← Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly
Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly
Singer Dion DiMucci
00:45:51
Now that we’ve moved the Beatlology Interviews to its own feed, you might not be caught up. Thought you might like to hear one of my favourite episodes - singer Dion DiMucci is one of only five p…
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- [00:02]
Terry O'Reilly
Did you know that if you subscribe to our But Wait, There's More option, you get a bonus story in every episode of under the Influence. But Wait, there's more. For the price of a cup of coffee every month, you get early access so you hear every episode a full week before everybody else. Plus you enjoy that episode ad free. Tsk tsk. And by subscribing, you support our podcast. Just go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe to under the Influences. But wait, there's more.
- [00:40]
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- [01:22]
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- [01:52]
McDonald's
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- [02:25]
Terry O'Reilly
Hello everybody. As you may recall, you've heard a few Beetleology interviews in the under the Influence feed. Well, we're happy to say they have become so popular we have moved all the Beetleology episodes over to its own podcast feed. And you can find them just by searching beatleology interviews. But here's one of my favorite interviews. I talked to Dion. He had big hits with songs like the Wanderer and Ruby Baby in the late 50s and early 60s. He was also on that fateful tour with Buddy Hawley in 1959 and was supposed to be on that plane that day. Dion is also one of only five people still alive who were featured on the COVID of the Sgt. Pepper album. And that's why I wanted to talk to him. Deon is a very interesting guy. Here's that interview. This is an apostrophe podcast production.
- [03:37]
Dion DiMucci
Beetleology.
- [03:47]
Terry O'Reilly
Dion DiMucci holds a special place in the pantheon of rock and roll. He is a member of the first generation of rock stars, with his first big hit coming in 1957 with Dion and the Belmonts. Since then he has released over 440 albums with 11 top 10 hits and 7 chart topping blues albums. Dion was also supposed to be on the flight with Buddy Holly that fateful night back in 1959, and he tells us that incredible story. Dion also holds another distinction. He is one of the people on the COVID of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. And he's one of only five people still with us who graced that famous album cover. Dion was born in the Bronx in 1939. He was first influenced by the records his father used to play.
- [04:49]
Dion DiMucci
Well, you know, there was no rock and roll. It was kind of like when you were 19 years old, you could sit at the table and listen to Frank Sinatra. But my father had a record player, you know, with the needle actual 78s and he played Dal Jolson and he liked Louis Prima and Burl Ives. And I liked all three of those guys. I liked Burl Ives because he had that guitar picking thing going. And Louis Prima, he was a rhythm singer. And I would consider myself a rhythm singer. You know, I'm not full out voice kind of guy. You know, that's like for pop people, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm just like all about rhythm. So Louis Prima was that for sure. He would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame if he didn't sing so many Italian songs and Al Jolson. He was at the time singing and doing stuff outside the box at the time. But I enjoyed listening to those guys.
- [06:01]
Terry O'Reilly
Interestingly, one of Dion's biggest influences was the music of Hank Williams.
- [06:07]
Dion DiMucci
Well, my parents, they were like an emotional 13 year olds. They were arguing all the time. My father never had a real job and my mother had two jobs. And so the arguments went on and on. And one day I must have been 11 years old or younger, and there was this country station coming out of Newark, New Jersey called the Don Larkin show, had gone into the army and fell in love with country music started this country music station and started playing Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. And I had, by sheer chance, you know, had this little transistor and hit on this song one day, Honky Tonk Blues. And to be honest with you, Terry, I've never been the same.
- [06:52]
Terry O'Reilly
Wow. How so?
- [06:54]
Dion DiMucci
Well, it hurled me into a place of enchantment, a place of delight, of pleasure. And I think, like, I'm not that hard to understand because my whole life has been trying to create a song to kind of transmit to you and maybe others the same feeling I got when I heard Hank Williams and then I heard Jimmy Reed. And that really did it. I wanted to maybe communicate like Hank Williams and groove like Jimmy Reed. But I use the word enchantment because I was in this whirlwind of arguments. And then I found a quiet place in the house where I could listen to these guys and maybe then get a guitar. And I started. I don't know. I just got thrown on this road when I was a preteen.
- [07:50]
Terry O'Reilly
Remarkably, Dion knew 40 Hank Williams songs by the time he was 13. In the audible version of his new book titled Rock and Roll Philosopher, Dion included a tape of himself at age 13 singing Hank Williams song Jambalaya on the Paul Whiteman talent show in 1952.
