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The Beatles? There goes the neighbourhood.
Dylan? You ever try to dance to Dylan?
Mah-man Dee-on! sharkskin pants, Flagg Brothers dagger-toed roach killers. Waterfall pompadours. Teen strut. kicking ass
We never did quite get into the Beatles. Bell bottoms took a long time to get used to (and we still wore roach killers). We were the only guys to use hair spray on our new long hair.
But Dion was ours. He made sense. A home grown street heart from Arthur Avenue. From '58 to '63 he kept hitting on us with a dazzling array of sounds from the pimply. simply but sweet Teenager In Love to that old romantic crotch bumper Where Or When" to the almost biblical wall and vengeful snarl of "Little Diane". The rock, rock. rock & roll of "Runaround Sue". The dirty down blues of "Ruby Baby", and the quintessential Dion "The Wanderer". that grandiose bailsy swaggering monster that captured the hearts, minds and psyches of grease ball hltters the world over.
That son of a bitch blew me out the back doors so bad that ten years after the fact I wrote a novel. The Wanderers. about a pre-Beatles Bronx gang that fairly worshipped the ground Dion walked on. Now it's been 13 years since his last monster ("Abraham. Martin and John" aside) and I find myself praying. Dion don't be a has been. Don't limp. Don't bring me down.
The Arthur Avenue section of the Bronx is a half-dozen square block Little Italy. The streets are lined with old tenements. churches. funeral parlours, bakeries. cheese stores. pork stores. open fish stands. vegetable stands and little variety shops. All businesses are Italian owned and patronised. The handball courts are painted over in the red green and white tri-stripe of the Italian flag and armies of brightly painted olive oil tins line the small grocery store shelves. Arthur Avenue is one of those neighbourhoods that is so traditionally tough that it is absolutely safe.
Dion was born and raised here. and here is where we rendezvous. in his accountants office. a one floor walk-up over a restaurant, plastered in wood panelling. certificates and diplomas. There's my man. smlling at me behind tinted aviator rims. dressed like a million. We shake hands, exchange "heys" and go down stairs to an Italian restaurant. The minute we walk in. four waitresses, big matronly Angelinas. are all over him kissing. hugging and pinching cheeks. "Aw Dion, you was so good on Cher. You was terrific."
"Thank you darling. you see? These's ladles got good taste." smiling graciously behind those shades. "I love 'em' I love 'em." More hugs and kisses.
"Well. look, you come from the neighbourhood. We gotta take care a you.
"Hey. I'm movin' back in this neighbourhood."
"I don't blame you. This is a good neighbourhood. Believe you an' me.'
"Hey. whatta you kiddin' me? I live in Miami now. Where else can I get fresh matzzarell'. I'm gonna take some back onna plane wit' me. - Hunching his shoulders and gesturing with sewn together fingertips. Dion sits back and winks. I lean back and take a good look at him. Slight, handsome, the shades make him look Important. The dress style is italian street svelte: sculptured hair. tight-fitting expensive leather jacket. black turtle neck, gold ID bracelet, manicured nails, slow, careful movements and words. Very laid back, soft spoken cool.
Even though he hasn't lived here for over 15 years. even though he's now 36, a resident of Miami, it's as if he had a stamp on his forehead: "Dion DiMucci - if lost. return to Arthur Avenue. - No matter how long he's been away. no matter where he's been and where he's going. there's something undeniably street in every one of his gestures. mannerisms and intonations. Arthur Avenue's answer to "You can't go home again "is "Oh yeah? Try leaving.
We get in to comparing notes on old gangs (he was a Fordham Baldie), old neighbourhoods, my work. his family and stealing records (we both used to cop from the same record store on Fordham Road). Dion: Hey wow, man. This neighbourhood's really changed. it's shrinking. But they still got that market there. You Know, around here people don't buy nothin' to eat unless they see It walkin' or swimmin'. We'll walk around later. I'll show you. they got chickens, ducks my gran mother used to go in, look the chickens in the eye an' say, "Dat ones a heal'ty I be back in'na hour." And they used to kill it. pluck it and dress it right on the spot.
Rlchard: What have you been doin' with yourself these last half dozen years -coffee houses?
D: Yeah. Just me an' the acoustical guitar hey, for the last seven years I was doin' coffee houses all over the place.
R: Did it feel more real?
