Anyone growing up in the 60′s would remember the songs of Dion DiMucci. Dion had hits starting when he was in his teens with the Belmonts singing I Wonder Why, Teenager In Love, and many other great Doo Wop era songs. I was not yet 10 years old when I took an interest in his music. He has a soaring melodic voice that put you “in the song”.
In 1960, Dion parted with the Belmonts. The hits rolled on with The Wanderer, Runaround Sue, Lovers Who Wander, Ruby Baby, Donna the Prima Donna, and others. When the British Invasion hit America, Dion along with many other late 50′s – early 60′s singers faded away. After Abraham, Martin, and John in 1969, Dion would go through a phase of singing Folk and Christian music along with a short reunion with the Belmonts. It was about 1962 that I began to sing along while listening to his songs. I repeated the vocal inflections over and over. In 1966, a Junior in high school, I was asked to sing for a band. I also learned to play tenor sax in school. Forty two years later, I am still rockin’ and rollin’ as is Dion, who recently released two blues CDs.
In the mid-70′s I had a family and a few weeks off before starting a new job. I went to hear Dion live for the first time at a club near the Buffalo, NY airport. I was in heaven standing at the bar, finally getting to see and hear my favorite singer. After the show the guitar player noticed my enthusiasm and came to talk to me. I told him I was a huge fan, and one of my son’s had the middle name Dion. He called Dion over to meet me. We hit it off from the start. I told him I sang and played sax. As the band was without a sax player, he asked me to come to rehearsal the next day. As you can imagine, I was jumping out of my skin. I had all the dirty gritty sax parts to his songs down years before so I was prepared. I got the job and played the rest of the week with his band. I took them home to go over some of the backup singing (they were a little younger and some had never heard the originals). Dion loved the changes. We went to breakfast every night and connected with music, being American-Italian, and learning from each other.
When the week was over, we went to New York to play a concert with Jay and the Americans. I remember being at rehearsal. I couldn’t hear my mike and had to repeatedly ask the sound man to turn up my sound monitor. Dion’s manager at the time, a fellow named Zack noticed and told the sound man to “give the kid from Buffalo anything he wanted”. I thought I died and went to heaven. After a great show, they asked me to continue on with them, and having a family, medical coverage concerns, etc. I had to refuse and go home to start my new job. I met Dion again a few years later and he greeted me with his bright cheerful personality by calling me Charley On-sax.
Dion is still making great recordings. His latest are Bronx in Blue and The Son of Skip James. Some of my favorite recordings of Dion were with a great band from Baltimore in an album called “The Return of the Wanderer” and an old album simply titled Dion, where he sings some old Sinatra songs with a full orchestra. If anyone’s music ever was associated with being “cool” it was Dion’s.
I’m still singing and playing “The Wanderer” almost every weekend. When the band starts “Ruby Baby” I get a distant look in my eye, remembering a few weeks in the 70′s when my dream came true.
Dion was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1969 by Bruce Springsteen.
Charles Priore
Italian American Baby Boomers Club
IABBC.com