OCTOBER 1980 CONTEMPORARY Christian MUSIC
by Karen Marie Plait
I have to be honest. I don't remember when there wasn't a Dion . But then I don't remember when there wasn't rock'n'roll either. I learned to line dance to "Runaround Sue" and 'The Wanderer." And in '68, "Abraham, Martin and John" expressed my own deep disappointments and precarious hopes so simply that I wept the first time I heard it. So, sitting in the airport waiting for a plane and an interview, my nerves buzzed.
I had already accumulated enough biographical data to write a book; yet talking to a few friends, I had also learned that although Dion's career spans the last two decades, many rock aficionados may need a brain boast to remember this New York Italian's musical credentials.
Try: He's appeared with Bobby Darin, the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke, Johnny mathis, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and (remember now?) The Belmonts. He's worked with producers like Steve Barri, Michael O'martian and Phil Spector. He's played virtually everywhere. Including Madison Square Garden, the roxy and the Golden banana. And In 1960. he barely missed a plane to Fargo, North Dakota - the one that crashed, killing Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson.)
Brought up in the Bronx, Dion is the prototype rock'n'roller. He spent half his life struggling with a drug problem he picked up on the streets at age 16. He's cut 32 charted singles since 1958 and released 24 LPs (not counting last year's street rock album never pressed or his newly released Christian LP.) Richard Price even wrote a novel-made-movie inspired by Dion's tune, "The Wanderer." (The film, The Wanderers, vividly reflects the New York streets where Dion grew up - skinheads and all.)
Inside Job Dion's first recording since his recent conversion to Christ, possesses the stylistic variety critics have enjoyed in his work since the early days. This new Dion sings a message available to rockers and New Jersey housewives. The songs are simple and sincere lyrical reflections of his relationship with the Lord In rock, rhythm'n'blues, country and pop.
I met Dion on the plane. I hadn't heard the new album? Neither had Dion. He was not yet signed to a Christian label and most of the songs on his new LP had not even been written. Unwilling to begin a formal interview in mid-air, we talked about Jesus and the Church and aeroplane food. Then, on our arrival in Miami, as we hurried across the port to catch a cab, I asked him where he planned to begin his ministry. He looked at me funny. I rephrased the question.
- Where - WILL. YOU First be performing your Christian' material
I don't 'know: I hadn't thought about it really. I have thought about playing New York again. I love the people there, And they like, me. It's old home week whenever i go back.
The next day we sat for the following interview and Dion expressed concern over his answer.
Look Don't ask me about this ministry .•. I really don't know much about this , Christian music business \... I mean - yesterday you asked me about my ministry. I'm not even sure I know what that means. .All I know Is that I write and sing songs . Ive always liked to get up in front of people and just sing and talk to them. But I'm gonna let God decide because whenever I try to run my own life I end up In the hospital."
A street approach. Very direct. Sensitive. He seemed tense about my probing, as if my questioning might violate his freshly-founded faith. I asked him what it like to grow up in New York City.
"I grew up in the Fifties and it was like , well, to be cool, you couldn't talk to people. You just had this, kind of, attitude. I mean you couldn't show any kind of sensitivity or tenderness or any kind of caring because .. you d get punched in the face. I'm talking about Bronx, New York City, standing on the street corner with the gang.
"I was kind of lucky because I had my Hank Williams records and I could go up to my room and I had a ticket out. At a very early age I realized that, uh, I could even take those guys on the street corner: on a trip. You know, I could sing "Be careful of Stones You Throw" and take those guys with me. A guitar was kind of an odd instrument to have in the Fifties. It wasn't that popular. I mean, the Beatles didn't invade the States yet."
Were you like one of the kids in the movie, The Wanderers? Would you consider yourself rebellious?
"Yeah. I was rebellious, but there's two ways to rebel. One is for no reason and one is for the truth."
What were you rebelling against?
