The Dublin Sessions

Last updated
The Dublin Sessions
The Dublin Sessions.JPG
Studio album by
ReleasedJuly 7, 2017
Recorded1977
StudioIreland's Dublin Sound Studios Dublin, Ireland
Genre
Length37:55
Label RockBeat Records
Del Shannon chronology
Home and Away
(2006)
The Dublin Sessions
(2017)

The Dublin Sessions is a posthumous album by American musician Del Shannon which was released on July 7, 2017. He recorded this previously unreleased album in 1977 with his UK-based touring band called Smackee at Ireland's Dublin Sound Studios and was long believed lost. [1]

Contents

Background

Shannon shopped around this 1977 material with no success. By the time he got out of rehab and started working with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on what would become the Petty-produced Drop Down and Get Me, the Dublin material “just sort of fell into the rear-view mirror.” [2] Shannon originally mixed and then remixed the tracks at Cherokee Studios in California but opted to never release them. [1]

because this collection of seven originals (two penned with cowriters) and four covers offers more evidence that Shannon was one of early rock’s great vocalists. Granted, there are some ostensible attempts here to update and diversify his sound that don’t quite work. But those tracks are worth hearing for the vocals, and besides, they’re outnumbered by the album’s highlights, which include the hard-rocking “One Track Mind,” the mid-tempo “Amanda,” and the ballad, “Till I Found You” as well as all four of the well-chosen covers: Ketty Lester’s “Love Letters,” Los Bravos’s “Black Is Black,” Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again,” and Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.” [2]

Critical reception

Cleveland.com wrote: "Sometimes, when a record label unearths material from the vaults, one listen tells you why it stayed unreleased for so long. Other times, the tracks are good enough to make you wonder how they could have remained in the can until now. [3]

Track listing

Side one

All tracks are written by Del Shannon, except where noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Best Days of My Life" 3:28
2."Love Letters" Edward Heyman, Victor Young 3:00
3."Till I Found You" 2:25
4."Raylene" 4:14
5."One Track Mind" 3:22
6."Black Is Black"Michelle Grainger, Tony Hayes, Steve Wadey3:07

Side two

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Oh, Pretty Woman" Roy Orbison, Bill Dees 3:31
2."Another Lonely Night" 4:06
3."Amanda"Stuart Cowell, Del Shannon3:57
4."Love Don't Come Easy" Max Crook, Del Shannon3:24
5."Today I Started Loving You Again" Merle Haggard, Bonnie Owens 2:21

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Dublin Sessions". theseconddisc.com. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  2. 1 2 "Del Does Dublin". nodepression.com. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  3. "Del Shannon - The Dublin Sessions Album Reviews,". cleveland.com. Retrieved 2023-12-10.