- [08:11]
Dion DiMucci
I was crazy in love with Hank Williams music, his stories. He was, like, teaching me how to live. When I got on tour with Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings was playing bass for him at the time. I got on the bus with those guys, they were amazed because I knew the back sides of the hit records, right? I'd play a song like Never Again, and they'd go, where'd you get that? I said, oh, that's the backside of Jambalaya, you know, or Cold, Cold Heart. I still know his songs till this day.
- [08:41]
Terry O'Reilly
There's a great photo in your book of you singing a Hank Williams song to Tony Bennett. And I think you're about 13 in that shot, too.
- [08:51]
Dion DiMucci
You want to know, Terry? Somebody introduced me to this agency guy, and he took me up to Tony Bennett's dressing room. Cause I was very fortunate. I was in the Bronx. It was just like a train ride away to get to Radio City Music hall where he was playing. And my parents brought me down. I met this guy. They brought me up to the dressing room, and I sang him Cold, Cold Heart. But I kid you not, in my head, Tony Bennett made a hit record out of this song, Cold Cold Heart. And in my head, I was singing it better than he. I Was like, I want to show you how to really sing it. That's what I was thinking.
- [09:29]
Terry O'Reilly
You got to love that for a 13 year old.
- [09:31]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah. What could I tell you? In my head, I thought I sounded like Hank Williams. It wasn't a bragging thing or kind of an overconfident thing. It was just like a thing of beauty. Like I wanted to show. No, this is the way it's done. Like, it's. This song is so beautiful. You have to do it this way. You know, in my mind, that's what I was thinking.
- [09:58]
Terry O'Reilly
How important Dion was radio to you in your early years?
- [10:04]
Dion DiMucci
Well, it was when I found this Don Larkin show in Newark, New Jersey. Terry. There were times I. I couldn't even concentrate in junior high school. I couldn't wait to get home because I think it ran from like 3 o' clock to 4:30 or 4 o', clock, something like that. So I would run home to just get the last 20 minutes of the show. Then one day, my landlady had a Pentron tape recorder, and I started recording the last 20 minutes of the Don Larkin show. And that's where I caught a lot of good music. And I learned a couple of chords, and then I could start fooling with the words and singing them. And it was a joy. At my age, I'm telling you, I got lost in this world. Not only was the radio that important, like at night when rock and roll came along, one of the first records I heard was OG and then I heard Lloyd Price. And then I heard, you know, Chuck Berry and Little Rich. And I was under the blankets with that transistor all night, listening to that music again. I was enthralled. And then I found this record shop on Fordham Road, which is just a little west of Fordham University. And that was about, I'd say, a little over a mile from my house, but I used to walk up to Fordham Road and I met this fellow, Lou Cecchetti, who owned the record store. And he took a liking to me. And he would call me every time a Hank Williams record came out. Say, we got a new Hank Williams record in. It's called Setting the Woods on Fire. You want to come up and hear it? And man, I'd run up to Luciachetti's cut. It was called Cousins Record Store. Then I start collecting 78s of Hank Williams, and off I went.
- [11:58]
Terry O'Reilly
When did Doo Wop come into your life? And how.
- [12:02]
Dion DiMucci
Well, I was kind of a neighborhood attraction. Cause I bought this J200 guitar, I got a little Job and used to deliver sandwiches at lunchtime. Had a bunch of quarters. I'm talking about a bunch of quarters. Because that guitar cost $325 at the time.
- [12:22]
Terry O'Reilly
Wow.
- [12:23]
Dion DiMucci
It was a guitar that you lusted after. Of course, Elvis Presley had one. He sang Teddy Bear with it. I wanted one of those guitars, and I got one. And I used to play the church dances. So this songwriter in my neighborhood, his name was Pat Noto, he said, there's this little record company that's opening up in Manhattan. The Schwartz brothers opened it. I'd like to take you down there. So he took me down to meet the Schwartz brothers. And I walked in. It was just a little room they had. You know, it wasn't a big record company. It was, you know, maybe 12 by 12 room. They had a piano and a file cabinet and table. And I sang them a couple of songs. I sang them one Carl Perkins song and one Fats Domino's song, and they went crazy. They signed me right there.
