The great Dion DiMucci, an outlier of the pre-Beatles American rock and roll era – is still very much with us, fighting fit at the age of eighty-six, still making records, and still in possession of a truly awesome singing voice. His latest album, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Philospher, was released on 24th October 2025, on the KTBA label, and accompanies a book of the same name, and such is DiMucci’s standing in the world of contemporary rock music that musicians the calibre of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Sonny Landreth and Joe Bonnamassa were happy to make contributions to the album.
Back in the late 50s/ early 60s, Dion had had a successful four-year stint on the Laurie label, where he had enjoyed hits such as ‘I Wonder Why’ and ‘Where Or When’ with his backing band The Belmonts, and ‘Runaround Sue’ and ‘The Wanderer’, amongst many other hits. He then signed to the Columbia/ CBS label for whom he made a number of recordings between 1962 and 1965. Signing to Columbia was a big deal; Columbia had yet to really make great inroads into the Youth / Rock ‘n’ Roll audience, it being more closely associated with MOR sounds and styles – the likes of Percy Faith, Tony Bennett and Andy Williams were all label-mates of Dion, although Williams’ signing was relatively recent. The label was obviously keen to make up lost ground, and Dion was a notable signing.
Dion had been initially assigned to one of the Columbia label’s house producers, Robert Mersey, whose aim was to manoeuvre Dion towards the ballads and Tin Pan Alley Pop standards of the era, repositioning him towards the Pop mainstream. This notion was not exclusive to the US music industry; in the UK, the early rock ‘n’ roll impresario/ manager Larry Parnes sought to move his ‘boys’ from the teen rock audience into being an ‘all-round entertainer’ as soon as possible. It had worked very well for Tommy Steele, after all.
Dion’s early Columbia recordings saw him turn his assured singing style to songs such as ‘Can’t We Be Sweethearts’, ‘Little Girl of Mine’ (originally recorded by The Cleftones), ‘Oh Happy Day’ (a 1952 hit for Don Howard, and later recorded by The Five Satins) and ‘A Sunday Kind of Love’, the latter a much-covered Pop/ Jazz standard, with notable versions by Etta James, Dinah Washington and The Marcels. Dion delivered soulful and accomplished renditions, displaying himself to be a balladeer of great skill but he also sought to firmly establish his ‘stand alone’ credentials since parting with The Belmonts – notably the dynamic ‘Gonna Make It Alone’.
Dion delivered his biggest hit for Columbia with a cover of The Drifters’ ‘Ruby Baby’, a Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller composition, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot One Hundred US singles chart a month after being recorded in December 1962, at his very first session for the label. Fans of Steely Dan may recall a great version of this song on Donald Fagen’s debut solo album, The Nightfly. Other highlights from this era include the likes of ‘Donna The Prima Donna’, an opus in the ‘Runaround Sue’ mode, ‘Troubled Mind’, a Doc Pomus / Mort Shuman composition, and an original, ‘Will Love Ever Come My Way’. Apparently, in writing the latter, Dion took the advice of Paul Anka, who told him “you gotta write songs that make the girls feel sorry you – that’s the trick!”
The song ‘Sweet Sweet Baby’ pointed the way towards Dion’s growing interest and immersion in The Blues. John Hammond, the legendary Columbia A&R man who signed Bob Dylan, Billie Holliday and others, had an office close by to Dion’s producer, Bob Mersey. Having heard something in Dion’s musicality that seemed to reference the Blues, Hammond played him an album of recordings by the late Robert Johnson. It fired Dion’s imagination, and he gravitated ever further into rootsier musical fare as his tenure with Columbia wore on. He attended shows in New York’s Greenwich Village featuring Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters. He also visited the Bronx apartment of Delta bluesman the Reverend Gary Davis to pick up guitar tips.
His immersion in The Blues delivered fine dividends. Taking his lead from Mose Allison, his version of the Willie Dixon chestnut ‘The Seventh Son’ is smoking, and DiMucci originals like ‘Kickin’ Child’ and ‘Two Ton Feather’ showed that his exploration of The Blues was no mere dilettante indulgence. During his tenure at Columbia, Dion himself had undergone a re-invention; he was not the same artist that had three years before, and he would soon depart the label to pursue his absorbing career elsewhere.
Dion is nothing if not a survivor, in a business that has chewed up, spat out and discarded thousands before him. He has navigated a path through the days of primal 50s rock and roll, moving through folk/ blues, going on to recording dazzling interpretations of the Jimi Hendrix opus, ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Abraham, Martin and John’, before ultimately discovering his own compositional voice with a string of fine solo albums.
With thanks to Alan Robinson