"I didn't even know. Just authority that had no substance, that wasn't based on anything solid ... Just a lot of hypocrisy that I saw growing up in the police department and a lot of institutions. I don't want to sound negative. I'm not puttin' down different groups of people. What I'm into now is the solution - I mean everybody knows the problems. I don't have the right to criticise anybody, but I saw a lot of hypocrisy around me and I was confused. I wasn't equipped to handle it emotionally at all so I just went off and tried to get attention."
An article in the New Yorker written in '61 quotes your agent, Bonefede...
"Turn that thing off .. .9, He leans over and snaps off the tape recorder. "Hey, you know, I don't know why you wanna bring up all this past stuff. It's all just a bunch of garbage. There's so much more to life than I thought. I was so cut off from life and people, trying to, you know, when you're caught up in what you think people want you to do..."
O.K. But I have to ask just a couple of things for background. It's my job. Our readers need to know where you're coming from.
"Oh, well then." He sighs audibly and leans back in his chair.
The writer quoted Bonefede saying that Dion has ". . . the knack of knowing what's good for himself whats right for himself as an artist." Did you know what was good for you then?
"I don't know. I mean if you're going back to before I knew there was a power greater than myself - and I lived a long time as a man of prayer before Jesus became real to me. I wasn't too close to God in '61. I was confused - maybe well-meaning. I was always a seeker and a searcher, and I wanted to find a better way to express myself. I was always looking for a deep sense of love. I think that was my motivation in everything wrong and right I did. It was just I looked in a lot of wrong places - like the song, 'Center of My Life,' says. I used to think it was insecurity and being immature and emotional, but I think I was just looking for a deep sense of love...
"So I was an artist, in quotes, trying to look for a better way to express myself. I was on the surface and moving words around, looking or God. And I looked in a lot of places that, uh, were just a waste of time - or maybe it wasn't, maybe it got me to where I am now. I think everything that happened had to happen.
What happened?
"What happened to me was, well, to give you an idea of my past: I was pretty shy, you know. I got into music, got a lot of recognition; I was using drugs as a kid before I ever got into music. I was kind'a confused, very restless. I went to about seven high schools. You couldn't talk to me. I was a dreamer ... I was gonna do it my way. I was really self-will-run-riot, you know?
"So I went along that way. I became very successful to the outer picture - by the world's standards. Eight gold records, 23 million records, success, traveled all over the world, the whole bit. It kind of distracted me from the search because I was getting all the pats on the back, you know, rewarded for my efforts ... Coming from a background in the Bronx, when my parents only paid $30 a month rent, the kind of money I was making - I had a contract with Columbia that was, like, close to a half a million dollars and whether I sold a record or not they would send me the checks - I thought if I grabbed a-hold of all this stuff that the world tells you, that's where it's at. Not that things are bad; it's just that there's no substance; there was nothing solid in my life ... I was kind of, off on a tangent, makin' a lot of money. It was fun, a lot of good things came out of it. It opened up my world in a lot of ways.
But one point I just want to make; it's very important to me. You're in a terribly inadequate position trying to live apart from God in the world. It's just totally inadequate, and that's where I was at. So I always felt like a victim, at the mercy of whatever was happening."
So what did you do about it?
"I stopped. I stopped 'cause something was wrong. I stopped in the best years of making records. I had, I think, 'Ruby Baby' on the charts or 'Donna, the Prima Donna,' one of those rock'n'roll records I made back then. I started getting back closer to the roots of rock'n'roll music. I thought that was important to me at the time. And I started listening to a lot of blues singers, kind of developed my music got closer to the guitar and how to express myself, getting closer to what I wanted to say.
"What happened was I had a kind of spiritual awakening in '67, and in '68 - I think as a result of all that working on the guitar and everything (God works in mysterious ways) came 'Abraham, Martin and John.' I worked with Dick Holler on it, and the way the song was presented was a result of those quiet years. And everybody said, 'Where'd this come from? Weren't you the guy who sang "The Wanderer?"