- [13:13]
Terry O'Reilly
How old were you?
- [13:14]
Dion DiMucci
I was 17. So my parents had to come down and witness the signature, you know. And they put me on this track, this existing track that they had with just a full orchestra with violins and harps. And it was called the Chosen Few. You could probably Google it. So when I finished singing with them, they wanted me to sing with this group called the Timberlanes. They sounded like they were from, oh, Oklahoma, Good morning in the morning, you know. So I said, if you want me to sing with some guys, I'll bring some guys down here. So I went up and I recruited the best of the best that I knew that were hanging out in the candy stores. That's where we'd hang out at that time. And they were from different neighborhoods. Carlo Mastrangelo and Freddie Milano. I knew Carlo Mastrangelo from the Talley's pool room. Freddie Milano from Mapes Avenue. He would sleep on the jukebox. He would just bury himself in it and keep playing songs and harmonizing. And Angelo DiLeo lived on Belmont Avenue. Also. Freddie Milano, dude, But he was an opera singer. He was taking opera lessons, but he had such a beautiful voice. So I got him and not gonna believe this. They come up to my parents home. I had a little bedroom, and we started singing I Wonder why. And I gave them some parts. I said, you sing this, you sing this. So by the time we got the parts down and started hitting that song, I felt like I was on a carousel in heaven. And we brought that song down to Lori Records. And I kid you, not the beginning of I Wonder why. I think it's as original as the beginning of Johnny B. Goode, you know, Chuck Berry playing that guitar part in the doo wop field. And we were singing four different things. It was almost like a New Orleans jazz band, just everybody playing something different and it all made sense. Carlo was singing, and I was singing the lead, the words. And Freddie was singing in a low falsetto. And Angelo was. He was way up on top doing some riffing. And we were all singing four different things.
- [15:59]
Terry O'Reilly
Wow.
- [15:59]
Dion DiMucci
And it came together. It was a defining moment in my life. Like a golden moment I will never forget. I never experienced anything like that. It was live. I was like, right in the middle of it.
- [16:11]
Terry O'Reilly
And then Dion and the Belmonts came out of that.
- [16:14]
Dion DiMucci
We went down to Lorre Records, and I was Dion. We said, let's get a name, you know, so in my mind, you look for a name. It had a hit on three criteria. It had to be good for a bowling team, a gang and a rock and roll group. I love it. You know, like the Rolling Stones. Got to be a great name, you know, But Electric Alarm Clock. What was some of those names? You know, like Strawberry Alarm Clock. Yeah, Strawberry Alarm wouldn't work for a gang. You know what I mean? Or the Wallflowers wouldn't work for a gang. I mean, great name, but you know what I'm saying? We would go through the deal. Let's name ourselves after Bird. Well, you know, they do have the Flamingos, and they do have the Oreos and the Robins. Oh, they're all taken. Let's name ourselves after a Bug. They got the Crickets. And then we started with street names, so we got Dion and the Belmonts.
- [17:10]
Terry O'Reilly
Dion and the Belmonts were an instant hit. Here they are on Dick Clark's American Bandstand show back in 1960.
- [17:19]
Dion DiMucci
That's Lloyd Price. Let me point out the American Bandstand Pole Award for the best vocal group of the year. The Photoplay magazine, on behalf of the fact that they won the Outstanding New Vocal group of 1959, this represents a gold record for a song called where or When. Here are Dion and the Belmont.
- [17:44]
Terry O'Reilly
Now, you stayed with Dionne and the Belmonts. How long before you went out on your own?
- [17:49]
Dion DiMucci
You know, we weren't together that long. We were together a year and a half. We made it very big with three songs. I Wonder why, Teenager in Love, and a song called Where O W. And then after I put where when together for the group. Because Alan Sussel, he became head of Laurie Records, and it was his favorite song, and I wanted to do it for him. It was a little out of our backyard. And after we recorded that song, the three guys that I recruited and sang in the group, Dion and the Belmonts, they wanted to do every song that way. I said, no, I just did this for Alan. I wanted to rock out a little. So it got a little contentious and we decided to go our own ways. So if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have given. Made Runaround sue and the Wanderer and Ruby Baby.
- [18:49]
Terry O'Reilly
The Wanderer is a classic and is included on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time. It was originally the B side of a single Dion put out in 1961, but DJs flipped it over and preferred the Wanderer. It would reach number two on the Billboard chart and was inducted into the Grammy hall of fame in 2017. Dion has said he never got credit for co writing it.
