Sunday morning coming down

Dion — Dion DiMucci — turns 84 on Tuesday. Three years ago he released a new set of recordings titled Blues With Friends. The friends ranged from Jeff Beck and Joe Bonamassa to Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen. I thought Dion sounded like an artist in his prime. When I saw that the disc was going to be released in 2020 it served as the occasion for a special life in lockdown edition of this series. This morning I want to take the liberty of revisiting and revising my retrospective on a phenomenal artist just for the sheer pleasure of the thing. There are surprises in store.

Dion’s 2020 recording gave Alan Paul something of the same idea. He seized on the recording to profile Dion for the Wall Street Journal in “Dion still sings of America.” Richie Unterberger provides the brief Allmusic overview of Dion’s career here.

Dion’s career is of such length and breadth that I can do no more than touch on a few of its moments here this morning. Dion’s love of the blues brought me back to him nearly 20 years ago. This post leans on his most recent work for that reason. Dion gravitates to the blues. Just about everything he touches turns to blues one way or another. Although we may not have followed him much since we were teenagers, I think the music he has made since is music for adults.

Paul’s Wall Street Journal profile takes us back to Dion on tour at age 18:

In 1959, Dion was the fourth headliner on tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (the “Big Bopper”); Dion opted out of the plane ride that crashed and killed the other three because he couldn’t justify the ticket’s cost of $36, the very amount that his parents paid in rent on their Bronx apartment.

He was 18 when he returned home after “the day the music died.” Nobody much wanted to talk about it. “There were no grief counselors in the Bronx in 1959,” says Dion. “I lived by instinct, though a priest did comfort me by saying that relationships don’t end, that my friends were closer to the beatific vision and I should ask them to say a prayer for me. But the first way I dealt with that pain is I became a heroin addict.”

The addiction threw a monkey wrench into Dion’s career. Paul added this Sunday morning element to Dion’s story:

In 1968, shaken by the death by overdose of his fellow teen sensation Frankie Lymon, Dion completely reimagined his life. “I got on my knees and said a prayer, and I haven’t had a drug or a drink since—52 years,” he says. “Unbelievable. I just changed, and the Thomas Aquinas and Merton pieces fit together. It went from my head to my heart. I had a conversion experience, and I saw myself as a child of God instead of a rock star.”

Dion’s “Runaround Sue” may be the first single I ever bought. It was a number 1 hit in 1961. Dion wrote the song with Ernie Maresca. Reading around, I see that Dion explains:

I recorded “Runaround Sue” with The Del-Satins and black musicians from the Apollo theater, Buddy Lucas on sax, Sticks Evans on drums, Panama Francis on percussion, Teacho Wilshire on piano, Milt Hinton on bass, and Mickey “Guitar” Baker. ~ When Hollywood filmed [it] they use[d] all white actors playing musicians behind me, knowing the film wouldn’t get played in the South at that time [if they they didn’t do that].

Here’s his story, sad but (allegedly) true.

Dion was on his own road. Here is “The Road I’m On (Gloria)” from 1964, written by Dion. Columbia’s album of that title collected Dion’s recordings for the label over the years 1962-1966. It is suffused with the blues. Dion himself wrote “The Road I’m On,” which doesn’t exactly fit the template I’m describing. I place it here just to provide some idea of the range of his work. He is a phenomenal artist.

Dion also covered Woody Guthrie’s “900 Miles.” Borrowing the title of the classic Chess albums, I think this is the real folk blues.

Even the rock and doo wop songs on The Road I’m On tend toward the blues with Dion’s vocal shadings. Yet he also returns to the blues again and again. Here is Dion’s cover of the Lightnin’ Hopkins number “Katie Mae.” Listening to The Road I’m On in its entirety yesterday, I found this among the most striking tracks, but don’t miss “A Sunday Kind of Love” or “You Can’t Catch Me” or “You Can’t Judge a Book By the Cover.” It’s a terrific collection.

Dion recorded Kickin’ Child with producer Tom Wilson at Columbia in 1965, but Columbia didn’t see fit to release it. It sat in the can until 2017. It’s a great album, now with the tag The Lost Album 1965. I declared it the best album of 2017. I can’t imagine how Dion must have felt when Columbia locked it away. “Two Ton Feather” is a highlight.

“Abraham, Martin and John” marked the annus horribilis of 1968. The song was written by one Dick Holler and it wasn’t Dion’s idea to record the song, but it was Dion who put the song over, big time.

Dion looked back on his addictions in “Your Own Back Yard.” It’s one of my three favorite message songs. The others are “What the World Needs Now” and “Get Together.” Anyway, here’s his story, sad but true.

Dion’s first hits were of course with the Belmonts. This was doo wop, Bronx style. Dion and the Belmonts reunited for a show in 1972. In case you thought they had lost it, they recreated doo wop heaven right from the opening numbers.

“Written on the Subway Wall/Little Star” turned up in 1989 on Dion’s album on Arista. It sounds like Mark Knopfler on the guitar fills and it’s definitely Paul Simon on the “Little Star” break. Paul Simon was an old fan, as was Bob Dylan. Simon and Dylan performed Dion’s “The Wanderer” together on their 1999 tour. You can look it up — in Robert Hilburn’s biography of Simon.

I returned to Dion with 2005’s Bronx in Blue. I love the disc from beginning to end. “You Better Watch Yourself” sounds like a follow-up to “Your Own Back Yard.” Dion personalized it with his own additions to the lyrics, but it goes back to Lightin’ Hopkins. Dion has recorded it several times, never better than this version with himself on guitar.

Dion has also recorded a variety of songs professing his faith. The title track of 2007’s Son of Skip James comes at it from a different direction.

Dion paid tribute to the era in which he came of age in 2008’s Heroes: Giants of Early Guitar Rock. Bobby “Crow” Richardson helped out on the lead guitar. This is Dion’s cover of “Come On, Let’s Go” by Ritchie Valens.

Dion released Tank Full of Blues in 2011. I have lifted “Ride’s Blues (for Robert Johnson)” from that set. Dion backs himself on the haunting guitar parts. As I say, this is music for adults.

Paul Simon joined Dion on the title track of 2016’s New York Is My Home.

Dion’s 2020 disc was Blues With Friends. Dion sent the recordings to Bob Dylan and invited him to write the liner notes. Dylan obliged. He commented, among other things: “Dion knows how to sing, and he knows just the right way to craft these songs, these blues songs. He’s got some friends here to help him out and they are true luminaries. But in the end, it’s Dion by himself alone, and that masterful voice of his that will keep you returning to share Blues song with him.” That’s what I’m saying.

Van Morrison and Joe Louis Walker are Dion’s friends on “I Got Nothin’.” Dion and Van trade phrases like Sam and Dave. If I have it right, this is a come on in the form of a blues lament.

“Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)” is at the heart of the 2020 disc. Paul Simon rejoined him on this one. In one of the interviews for the album Dion observed that it is “a song of brotherhood and about Sam Cooke’s understanding and compassion for me when we did that tour in 1962 with Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and Little Willie John.” This is Dion.

Stomping Ground (2021) is Dion’s most recent disc. As on Blues With Friends, he invited a number of prominent musicians to collaborate with him. Let’s sign off with Rickie Lee Jones and Wayne Hood lending a hand on the closing number, Dion’s “I’ve Been Watching You” (written with Mike Aquilina). “I’ve seen miracles all around.”