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the day the music - started

steve islip (03/14/99 at 8:25 am) :

I'm currently reading a book by Giles Smith - "Lost in music" which talks an obsession most of us suffer from (sex?, Drugs ? - no even worse - record collecting).

In the opening chapter he talks about the party game of "what was your first record you bought" and says he always claims it was the Beatles "Let it Be" where as in reality it was a cheap imitation of the "Jungle Book" from Woolworths, which he then spent the next few years trying to convince himself it wasn't as bad as it sounded - how many time have I done that?

Anyway I thought is it not time we had a round of what Dion record did I buy first.

So I'll open the round with "Yo Frankie". I heard D on the BBC selling the record in 89 and the set he played sounded great - but I had a young family costing me a lot of money so I didn't buy it then - now I've got an older family costing me even more money.

Anyway lets forward to Southend - on Sea record fair sometime in 92 . There I was scrabbling through the bargain boxes and found 2 things - fleetwood Mac double live and Yo Frankie - at £1 each (2$) - in my price range so I bought both. I was bowled over by Dion - I couldn't believe how good the album was - every track was a winner . Not the usual problem the 2 tracks you hear on the radio are excellent the rest are dogs - no if anything I thought and still do the King of the NY streets is still one of the weakest.

As for the Mac double I think its been played about once since, but YF comes out every couple of months (and has subsequently been upgraded to CD) and started off my decades obsession.

OK that's my true life confession - whose next going to spill the beans on their first Dion record?

Mike Lanning

Dion Sings His Greatest Hits

Dion Sings to Sandy

Ruby Baby

Donna the Prima Donna

Inside Job

By Special Request! Dion the Belmonts Together on Records

Dion and the Belmonts The Dion Years 1958 Through 1963 22 Orig. Hits

Runaround Sue

Dion (Abraham Martin & John)

More of Dion's Greatest Hits

I also have the CD's:

The Wanderer Dion and the Belmonts (18 original hit recordings by Dion and Dion and the Belmonts 1953-1964

Bronx Blues

Velvet & Steel

The Return of the Wanderer

Dion (Abraham Martin & John)

Yo Frankie

The Road I'm On

Dream on Fire

The Best of the Gospel Years

I have the Cassette of Yo Frankie

Also on cassette, I have these singles taped from some of the 45's that were sold:

Come Go With Me

King Withoug a Queen

Drip Drop

No Ones Waiting For Me

The Road I'm On

I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man

Now I'm really anxious to have more.

Bob Reynolds

The first Dion (and the Belmonts) record that I bought was "Teenager In Love". I heard it on the car radio while riding with my parents and sisters to visit my grandmother in southern Michigan. This really neat song came on the radio just as we pulled in beside a restaurant and I sat in the car and listened until it ended.

When we got to my grandmother's and I had a chance to go shopping, I bought a 45 rpm copy of "Teenager In Love". My cousin had a record player, but it only played 78 rpm. What a dilemma! I really wanted to hear the song again and couldn't wait until I got back home in a few days, so I punched a hole in a paper milk bottle cap (hey, this was still the 50's!), fit the bottle cap in the record's large center hole and proceeded to play the song over and over at 78 rpms!

Yes, Dion and the Belmonts sounded just like Alvin and the Chipmunks, but I could make out some of the words and melody. Next came "Where or When" b/w "That's My Desire" - two great songs. Then I didn't buy anymore Dion until "Lonely Teenager" came out. "Runaround Sue" really did it for me and I bought the single, then the album. To this day I still consider it a classic - and from then on I started buying everything old or new by Dion and that continues today. Obviously I'm anxious for the Warner Bros. material to come out on CD and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Little Kings CD.

Bob

Ray Verno

I remember it like it happened yesterday. In the summer of 1962, I wasn't even paying a heck of a lot of attention to the radio then. But my best friend had a younger sister named Diane. My friend and I wer around 11 years old, and Diane was about 6 o 7 years old, and she was such an evil child ............. You know where this is going: my friend & I got hooked on Little Diane just so we could tease his sister. But for me, Little Diane was a starting point. Around August of 1962, I bought the LP "Dion Sings The 15 Million Sellers Of (15 different artists). When it came out, I bought the Ruby Baby album, and everything else I could find by Dion, or The Belmonts. Been that way since.

Ray

Gordon (03/16/99 at 6:43 pm) wrote:

Back in 1976 I was 15 years old, still at school and bunking off on Friday afternoons to work on the door to door lemonade truck. We were called "ale-loons". On Saturday mornings I had a part-time job with a local sign-writer and commercial artist studio where I would undercoat boards in preperation for the "master" to produce his fine hand painted lettering. This has little to do with Dion so far but it explains that I did not do too badly in the pocket money stakes for a schoolboy.

My money was spent on karate lessons and the current pop singles. Groups like Showaddywaddy, Mud, Sweet, Slade and Suzi Quatro were my staple diet. These lightweight pop stars all drew their style from original 50's rock and roll.

Having "discovered" this fact I spotted a cassette tape in my mates father's music centre cabinet called "Putting On The Style". It was a compilation of R&R hits with a cartoon sleeve of a couple jiving if I remember rightly. Intrigued by the rock and roll strapline I played the tape a few times and found that I enjoyed the 'original' stuff a lot more than the current music.

Two outstanding tracks on the tape were non other than "Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer". Played to death these days... but if you can remember the impact your first listen had then you can appreciate me being fished in.

So... my first Dion record was an LP called "Pick Hits Of The Radio Good Guys Volume 2" which I bought mail order from the then kings of mail order... Oldies Unlimited on the strength of the two songs on my mates dads tape.

It contained Dion's solo Laurie stuff and boy was I surprised to hear female backing singers and even better - Dion singing off key! Fished in... hooked for life.

s

steff

You know in all honesty I'm not sure. Gotta believe it was Teenager in Love, which I was, barely,. I know the first Dion album I bought was Presenting Dion and the Belmonts I was so excited when that album was released although, My girlfriends and I thought the Wish Upon a Star album was about the best thing we had ever heard and played it to death. When the albums came out I would throw out my 45s (stupid but who new) so if I had kept my Dion 45s I could have checked to see if it was teenager in love. Now I am spending a fortune replacing all those 45s/

Doug Schenker

The first Dion record I ever bought was the 45 "Runaround Sue" when it was #1 in 1961. What a great record in mono and it rocked [I had heard Dion & the Belmonts on one record before that, "Teenager in Love". It was Ok but nothing I wanted to buy]. Then I saw Dion live in concert and got his autograph on June 23, 1962 at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ and after that I bought every Dion single I could find, the Sue LP and the Lovers Who Wander LP, etc. Then in 1964 I rode my bike to Britts Department Store to buy Dion's single that was getting a lot of local radio airplay "Johnny B. Goode".Doug

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