- [19:20]
Dion DiMucci
You know, we were young and you don't know better. At the time, I probably would have did the same thing again. But I was writing songs with Ernie Maresker, and he'd say, you take this one, because I tell you, he did a lot with it. He put a lot into that song. You know, a lot of the songs were like my ideas. But the Wanderer, I think we both got the idea. There was a guy named Jackie Burns in my neighborhood. He used to strut down the street with tattoos all over his body. He was ahead of his time, Terry, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, but Jackie was a bit different, and he had an attitude, and he deserved a song, you know what I'm saying? So we call him the Wanderer, because he definitely had girls names tattooed on his arm. Flo, Janie, Rosie.
- [20:13]
Terry O'Reilly
You said that song, Dion, was a dark song sung in a major key. I thought that was interesting.
- [20:20]
Dion DiMucci
I was at a rehearsal one time and Springsteen started talking to me about it. Bruce Springsteen said. He said, man, if everybody would grab onto that couplet in the bridge. You know, I have my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere. But what Bruce and I were saying was, if you could grab onto what that song is saying and really understand it. Because he says, I roam from town to town I go through life without a care. I'm as happy as a clown. And clowns are not usually happy with my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere. Like, for a second there, the song turns in on himself, and he's just playing women and he's going nowhere and it's not fulfilling. You know, when I sing it, it sounds like it's about a cool guy, but you know, there's a bit of both in it. But if you really look at it, he sees himself accurately for a second there and then he just keeps going on, but he doesn't know how to get out of it.
- [21:25]
Terry O'Reilly
Don't go away. We'll be right back.
- [21:33]
Billboard
Trivia Question Billboard named the album Blues.
- [21:37]
McDonald's
With friends, the number one blues album.
- [21:39]
Billboard
Of 2020. Who was the artist?
- [21:43]
McDonald's
Answer after this.
- [21:52]
Dion DiMucci
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- [22:02]
OpenPhone
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- [22:07]
Matt
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- [22:44]
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- [23:53]
Billboard
Answer Dion's album Blues with Friends was.
- [23:56]
McDonald's
Named the number one blues album of.
- [23:58]
Billboard
The year by Billboard in 2020. Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon also played with Dion on the record.
- [24:13]
Terry O'Reilly
What many people may forget is that Dion was on that fateful winter dance party tour with Buddy Holly in 1959. The acts included Buddy Holly and his band, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and Dion and the Belmonts. What was Buddy Holly like?
- [24:32]
Dion DiMucci
Well, Buddy Holly was. He was a beautiful guy, Very statuesque, very tall. Because I'm like five nine. He was like. He was taller than me, but statuesque and just very decisive. He was an attractive guy, you know, I mean, not only the way he looked, but just the way he handled himself. He was clean. He was very deliberate, very decisive. And I mean decisive. He made decisions like this. But Buddy, he was starting a publishing company, got married, he fell in love, made decision, got married to Marie Elena. He moved to New York out of his comfort zone. For sure. It would be like me moving to Texas. I guess he just wanted to start a record company. The guy was like an old soul and a young body. He was like 21, 22 at the time. And he was something to behold. You know, I kind of looked up to him, you know, what attracted me to him? His decision making, how he knew. He just knew what he wanted to do, what he heard, where he was going. He just was very clear on the path. And it was attractive to me because I was insecure. I was like, how does he do that?
- [25:55]
Terry O'Reilly
That is remarkable for someone 21, 22 to be that decisive.
- [26:00]
Dion DiMucci
He was taking flying lessons out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.
- [26:04]
Terry O'Reilly
Really?
- [26:05]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah. And he comes from Texas, so he always had a gun. He always carried a. Buddy, why do you carry a gun? Hey. He was his own security guard. He says, I carry a lot of money. So, you know.
- [26:23]
Terry O'Reilly
The 1959 winter dance party was a tour across the American Midwest. The bands traveled in a cold, uncomfortable bus. It was so cold, Buddy Holly's drummer got frostbite on his feet at one point. After the tour had performed at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the next stop was Moorhead, Minnesota. Buddy Hawley decided to charter a plane. So instead of a cold five and a half hour bus trip, the plane would get him there in 90 minutes. But the small plane only had four seats. Buddy and the pilot had two seats. And that left two more. There are a lot of stories about this fateful night. But here's the story from someone who was there. It all came down to the flip of a coin. It has been called the Day the Music Died.