D: More real? Uh yeah. it's not showblz, you know, it's just, like this face to face. But now I'm tryin' to get back some to what l used to do. you know, stand up boogie, because that's part of me too. After "Abraham, Martin and John" in '681 got a lot of college-concert and coffee house experience. I Just got into a much simpler thing. I didn't have to deal with a band, it was Just me and my guitar, but now, you ~..
R: Has your music been changing these last six, seven years?
D: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm gettin' looser with it, learnin' how to play it with more yeah. it changes, you know, but 1 feel like I just got the ball rollin' and got a new band together, five kids, it feels all new and exciting to me.
R: What did making the big time do to you?
D Well you're talkin' about a whole different time You know, we were really naive then the whole thing was being cool. We were just hoppin'. hangin' out on the street we were lookin' for recognition, something. l don't know what, and when I got a record, we were the neighbourhood celebrities I mean. first we were celebrities to the cops, but after the record hey look, somethin' about his neighbourhood, if your head got too big, and you put on any airs. you walk into a place like this, you know Heyvy whatta you a star? You know, people they wiped your ass and hey look. when l was23 I was a has-been. From inside I didn't feel like I was a has-been, to me it was a transition thing. I was lookin' to get closer to my music. 19631 used to go down to the Village, breathe down Lightnin' Hopkin's back. Mlssissippi john Hurt, all those bluesmen from Mississippi, Texas. 'Cause at that time I was at Columbia and John Hammond Snr. was there. He turned me on to that. Robert Johnson. LeRoy Car'. and I really got excited about the sounds. Remember this was 1963. you know. pre Dylan; and Hammond Snr. was the blues connoisseur up at Columbia. I felt excited but also resentful, like. who the hell's been hiding this from me?
You know. I did Ruby Baby. Drip Drop. The Wanderer," those songs. they were all blues. But I didn't know. I thought they were Rock n' Roll. I didn't know where they were coming from. I really got affected by that hey. let me tell you something else. Over the years. the associations in people's minds between me and the Beimonts grew so strong that people come on and introduce me like. hey. this is Don. you know. from Dion and the Belmonts. and the truth of the matter is. we only had two hits together. "Teenager In Love" and "Where Or When." Then when I started recording on my own. I kept the group sound. I started recording with a group called the Del Satins. I recorded "Ruby Baby." "The Wanderer," "Runaround Sue," "Donna The Prima Donna." "Drip Drop." 1 recorded all those records with the Del Satlns.who are now the Brooklyn Bridge. but people don't know that they hear the group behind me and assume it's the Belmonts.
In 1973 Dion did a reunion concert with the Belmonts at Madison Square Garden and a live album of the show was released. The album stunk and the concert wasn t much better. but the crowd reaction was phenomenal. A religious happening. This gave Dion the impetus to get off the coffee house stool and back into the world of Rock n' Roil.
The Belmonts also cut an acappella album. Cigars~ Acappelia, Candy, which had to be the best acappella album recorded this side of the Persuasions. When the Belmonts were playing down in Miami last year, Dion had them over to the house for dinner and delivered the following benediction: "Hey. after listenin' to that album I just gotta say. I'm really proud to have been associated with. you guys."
R Did you ever think of the impact your songs had back then. on teenage fantasy trips and the like?
D: Well. maybe it was an Easy Rider type thing. you know. The Wanderer and all. but for me it was Bo Diddley. I would be livin' out my fantasies with him. "There's 20.000 wimmin awi in a line. gonna take care of them in five minutes time. I'm a mayn ...."
R: Well. that was "The Wanderer" for me.
D: I took that stuff dead serious when I was 16.
R: Who didn't? One other thing. i'm thinking about those songs and I never thought about this back then. but the message of oil your songs in a way was "The Lady is A Bitch."
D: Yeah. nobody ever thought of messages back then. but me a' Del Shannon. starting off with "Hats Off To Larry" and the like. we got on this puttin' down chicks kick women's lib woulda loved us. But at the time. it was, I guess. I don't know. it was. you know. it was sick.
R: Nobody ever took offence back then.
D: Well, back then. the philosophy was. you're in a crowded room and you say to a chick. "Hey. stay away from that guy. He's a bitch." an' she would say. "What guy? What guy?" Chicks loved a rebel an' I really thought that l was it but also I was a big Hank Williams freak too, and what I would do was transfer his stuff into streetcorner stuff because that's where I was coming from. You know, he would say, "Baby. I still want you, you step all over me. badmouth me to my friends" an' I would take that and transfer that into something like "Little Diane."
