After Runaway became a million-seller, Del came in and thanked me for what I had done.
Max Crook : Runaway was a brilliant flash in a market which, at that time, began to sound alike. I think the chord sequences had a lot to do with it. Del's soaring vocals. After Runaway was a success, I can remember a lot of artists imitating and borrowing our sound and licks. As you know, Runaway was so different that it didn't resemble anything else that had been done in music before. Harry's production was totally ingenious. Bill Ramal's arrangement was excellent.
(Sources : not known)
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Max Crook (keyboardist on Runaway) : I've got suitcases. I've got a secret black box. I've got the Musitron, gadgets, and gizmos. Gizmos meaning contact microphones, mechanical volume control vibrators, pedals, and other effects. We get into the studio, and they had open mikes already strategically placed. That's not what I wanted, and I immediately crawled under the piano.
I then started setting up all of these little boxes. Needless to say, the entire studio came to a halt. Everyone came out of the control booth and gathered around me to scope what I was doing. They were maybe hoping to pick up a trick. But in those days, I had all of my equipment camouflaged, because I didn't want anyone to steal my ideas.
I hooked up a box that had a hole on the top. What that did was control slap echo. I arranged it myself with a garden spring, and when I played a note on the keyboard, it would fade out : 'wap, wap, wap, wap.' I could control the speed and amount of feedback. It wasn't reverb, it was true echo.
Johnny Beinstock : In 1961 I was running Big Top Records, based in the Brill Building in New York. I was present at the session when Del Shannon recorded Runaway and Jody.
Del was a nice boy, and a talented boy, but he couldn't hit that top note during Runaway. We had him do it over and over, but he was always flat and it spoiled one of the most important parts of the record.
After Del had gone home, we went over to the editing studio and decided to see if there was anything we could do to make that top note sound right. In the end we speeded the whole thing up by ten seconds, which brought the top note out sounding good. It means that the rest of the track seems a little sharp, but that really didn't matter so much.
Harry Balk (producer) : We finally got Del on key, and it sounded great, but it didn't sound like Del. We mixed it anyhow, and it came out wonderful.
Johnny Beinstock : Another interesting part of the record was that instrumental break played by Maximillian Crook on an instrument he called a Musitron, which was a sort of early synthesiser. He was very protective of it and wouldn't even let us see it or see him play it. He kept it under a blanket whenever we were around.
Max Crook : I built the Musitron out of a variety of things. A clavioline was part of it, but I also threw in some resisters (too early for transistors), tubes from television sets, parts from appliances, and other such household items. That's basically what it consisted of.
The Musitron is a three-octive, monophonic keyboard with a slide on it that will allow me to play at a range of two-cycles-per-second up to beyond human hearing. Also, I can bend the notes, which was something uncommon at the time for mini-keyboards. I bent the notes in the middle of Don't Gild The Lily, Lily, the B-side of Hats Off To Larry. The Musitron is also totally tunable. I can tune it to anything.
Freddy Bienstock : At the same session we recorded a couple of instrumentals by Maximillian, one called The Snake and one called The Wanderer.
Joann Crook (wife of Max Crook) : One thing I remember clearly about the session, was that they were short of people. Harry had Shirley [Del Shannon's wife) and I stand in and clap our hands on The Snake. They wanted one more handclapper and so they literally dragged some guy off the street. Some man came in and clapped on the number with us, and I guess he was paid $40 or something to do it. I'll never forget that!
Harry Balk (producer) : When the instrumentals were finished, the session musicians, who were hard-assed musicians making big, big bucks and doing three or four sessions a day, came into the control booth and said, 'Oh man! I'll give you $15,000 for a piece of the thing!' I just smiled and said, 'No thanks. I don't need any more partners, thank you.'
Johnny Bienstock : Anyway, I used to test out records by sending them to a deejay friend of mine, Dick Bartel at W.O.L.F in Orlando, Florida, USA. I sent Del's and Max's records to him on the Friday and he called me first thing on Monday morning. He said he'd played Runaway for the first time at 2.00am on Saturday night and even then the phone lines immediately went crazy. He said "You've got a massive hit on your hands."
Remember, this was just a test pressing I'd sent out to one guy, but next thing I know, my distributor rings up and tells me that a shop in Orlando had already ordered a box of 25 records. He wanted to know if the record actually existed, because I hadn't even told him about it. He said that if that shop ordered a couple of records, you knew you had a hit. If it ordered ten, you had a big hit. And here it was ordering a full box.
Harry Balk : When I brought Ollie and Del into my office to hear it, Del had a bit of a fit. He said, 'Harry, that doesn't even sound like me!' I just remember saying, 'Yeah but Del, nobody knows what the hell you sound like!'
Johnny Beinstock : Once I'd got it pressed up and released officially, WMCA in New York played it right away, and we had an immediate orders through my distributor for
36,000 copies.
Shirley Westover (wife of Del Shannon] : They broke the record in Detroit, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the disc jockey that played it. It was almost scary. It was exciting because I remember the energy that went into the song, but at the same time it made me feel sad. I think I knew then that I would lose my husband to the music.
Harry Balk : Two weeks after its release, forget it! It's selling 50,000. It's selling 60,000. Eventually, it topped off selling 80,000 records a day. After Runaway became a million-seller, Del came in and thanked me for what I had done.
Max Crook : Runaway was a brilliant flash in a market which, at that time, began to sound alike. I think the chord sequences had a lot to do with it. Del's soaring vocals. After Runaway was a success, I can remember a lot of artists imitating and borrowing our sound and licks. As you know, Runaway was so different that it didn't resemble anything else that had been done in music before. Harry's production was totally ingenious. Bill Ramal's arrangement was excellent.
(Sources : not known)