- [27:19]
Dion DiMucci
Well, there's a lot of crazy stories out there, you know, I mean, when it happened, you know, you don't want to take advantage of, you know, start using it as a springboard for something. My neighborhood, you know, somebody died. It was very sacred. It was very private. It was just family, you know, you just grieved privately, I guess. But I was on tour with the guys and it was cold, you know, we were crisscrossing the Midwest, playing all these clubs out there that really were converted skating rinks and stuff. You know, there was dance halls and rock and roll. Wasn't a business. We were just starting out. We didn't even have monitors, lights or anything. You know, it was like, turn on the light, turn on the mic, you. That was it. We're lucky we had some plugs for the amplifiers. It got so crazy out there. We had like a. A little yellow. Looked like a Baptist school bus, you know what I'm saying? Like a 50s bus. It. It wasn't anything like Willie Nelson, one of these Golden Eagle jobs or something, you know. So the heater kept breaking, the bands on the fan kept breaking, and the heater and the bus broke down so many times that buddy got fed up and he wanted to get some rest and do some laundry. So when we hit Clear lake, Iowa about 5 o', clock, you know, at the Surf Ballroom, everybody ran in it, tried to take some showers and get ready for an 8 o' clock show. He went out to the airport or made a call right there at the Surf Ballroom to charter a plane. And he found out who to talk to and he chartered a. Was a one engine Beechcraft Bonanza or something like that, you know, had four seats and we got together in one dressing room. J.P. richardson, the big Bopper, Richie Valance, Buddy Holly and myself, we were like the headliners who co headlining the tour. So we got in the room and he said, listen, I charted a plane. And he tried to recruit two of the guys because he said, there's a seat for the pilot, there's a seat for me, there's two seats left and one of you guys can't fly. So what do you think if we flip a coin? I said, you know, sure. So we flipped. I end up winning the coin toss. But when he said $36, it was the amount of money my parents were arguing about back in the Bronx forever.
- [29:53]
Terry O'Reilly
The seat on the plane cost $36, which was the same amount of money his parents paid for monthly rent back in the Bronx. And money was one of the things his parents always argued about.
- [30:06]
Dion DiMucci
To me, it was like throwing away $36 for like an hour and a half. Plane Ride. I said, no, that's not going to happen. So I gave my seat to Richie. I said, take your coat, you know, because he, he was cold. He had a cold and his mother shipped him a, like a pea coat in a cardboard box. I remember him unwrapping it because he didn't even buy a coat on the road. He was like so young. He was 17. He called and had his mother buy a coat for him. That was crazy. So I think they took off that night from Dreier airfield and I think they crashed within five minutes. You know, the, the pilot, Peterson, he didn't know how to read the instruments and a storm came in and they call it scud running. If you go up in a small plane like that and you run into some bad weather, like snow or something, you, you try to fly under the clouds. You see the, the lights on the farmhouses and the street lights and car lights. You know, you fly under the clouds. But I think it was so blinding. He didn't know if he was level and if you're just a little off. It's like the same thing happened to John F. Kennedy Jr. He got disoriented and vertigo and it just took him down. I think he drove the plane right into the ground. From the investigation, you know, when they probed into that, that's what they said happened.
- [31:37]
Terry O'Reilly
How did you hear that the plane had gone down?