R I know how much that street head ****ed me up, you know, the emphasis is always on being hard. being laid back. It seemed the more brutal a dude you were, the more respect you got, and the guys that did allow themselves to have feelings and fears were...
D: Faggots.
R: Exactly.
D: Well, in my neighbourhood, you always had to be cool you could never look, at that time, a lot of my friends were dyin' around me. you know, zip guns, drugs, car crashes, and at that time I didn't know how to handle that. There were two faces you had to have your public and private, and I'm talkin' about tender breakaway years -13.14. Well, my music got me through a lot of that, but when I got those hit records, the gap became even wider, and I'll tell you, drugs filled a lot of that gap for me and I could never resolve that drug thing because I was filling the gap for me. I never understood it. You know, it's only when I met people who were honest with Themselves did I start getting help. People always talked at me you know, why don't you do this, why don't you do that, why don't you be strong you know, people don't understand. If five people take penicillin, one's going to be allergic and fail on the floor, you know, and the family comes around and says "get up! be strong! Use your willpower!" They don't understand there's an inner chemical reaction going on. And when some people take a drug it sets up a compulsion In them. I learned this about eight years ago and I made a decision, it wasn't to take drugs or not, but it was a decision I wanted to live. I was into drugs since I was 14. But there were times when the desire for fame and fortune and applause became stronger than the desire for drugs. I made a few hospital stops between records. When "Where Or When" came out I was in hospital, but you know, I used to think I was weak and I had to get strong. then I started thinking I was bad and had to get good, and I never knew I was sick and had to get well. I didn't know what the hell was happening. I mean, diabetic knows not to take sugar - there's a name for the disease. I didn't know I was sick. I didn't know I was on a merry-go-round. I would think, well maybe I'll take some of This stuff now, I'll feel better, and I just got deeper and deeper into it. I tell you, now, I thank God l'm walkin' around today, you know, it's but for the grace of God I'm alive.
R: Who turned you around?
D: To be honest with you ...,. my father-in-law. I never really knew him until about four years into my marriage. I moved down to Miami in 1967.1 was starting to raise a family. But when I went down there, my father-in-law was one of the first people to really talk to me, make me think. I guess what happened was that l started standing on my own two feet. But back then I guess my head was like a bowl of mush. I had no concentration, no confidence. I mean, I was working all those years on the acoustical guitar and raising a family but my life started getting unmanageable. Hey. back in the streets all we knew from was "who had good stuff," but ah, being closer to nature in Miami, trees, ocean, a lot of sky. I'm not talking about religion, just spiritual you know, a different way of thinking. because what 1 was doing just wasn't working. being self-sufficient, barrelling my way through problems. I just had to find another way of life. Look. the kid who walked these streets 20 years ago is not the person who's sittin' here with you now. I got three daughters, I got a house on a bayou in Miami, my wife and I have known each other since we were 11. all these years and we've always been close, she's a big part of that bridge over the gap I was always feeling. it's so important for me now to have good friends. to be able to sit down, have a meal with people you love. I'd rather be real with somebody than bull-shittin' and say. Hey. who's got good stuff?' Good stuff your ass You wanna know what good stuff is? Just being real that's good stuff. The rest Is bullshit. You know. 1 got dreams and goals. I wanna get my music to more people. I feel good about myself today. an' I feel grateful for where im at. I really do. Look. I got a dollar more than I could spend. I got three beautiful daughters. who crawl all over me, daddy. daddy.' I gota woman who loves me. I enjoy music. I live a day at a time.
Talking to Dion about the 1974 Phil Spector produced album. Barn To Be w'tb You. is a little tricky. Although released in Britain. it will probably not be available in this country except as an Import. Lots of haggling and hassling between Spector and Warner Brothers. And Dion has let it be known he was not happy with the album or with the single (Born To Be with You) because the whole thing was just too slow.' There's a lot of mutual professional respect between these two giants of the Sixties. apparently. but Dion said he felt he was doing a Phil Spector album as opposed to a Dion album. His voice was just another instrument in Spector's Big Sound. Now he's john Lennon. now he's Gene Vincent. now he's Dion.