"My life began to open up in '68 because I knew there was a God - God the Father - and I felt there was a lot more to life than what I was into. I stopped druggin' and drinkin', thank God. And it opened my world to that kind of intimate coffee-house scene. I met a lot of good songwriters and a lot of nice people. It was a growing period in my life."
In '68, a writer for Rolling Stone quoted you saying that you'd had "a spiritual awakening ... not religion exactly, but a spiritual thing. "
"Yeah, well. I knew there was a God." He whispers, almost talking to himself. "I felt the strength, and I felt loved. And I faced all the things I was always running away from in the last 11 years. I'm talking about deep-rooted relationships with God, family, work, people - just becoming a decent human being."
But no religion?
"No religion. A lot of fellowship, talking about God, dealing with feelings. Because all of my family, we all talk about God, but I understood Jesus intellectually. I thought, 'Well, being I'm trying to get close to God, I know Jesus was closest. If any man ever tried to get close to God, he was the closest.' And that's the way I understood Him..
When did your new relationship with Jesus develop?
"Now, in the eleventh year of being a man of prayer and faith, and a day at a time praying for God's will for me, God's will became a little vague. I started to get restless and maybe slip. I heard myself saying a lot of things that I said, 'I would never say those things,' you know? With my children, I thought they were ungrateful - which children might be -but it was the nature of how I said 'em and the way I was feeling. I was starting to feel things close in on me. Yeah, I was starting to get a little bitter - at moments. And I felt it because I'd always been very open, and I'd felt a closeness to God, and when it does close up it just doesn't feel right. I m hooked on comfort, you know, and I felt myself slippin' away.
"So one day, I'm out here, and I'm running - recreation running. Right? And I'm running and in about the second mile I feel a little fatigued and 1 know energy comes from God and all I said was, 'God, I'd like to be closer to you.' And I guess it's like the Bible says, 'Ask and ye shall receive,' you know?
"The total picture just became completely clear to me ... I knew I was forgiven - because it went through me quickly that I'd been denying Jesus, that I thought he was a man who lived 2,000 years ago and I thought some people didn't recognize him. I didn't know it was me.
"But I don't remember running home. 1'1l tell you that. I was running off the ground. It was like God spoke to me. He said, "Dion, you're brand new, ya hear? I want you to go out and be who you are today. You don't have to imitate yourself when you were 19 or 22. You're you, right now. Just be yourself. You could share this in all your affairs. You don't have to make concessions, hide it in this area, you know. You don't have to be like schizophrenic and live one life inside and one out..."
So you Were born again?
"Oh, definitely. Brand new the old passes away
how you reconcile that faith Catholicism? Weren't you baptized and confirmed Catholic?
"Yeah but I don't remember too much Catholic upbringing. I went through confirmation and all that, but it didn't happen for me then. And after that I didn't pay much attention."
How can you be born-a gain and be a Catholic?
"Oh I don't know all that ... You're not talking to someone who's that knowledgeable in Scripture. I've read the Bible — I've read the whole thing - after what happened last fall, I just came home and absorbed it like a sponge. But to represent it, I'm not, well, you know, all I can talk about is my experiences. You know, what it was like, what I'm like now, you know, what happened to me. And maybe share my experiences, strength and hope. But as far as my being a scholar, I'm not. I do know though that John 3:5 says you have to be "born of the Spirit." We believe that. I mean I practice as a Catholic; I hear that in Gospel every week. I mean I can't know people's hearts completely, I can't take everybody's inventory. But I know in my heart and my mind how Jesus changed my heart.
Did Jesus change your music?
"Well, he's refined my direction completely. He's cut away everything I don't want to do, and I'm left. You see I was on the road doin' rock'n'roll because - the effect I had on people, the image, something they expected. And when I am right at home, I sit down with my guitar. I guess there were times when I thought that's when I feel closest to God and to myself, really. I feel honest about my music, it's all come together. I don't have to look back. I don't have to go back. Those songs, they're like memories. If I'm with a friend and we sit around, we could talk about memories, but I don't want to be anybody's memory. I like livin in the now.