- [31:42]
Dion DiMucci
We were on the road when they got into that plane. We were, we were headed for Fargo, North Dakota or Moorhead, Minnesota, which was pretty close to each other. We were working up there and it was going to be an all night drive the next morning. When we got in about 10 o' clock in the morning and walked into the hotel, all the locals were watching this black and white TV and they were saying like three rock and roll stars died in a plane crash. It was unreal. It was like, it was unreal. I don't even know how to explain it, but it was unreal. You couldn't like process it, you know, I was in the back of the bus with these guys for three, two weeks trading off songs, you know, listening to Richie sing these Barrios songs, you know, he was Chicano listening to the Big Bopper, who was a great songwriter. He had some real interesting songs and he was a great guy to hang out with. He was just a very uplifting kind of guy, you know, very jovial, he was full of joy. He was about 27, 28. He was like an uncle to me, you know, like a fun uncle, you know. Beer drinking, dart throwing. Just a fun guy. And Buddy was just. You wanted to be around him. You just wanted to be around the guy. He walked in a room and, man, he was somebody he wanted to be with. And I just. I. I miss those guys on a lot of levels. You know, we were. We were friends. We were musicians, songwriters. We loved what we were doing. Felt like somebody, you know, ripped the floor out from under me when I got home, the girl I was dating, who I'm married to today, I mean, we've been married 62 years, she said, I was just in shock for, like, two weeks. I sat in my bedroom singing Richie Valens, Buddy Holly songs. I just didn't know how to, you know, digest it or. They didn't have grieve counseling in the Bronx in 1959. But it was certainly something traumatic that happened to me. I got caught up in a lot of drugs at the time, because, you know, I took one hit to see what it would do, and it did the trick. And off I went with this. Cause this was like, ah, this is what I've been looking for. I don't have to feel, you know, this is like a shortcut to making me all right, you know, but right. You know, you think you found heaven and you found hell. That's what that's all about.
- [34:28]
Terry O'Reilly
The promoters of the Winter Dance Party insisted that the tour had to go on in spite of the tragedy, which was very hard on everyone. Other acts were brought in, one of which was singer Bobby V. And his band. V had an interesting keyboard player that went under the name Elston Gunn, spelled with three N's. His real name was Bob Zimmerman. You know him as Bob Dylan.
- [34:57]
Dion DiMucci
Well, Bob Dylan was playing keyboards for Bobby V. That's hard to believe. Yeah, Bobby V always said, I don't like to get him on the mic. He sings too damn loud. Boy, does he sing loud. I don't know how he was singing at the time, but Bobby V came on. I never met him before. Lent him my guitar strap. He had no guitar strap, but we were friends for decades. He was one sweet man. That guy was a lovely guy.
- [35:22]
Terry O'Reilly
And Bob Dylan became a big friend of yours, right?
- [35:25]
Dion DiMucci
Well, yeah, in a way. You know, Bob's a funny guy. You don't hang with him, go for lunch with him every day, you know, But I love him and I. Wow. To me, he's the greatest songwriter of the 20th century and beyond. And he's a great blues singer, and I love the blues. And, yeah, he's a great man.
- [35:45]
Terry O'Reilly
And he did the liner notes for Blues With Friends for you.
- [35:49]
Dion DiMucci
He did, he did. That was really nice of him. He put out a book. This I gotta brag about, because I like what he said. He put out a book called the Philosophy of Martin's Song. And in the book he says, Dion is an elder legend, a blues man from another Delta. And I went, yeah, I'm from the Bronx. It's like Bronx soul.
- [36:15]
Terry O'Reilly
A different Delta. That's such a great line.
- [36:17]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah, he knows how to put words together, man. He does.
- [36:27]
Terry O'Reilly
Bruce Spring, Springsteen once said he felt that Dion was the link between Sinatra and rock and roll. I wondered if Dion agreed with that assessment.
- [36:37]
Dion DiMucci
Well, in a sense, I know what he's talking about because there was this crooning age in the 40s maybe, and bleeding into the early 50s. And then rock and roll came in. And maybe I have some of that in me, like on the cutting line of it. Because in that day, it was show business. And the show business thing was the artist would perform on stage, go back to the dressing room, and everybody would walk into the dressing room and he was the star. Well, that went away with rock and roll. Rock and roll. You know, they were like, hey, is everybody having a good time? Well, we didn't care if you were having a good time. We were like, hey, we're going to take you on a trip. You want to come? You come. You don't want. Don't. Here we go. Hold on to your ass. You know, it was like the balance between. It was going from show business to rock and roll.
- [37:40]
Terry O'Reilly
Don't go away. We'll be right.
- [37:46]
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- [40:01]
Terry O'Reilly
Dick Clark was an important figure in Deon's life. He brought Deon and the Belmonts to television, which accelerated their stardom. Clark was the bridge between radio and television for those early rock and rollers. Deon would eventually induct Dick Clark into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 1993.
- [40:22]
Dion DiMucci
Man, his show was important to all of us because here I am living in the Bronx, turn on the TV and I see Chuck Berry dancing across my living room floor, and then Bo Diddley riding on his bicycle and then I see Little Richard. I mean, he brought these people right into my house and I was just starting out. He did a lot for us because that was the original MTV or the original Google or YouTube, you know what I'm saying? He was the original.
