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Rock'n Roll Hall of Famer Dion swaggers back on Yo Frankie
An article from PULSE!
August 1989 by Brett Milano.
The world is full of lousy comeback albums by '50s and '60s rock stars. The list of true, creative comebacks is a lot shorter:
There's Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl, Brian Wilson's solo album, and a handful of Everly Brothers albums and precious little else. To that list add Yo Frankie, the album Dion DiMucci swore he'd never make.
If you asked Dion a few years ago about a rock'n'roll album, he'd tell you to forget it. He swore it all off two decades ago, around the time he kicked a heroin problem and em-braced Christianity. He never stopped making records, but most of his 70's and 80's albums were either acoustic ballads or gospel. And save for one 1972 reunion with the Belmonts, he never jumped on the oldies bandwagon. So Dion was still in business, but the "Runaround Sue" and "Wanderer" man was seemingly gone forever. "It was the whole Sha Na Na mentality that turned me off", he says from his Florida home. "The way they presented the music in those rock revivals - like it was stupid, we were so naive, excuse for us making such dumb music - that's bullshit to me because I was serious. The funny thing was that I got lumped in with guys like Frankie Avalon and Bobby Darin, because they were also Italian and from the North. But those guys were emulating Sinatra, using rock'n'roll as a way to get into club singing. That was never my thing. My music was basically black music that got filtered through an Italian neighbourhood and came out with an attitude".
The common theory was that Dion went the way of Little Richard, and gave up rock'n'roll for God. "Naah, that's not it", he says in his thick New York accent. "The way I see it is, it's all coming from me it I'm singing about God. The focus is on unconditional love, on spiritual principles, and on God's nature, which is perfection. "I would say that the album I have out now," he continues, "is more focused on me and my short-comings, my loves and hates, my failures and dreams, my journey. That's the only difference, but in the market place they'll put that in a different section from a gospel record. Take the Tom Waits song "Serenade", where it says, 'I never saw the moonlight 'til it shone on your breast.' You can't sing that in a religious context, it would be inappropriate. Religious people don't have breasts.
Dion & the Belmonts were one of the last great doo-wop groups - street corner soul in all it's glory. But it wasn't until he went solo that Dion found his true voice: a mix of cocky swagger and pure 100% teenage frustration. One minute he was the Wanderer, with a girlfriend in every neighbourhood, the next he was agonising over Little Diane and Runaround Sue. And for unadulterated teen angst, nothing beats his 1965 single "Born To Cry," recently covered by Johnny Thunders. 'i can't remember having even one day of fun, 'go the lyrics. 'Every girl I ever loved always stepped on my feet / I thought I had a friend once, but he kicked out my teeth.' 'Funny you should mention that one," Dion says. "Some of the best material came out of those disappointing times -when you're real high on love you're too comfortable to write. It happened that I was in a Jewish neighbourhood one day and heard this music coming from a synagogue. I got talking to the cantor and he played me some albums of his dad, very haunting stuff. So I went home that day and wrote 'Born To Cry'. I guess it was the first Jewish rock and roll - if it were released today they'd probably call it fusion."
By then Dion already knew a few things about pain. A heroin addict by his late teens, he had to face his problems when the hits stopped coming. He took an extended break in 1968 and came out a changed man. "I really did have a spiritual awakening then, which removed the compulsion to drug and drink and destroying myself. It was a reconstruction, like a spiritual kindergarten. Three months after that I recorded 'Abraham, Martin and John,' kind of the first groundbreaking from a spiritual perspective. What that record did was to throw me into all those intimate coffee house settings, those little places where you sit with a guitar and talk to people.
It also led me to meet people like Hall & Oates, Bonnie Raitt, people who wrote with a passion and sang their own songs. So it was a tremendously exiting time.
Only one problem: "Abraham, Martin and John" was also Dion's last hit single, though he continued to branch out on LP.
The Abraham, Martin and John LP included covers of "Purple Haze" and Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time"; two years later came his confessional anti-drug single, "Your Own Backyard" (later covered on Mott the Hoople's terrific Brain Capers LP). There were few triumphs, like a sold out, one-time reunion with the Belmonts at Madison Square Garden (the live LP from that show was just reissued by Rhino). But a number of projects never came off, such as a 1975 Phil Spector produced LP released only in Britain. "The one thing I remember about that album," recalls Dion, "was that Pete Townsend sent me a three page letter, saying how great it was. It sounded like dirge to me. Phil was at a time in his life when his music just wasn't very uplifting."
By 1980 Dion had become a full-time gospel singer, but the rock'n'roll bug was still lurking in the background. In mid-1986 he was coaxed into singing the old hits one more time, at an anniversary concert for New York's oldies station WCBS-FM. "The reason I said yes was that they gave me an hour and a half onstage and said, 'Just take people on a trip any way you want."' Getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame didn't hurt either, and Dion felt the time was right for another shot.
"I felt there was a validation, a confirmation of the way I originally believed in the music in my heart," says Dion. "It wasn't being taken lightly by the young musicians who worked on the sessions. I was at one rehearsal doing 'Ruby Baby' and 'The Wanderer,' and Bruce Springsteen was standing in front of me playing an imaginary guitar and filling in the parts the band left out.. Little Steven said to me, 'We know everything on those records, that was how we went to school. Those records may not be perfect to us,' I figure those guys picked up on what I was doing, so now I'm throwing it back to them."
Little Stephen was originally slated to produce Yo Frankle, but got too wrapped up in his own projects, so Dave Edmunds stepped in. "I told Arista I was writing about some strong characters again, so I needed a rock and roll producer," says Dion. "I wrote about 30 songs for the album, but the Tom Waits song was one I'd been singing for 17 years. I wanted to write one just like it, but I couldn't do it as well. Dave is great, he's like a human emulator. Although he's not the greatest organiser in the world. Sometimes we'd be in the studio and he'd decide that Brian Setzer or Ry Cooder would be perfect for a song, then he'd try to call them up five minutes before we recorded."
They still managed to get Paul Simon and K. D. Lang to sing backups, Bryan Adams to produce one tune, and Dion's buddy Lou Reed to add some doo-wop harmony. Also appearing was ex-Rockpile Dire Straits drummer Terry Williams.
The old Dion attitude comes out strongest in "King of the New York Streets," the LP's first and best track. It ends with a warning about "cocaine lies", but until then it's back to the old swagger, with lines about eating chains for breakfast, "breaking hearts like windowpanes," and "turning gangs into fertiliser."
"Originally the song has another verse, that said, 'You think this is mythology/ Some say I need psychology,"' he laughs. "I had to throw that last line in so people wouldn't take it too serious, plus I thought it was timely to make a comment about the crack situation. But it's great to sing behind a strong character like that. My neighbourhood was filled with those guys - you're 16 and the world revolves around you. It's hard stuff, man."