The Warners Dion album (Streetheart) was released in the U.S. June 25th and Dion was much happier with lt. especially with the title cut. which he avidly described to Bruce Springsteen at a listening session at Warners in New York:
'Man. you see this chick coming down the street with that tight little ass and The album was produced by singles master Steve Barri. Dion and Warners feel lt is commercial 'This will be.' said Dion's manager Zach Glickman. Dion's tapestry
Back then when you were recording with the Del-Satins. another sound was influencing street kids. That was the early days of Motown. 'Fingertips.' 'Pride And Joy.' 'My Girl.' 'Two Lovers.
D: Did you know when me and the Belmonts played the Apollo. they thought we were black. 'cause we had that sound. Din din din din din dit da da daa .you know. 'I Wonder Why.' They were really surprised when we came out
R: Did they dig you?
D: Aw. they loved us. And at the end we'd all pick up instruments and close with 'Hanky Tonk.' But we'd play the shit out of it. Better than the records. And 'I Wonder Why' was a real street-corner song.
R: Acappella?
D: Every song we did started in the streets. And after we recorded it. anytime we went back to the neighbourhood with the records. without fail. we'd say. 'Listen to this one.' 'cause our neighbourhood always heard our stuff before it was recorded. We practised in the hallways. we used to go down to the sessions with our girlfriends. hero sandwiched. wearing t-shirts. but it would never fall. any time we brought a record back to the club room. a friend's house. they'd always say. 'Ah. ya ruined the damn song!' because it would always sound better in the hallways. it always sounded better on the rooftops. the schoolyards. I don't blame 'em you know. you work It out live in a hallway. but 'I Wonder Why.' now I understand why the Apollo took to us. didn't throw tomatoes at us. 'Cause we were a good streetcorner group. I look back today an' I appreciate it. It really was an art form.
R: How do you feel about doing oldies shows?
D: Hard-core shows I don't like. I mean. I dig doing the old songs. I'll get people on stage with me. Do 'Teenager ln Love.' 'Where Or When.' But hard-core oldies shows. it's like you're coming out of a closet of memories. It's sweet on the first bite. but it gets bitter real fast. I start competing with myself when I was 20 years old. Its like you did something good 15 years ago and people say, Yeah. do that again. I'll sing the shit out of The Wanderer, Ruby Baby. I like to make people feel happy. But I want to give people the impression I'm moving forward, you know. You take a song like Teenager In Love." Now i can't get behind that song. I mean, how could I come out and do that song, but its mine. So I'll play with it. I'll make a Fifties group out of people in the audience, bring 'em up on stage. I had Mike Bloomfieid back me upon it. I had the Righteous Brothers come up. lt entertains me every night. Last year (1975) when Dion was touring with Dick Clark's Rock n' Roll Revue, the closer on the show was Jackie Wilson -one of the all time great closers in the history of Rock 'n' Roll. On September 2~h at the Latin casinoin Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Jackie Wilson froze in mid-motion during Lonely Teardrops" and keeled over on stage. A heart attack, Dion ran out and tried to keep Jackie from swallowing his tongue. He almost lost his fingers.
The Dick Clark Revue rocks into the Las Vegas Thunderbird. The new closer is Dion. His act goes over fine, but for a few weeks everybody's shaken. because of the Latin Casino incident. To be a front row spectator like that to the Terrible swift sword, to experience the awful arbitrariness of disaster is enough to make anybody stop In his tracks, turn inward and send in his soul for a tune up. The way Dion describes it, the least of lt was how well he performed as the new closer. This Is the second time something like this has brushed him. When he started hitting originally in the late Fifties, he did a tour with Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. He didn't make that plane....
Does any one unforgettable experience In your career stick out in your head?
D: Yeah. When I did "Abraham, Martin and John," I hadn't recorded for a long time. And it was like a rebirth for me in 1968. When I did that. people said, "Wow, you really changed." I didn't think so. lt took me three weeks to decide to do that. When I first heard it, I just felt like they were a bunch of opportunists. get people crying. But my wife said, "Dion, that song Is the gospel. it's the truth." Then I listened to it again and I realized that the simplicity of it passed me by. lt wasn't a song about the dead, It was about the living. It was a bad situation. but it was asking us. "Okay, what are we gonna do about it?" And that's when I started working on it. I put it together, went up to New York, and when I got into the studio with 50 musicians, a harp. strings, it had been so long I just wanted to be it the door and say, "Stay here!" I thought I was in heaven.