- [40:59]
Terry O'Reilly
Dion's career struggled in the mid-60s, but in 1968 he released a song titled Abraham, Martin and John. It would surprise Dion by going to number one.
- [41:12]
Dion DiMucci
Well, mid-60s for me were pretty confusing period of turmoil for the States because they were at war and all the protesting going on, but everybody was using a lot of drugs. I certainly was into drugs. I was like very lost in that. But I was whacked out. And it was 1968, February of 1968, and Frankie Lyman and I would hang out and we were using heroin and he died of an overdose. And it scared the hell out of me. It really scared me. I think the following month I was trying to get out of it. I didn't know how to get out of it. A guy brought me into a spiritual based 12 step program and I Never looked back. I grabbed onto it with everything I had. So I've been clean and sober like 57 years. And the day I got. This is crazy. I got clean and sober. I say, April 1, 1968, four days later, Martin Luther King was gunned down. And then Bobby Kennedy talked at his funeral and he said, who's gonna be the next senseless victim of violence? He just made a beautiful speech. And then he was shot down. And my friend Dick Holla, he said he wrote the song in 20 minutes.
- [42:38]
Terry O'Reilly
Wow.
- [42:42]
Dion DiMucci
But it was very different than the way I recorded it. It was kind of like an up tempo gospel song, you know? Anybody here see my old friend Abraham? Can you tell me where he is going? She brings me the song. I was living in North Miami. Don't know why he brought it to me, but he brought it to me and I didn't like it. Oh, well, I thought it was opportunist. You know, we're getting back to what happened with Buddy Holly, Richie Valentine. To use it as an opportunity to capitalize on somebody's death. And I just felt it was distasteful, you know. And my wife and her mom said, no, Dion. She said, that's the gospel. That's a beautiful song. You should listen to it again. That's a beautiful song. Listen to what it's saying. So I listened to it and it kind of penetrated. And I thought, well, if I could do it in another way. But I arranged it, I put it together, brought it to Lori Records, and who knew it would be a number one song? I had no idea. But they got John Abbott from Staten island to do an arrangement on it that was incredible. The next thing I know, there's harps in the studio and there's sitar, English horns, French horns, and a whole string section. But, you know, the verses were Abraham, Martin, John. I said, we have to open that up and put a little distance between John and Martin Luther King, you know. So I put the song Will the Circle Be Unbroken? I put like a little instrumental in the middle of the song. And that's where you hear the C.
- [44:28]
Terry O'Reilly
Tah, the tone you struck with that arrangement, Dion, and the way you handled the vocal, it was almost sacred, that song.
- [44:38]
Dion DiMucci
You know, Terry, it's a strange thing, but it's like, I think the song and the singer and the whole idea, just like when the stars come together in the right place. You know, I just got over being. You know, I was clean and sober and I had a lot of gratitude there. But it's still a Lot of fear about the future. And I think all that came to play in that song for some reason, it's just like the song met me at the right time.
- [45:11]
Terry O'Reilly
Let's talk Beatles now. When did you first hear the Beatles?
- [45:15]
Dion DiMucci
Well, I was in England. I was in a studio with a diss track. I don't remember his name. He said, what do you think of this record? And I just remember thinking, sounds like the Everly Brothers gone electric.
- [45:27]
Terry O'Reilly
Do you remember the song that you.
- [45:28]
Dion DiMucci
Heard, what was the first one they.
- [45:30]
Terry O'Reilly
Had out Love Me Do?
- [45:31]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah, it could have been that. Yeah. I'm telling you, I never grabbed onto it very quickly because I'm like blues based. I was like much more into listening to blues based artists, you know, like Little Richard and Otis Redding. So I wasn't too into the structure of the chords, but I really became a fan when it was. What was the album? Norwegian Wood. That was a great album.
- [45:56]
Terry O'Reilly
Rubber Soul.
- [45:57]
Dion DiMucci
Rubber Soul.
- [46:02]
Terry O'Reilly
One day around 1964, Dion ran into John Lennon and Ringo Starr in a store in New York.
