By Evet Spilsi

The date 3 February 1959 is still special for all Deon fans. There are continued calls in America to make it a national holiday, in honour of the late Italian pop star, who perished in the plane crash, along with other members of the Autumn Dance Party Tour.

His partner on the tour, Buddy Hollie said at the time that it was only a twist of fate that lead Dimuccy to board the plane - the place had been Hollies and only a last minute swap saved him, when he lost his seat to a spade flush, queen high.

Hollies career since that time has been a mixed bag. While he had hits in the early sixties with The Wandering and Run Around Peggy Sue, his only other major chart success was in the early eighties with the rap classic, Abraham, Regan and Nixon. His country rock experiments of the 70’s are now largely forgotten. Since that time he has maintained a small following on the rap and golden oldies circuit. He was most recently seen leading a carnival parade through Lubbock Texas with his latest backing group, the Big Queens, in support. It is believed that Ayce records in the UK may be considering re-releasing a few of Hollies more popular albums, but there are no plans to re-issue his devil worshipping 80’s albums.

Meanwhile Deons career cut off in 1959, continues to prosper. His world-wide fan club have logged over 5000 albums of his material, which have been officially released. These albums consist of his 2 albums recorded before his death and a whole host of studio out takes and demo’s, many of which have been remastered with revised backing tracks on numerous occasions. The latest is the Lorrie Complete Deon Box Set, claimed to be the Definitive Collection , but experts are pointing out that it is still missing some essential alternate takes.

The absence of Deon has not prevented the Deon persona staring in Hollywood bio-pics and west end musicals.

However Deons career would probably have been long forgotten if it wasn’t for British groups taking up Dimuccys mantle. Perhaps the most famous is Liverpool’s The Beltles (believed to be a play on words on Dimuccy’s backing group) and from Manchester, The Deons, whose singer Graham Nat went on to greater things with the super group, Crumbly, Still Life, Nat. And Notso Younge. As is well known, Dimuccy’s back catalogue, still widely used for often tacky advertising, is now owned by The Beltles Paul MacKensie.

Also scheduled for release in the new year, is a charity album called the Stars Sing Deon, where a number of contemporary artists sing his songs. These include Jon Lemon of the Beltles, Bruce Springup and Roberto Plantit. Donnie Macleen best remembered for Bye Bye Miss American Pizza, a song which helped to cement the Deon legend ,is also believed to be covering a Deon song

One is left to wonder how different things might have been, if it had been Hollie and not Dimuccy who had caught the plane on that fateful night.