Walking through Arthur Avenue, Dion is in a semi-daze. He hasn't been back In years. and he looks like he's still trying to separate the kid form the man with every step. One thing bothers me. Miami. Why Miami? Why not LA.? Europe? Mexico? Suburban New Jersey? Then It hits me. To people from the Bronx, Miami Is the tropical paradise; which is to say, Miami is a street heart's heaven. Everywhere we go people stop us.
"Hey! Hey! Dion! Hey!"
"Hey. you was fantastic on that show there, an' it was beautiful. Hey c'mere do me a favour." The old grizzle faced grocer in the stocking cap drags Dion into his store by the elbow. "C'mere, call my wife ... just say hello ... do me a favour."
Smiling. almost sheepish. Dion does his duty.
Dlon's got a big gig out ln Westbury over the weekend but Thursday he's doing a test run out in a Staten Island supper club. The hostess is wearing a J.C. Penney smart shopper pantsuit. Orange lights from wagon-wheel chandeliers.
A moose head wearing a Santa cap with a red light jammed in its mouth looms over the small stage. The performer has to play either to right or left because facing him centre stage are two obelisk like monitors. Waiters run around in fringed vests out of an old Annie Oakley serial. We walk in on the house band. Some sorry memory-lane rock 'n' roll. The lead singer is wearing a vinyl jump-suit. The patrons are either too young to remember or they're premature middleagers. the die-hard grease hearts-those people that the world stopped making sense to when the Beatles came on the scene. Maxi dresses and blond Afro wigs. Careful sideburns. double knit slacks and Korvettes sport jackets. Imitation sharp. This is an important night for them. Like the Arthur Avenue people. Dion is theirs. He symbolises a time in their lives when everything was logical. when there might even have been a little passion.
Lucky Larry and the Lepertones are finished. Dion's band comes on. Rve young bearded musicians from Milwaukee. They're dressed in block-and white pin stripes with matching cabby caps, like extras for The Untouchables. And here comes Dion. Nice and easy. like walking into a living room. Confident smiling almost serene. Starts out with "Only You." a laid back croon tune that's confusing the shit out of a lot of old fans. That's not Dion. But it's a good vehicle for saying hello. Walking around and shaking some hands. Jumps Into "The Wanderer." Boom. You saw the love light shining in their eyes. That's our Dion. The table behind me is going berserk. Six chicks stand up and start rockin'. doin' the ol' hand jive. Welcome to heaven. Dion's eating it up. There's an l-love you too in his face. His voice is strong resonant. Sound as a certified check. He does a loose street schtick. Some of the jokes are flat. but so what. He's not a performer. he's your cousin and you haven't seen him in so long you don't care. He riffs about the Bronx and people start shouting out streets and avenues like bids on his intimacy. "Teenager in Love." He pulls himself a three person ooh-wah chorus out of the audience. and goddamn if they don't know all the words. He's playin' with his songs. Having a ball. Everybody's having a ball. "Ruby Baby." "Runaround Sue." "Drip Drop." All bull's-eyes. "Where or When gives me the d6ja vu chills. "Abraham. Martin and John." Now I'm about as big a cynic as they come. but Dion makes them good men. Besides. to these people Kennedy was a good man. Lincoln freed the slaves and Martin Luther King was a hell of a lot more respectable than Malcolm X. Dion's voice has more blades than a Swiss army knife. His scat really scats. his rock rocks. he does a mean Bo Diddley. his country does Hank Williams credit. Whatever he had back then he's still got plus 13 years hard growing.
Back in the dressing room people are literally battering the door like it's World War iii outside and that room is the only fallout shelter for miles. One guy has a picture of him and Dion as six-year-olds. One chick declared Dion was at her wedding. Each has a claim ticket for an audience. They're outraged at his need for privacy. He's not a star. he's Dion. and they need to talk to him something bad. Westbury. a spacious 2700-seat house with a revolving stage. Dion opens for Jay Black and the Americans. and almost tears the house down. Saturday night they literally won't let him off the stage. He's bopping around up there like there's no tomorrow. He's got elbowroom that he didn't have out in the boonies on 'Thursday. and he's strutting like a rooster. When calls for his three-person Fifties group for "Teenager in Love" go out .it's stampede time. He plays off the glowing faces. I don't know if he's got them In the palm of his hand or vice versa.
When I was 15.1 used to put on Dion's 45s. close my eyes and imagine that was me belting out those monsters. That night at Westbury 11 years later I missed half the show. You can't see much with your eyes shut.