- [46:09]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah, it was like in February. They just made their first trip here. Sid Bernstein brought them over. They were going to play Carnegie hall or something or do the Ed Sullivan Show. I lived on 57th street at the time. I was recording for Columbia and I met John and Ringo in a store on 57th Street. We were talking, I guess he. He liked my record of Ruby Baby. And they told me they do that song in Hamburg, Germany, when they were honing their skills. And we ended up buying the same leather jacket. He wore it on rubber sole. He wore the jacket. I still have it.
- [46:46]
Terry O'Reilly
So that's the one on the COVID of that album. Wow. If you look at the COVID of the Sgt. Pepper album, you see a collage of famous people standing behind the Beatles. Those people were the Beatles heroes. Deon was surprised to learn he was one of only five people still alive who were on that famous cover. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, a sculptor named Larry Bell, and Dion himself. Dylan and Dion are the only two rock artists on that cover, with the exception perhaps of the late Stu Sutcliffe, the fifth Beatle. The photo of Dion's face was taken from Dion's Ruby Baby album. And it's believed Lennon wanted Dion on the COVID because he loved the song Ruby Baby so much. I asked Dion how it felt to be included in on the most famous album cover in history.
- [47:43]
Dion DiMucci
Well, you know, I'm from the Bronx, so I went around saying, hey, you want to have a very successful album? Put my face on the COVID of your album. You know, I couldn't help it. You know, there's a thing in rock and roll or in the blues certainly that we call it bragging rights, you know, I'm the hoochie coochie man. I'm the wanderer, I'm king of the New York streets. I'm the gangster of love, you know, So I always have that thing going on in me because it's part of me. So, you know, I always say to people, I mean, about my own music, talking about me now that I say, if you get satire, you get me, you know, anyway. But they made some crazy good music. I mean, just crazy good. They're just great songwriters, you know, and I envy that. And I look up to that. I respect that. Because people could write songs. But great songs, right? That's another story.
- [48:43]
Terry O'Reilly
Do you remember the first moment when you held that album in your hand, when you finally saw your face on that album?
- [48:50]
Dion DiMucci
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
- [48:52]
Terry O'Reilly
Had they called you for permission?
- [48:53]
Dion DiMucci
No. That's one of the beautiful things about that era. They probably didn't have to call anybody. Now you'd have to call every 52 estates and the photographers and the photographers and the lawyers. It's crazy, but it was beautifully created. They could do anything they wanted, and they did. And they were very, very prolific and imaginative writers and singers and creators. They were on a roll.
- [49:26]
Terry O'Reilly
Dion has just published a new book titled Rock and Roll Philosopher. It's a book that contains a lot of hard won wisdom together with great stories of his ups and downs, his struggle with addiction, his faith and recovery. And it's filled with great photos from his career. There are about 55 different stories in the book. The audible version also contains 60 songs, as well as Lou Reed's 1989 speech when he inducted Dion into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, Dion's speech inducting Dick Clark into the hall, and Stevie Van Zant's recent speech honoring Dion at the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. Respected music writer Dave Marsh wrote that Dion is really the only first generation rock and roll artist still putting out new, highly rated, relevant music today. As I mentioned, Dion has released seven chart topping blues albums, three of which went to number one on the Billboard chart.
- [50:36]
Dion DiMucci
Well, he said, I was the only guy that's still relevant and creative. And I started arguing with him and I lost.
- [50:44]
Terry O'Reilly
How so?
- [50:45]
Dion DiMucci
Well, I was telling him, you know, I think this guy did this. And this guy said, no, no, no, no, no. You know, he knows his stuff. But anyway, like, I said he won the argument. So I went home and I told my wife. I said, dave Marsh said, I'm the only guy from the 50s who's still relevant and creative. She turned it into a dare. Said, what are you gonna.
- [51:12]
Terry O'Reilly
You can bet Dion will do something interesting next. His place in the rock and roll world is firmly established. Springsteen, Lou Reed and Paul Simon all cite Dion as one of their primary influences. Check out his new book, Dion Rock and Roll Philosopher, also available as an audiobook on Audible. And give the wanderer a spin. Tonight. Thanks goes out to Dion and special thanks to Carol chenkin. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile recording studio. Director Callie O'Reilly Producer Debbie O'Reilly Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine Tunes provided by APM Music hey, let's be social. Follow me Terry Oinfluence this podcast is powered by Acast and stay tuned for more beatleology interviews coming up.
- [52:22]
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