How will your ministry reflect your catholic Christianity?
"I may talk about a commitment and say to people that when you make a commitment to make Jesus Lord of your life that's when things start happening - good things. In my mind - and this is my own personal opinion - you have to make a conscious decision. And I feel you should know when you did that: I mean you make decisions all day long. You buy orange juice or grapefruit juice. I think you should know when you turn your will and your life over to the care of God.
"But I don't think it's necessary to get people all peaked up musically. I mean, I you can get people to jump up and start clapping their hands at the end of a show, you know? I mean, is it emotion? I think It needs to be a little more solid. And It needs to be with someone who's very understanding, and it should be done not. with a lot of emotion. lts an emotional experience, sure, but i'm talkin' about with the lights and the sound system and a whole bunch of amplifiers and a whole bunch of people, all that's outwardly. I'm talkin' about a deep commitment - inside, quietly. This is the first time I'm talking about it, but I feel it shouldn't be a spectacle
You've cancelled all your personal appearances until your next album. Why?
"Well, I felt like I was selling. I always said that if the joy was taken out of what I was doing, then God has something else in mind for me. And it got to that point. Now 1d like to share on a personal level,. what God has done for me in my life. It's like God spoke to me and said, The reason why you're around right now and - why I revealed everything I revealed to..-you...' It sounds spooky, but listen: If I'm gonna drop names, I might as well drop the big one. God talks to me-and to Pat Boone, too. But yeah, I feel very strongly that He made sense out of everything I've been through, and where I should go from here."
Will you play secular music again?
"I have no idea. The decision I've made is. to sing Christian music and to share with people. I think it's important for me to do that to keep myself right. I feel comfortable doing that so that's what I'm gonna do. I have some plans, but I can't plan the outcome. I don't know about tomorrow. I make some plans and God works it out His own way"
Do you ever feel your involvement in secular music may have been sinful, that it might have taught kids immorality and led them away from God?
"I don't know. I feel like God will take care of my part. I gotta be honest with you here. I feel like a lot of the songs I recorded, especially an album that was supposed to come out now in March (ED presumably this is a reference to the Album "Fire in the Night" released in 1990 on Ace in the UK)- I recorded it a year and a half ago - are a bunch of garbage."
What's wrong with them?
They're negative. There's too much negativity out there. There's a funny word: disease. But I look at it like 'dis-ease' not at ease, you know? And I feel like there's a lot of disease out there and a lot of that music just adds to it. It's like throwin' up, it don't mean anything. It's people who are lost and glorifying themselves. And there's so much more to life, you know? I feel good giving the glory to God ... And that's real, it's beautiful. It's all the good things that Paul writes about: it's patience, it's tolerance, it's love. It's got life, love, light -everything good.
"I lived in that other world and it's very fleeting ... And those songs that have to deal with all of that, you know - what chick you got on your arm, where you live, or your position - you know, all of that kind of stuff.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not puttin' down havin' a nice car or sending your kids to a nice school, or even having a hit record. But my peace of mind and knowing I'm loved by God doesn't depend on having a hit record today."
Did it once?
"Yeah. I guess. Not when 'Abraham, Martin and John' came along, but in the early days, it started to be like my happiness depended... like a woman getttn' on a scale and her happiness depends on the numbers that she sees down there. I mean, where's that at? You got a good number down there. What? You're happy for a few days? Your peace of mind shouldn't depend on that.
"It's inside. It's all inside."
A great deal has happened in Dion's life since his decision to 1 commit his life to Christ: He has witnessed to priests
"Imagine me, doing something like that."
And acted as music minister at Catholic young people's retreats "It's really beautiful to see them have the courage to open up and, well, just love each other, you know?"
Recently, Dion and I spoke on the telephone and I asked him how he was faring. He read me Timothy 1:12.
'I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service."'
"Thats how I feel about all this ",he added "i just can't contain it all..,"
ps Thanks to the Mystery lady who forwarded this to me.