CD REVIEWS: DION -A TANK FULL OF BLUES (2011), YO FRANKIE! (1989), HEROES -GIANTS OF EARLY GUITAR ROCK (2008)

(Note: I'm reviewing these in the order I bought and listened to them.)

I was just old enough to be aware of Dion and the Belmonts in the late 50's but by the time I was old enough to start really getting into pop music it was the early 60's and The Beatles and pop music itself was about to explode so I never really paid any attention to Dion Dimucci for the next fifty years when I heard I Was Born To Cry on a budget sampler from Ace Records (UK) (probably the greatest reissue label in the world) and thought to myself  -wow what a voice- and promptly went back hunting for new Ace Blues reissues. Some time later I learned that Dion had released three Blues albums. I tried one, liked it, bought the next and one thing led to another and I began to discover that Dion hadn't faded away after the early 60's. Actually I knew he hadn't and that he'd had a late 60's hit with Abraham, Martin and John in the singer/songwriter/folkie vein. But this time I dug a bit deeper.

I tried an Ace compilation of his gospel material (Dion is profoundly Christian) but the message was more important than the music which didn't appeal to little ole atheist me. A compilation of his 70's material had a little more appeal (70's: From Acoustic To The Wall Of Sound) but by then I'd moved on to another mini-fad. 

Two or three years later and two weeks ago the third of his Blues albums came up in Amazon's recommendations so I listened to samples and bought the CD.

This was a back to the basic approach, a bass player, a drummer-percussionist, and himself on vocals and all guitars. Dion had always been associated primarily with singing but he's always played guitar and is actually very competent. He's also always been a songwriter and he wrote or co-wrote all but the one cover on this album. I think the reason I didn't buy this at the time I bought his other Blues CDs was because I mistakenly thought it was acoustic. It isn't. It's electric, it's raw and Dion's voice is as strong as it ever was. It would be easy to use the phrase at his peak but that would be misleading because he's actually as good as he's ever been. And as a white Blues singer, he may have peers but not many of them.

To be technical, this isn't strictly a blues album, maybe blues-rock, but it really straddles genres. The final track -A Bronx Poem- is spoken, stream of consciousness, flowing one thought, one word into the next, almost rap, heartfelt and surprisingly effective.

And once again, one thing led to another. I looked him up on All-Music Guide (AMG) one of the best, if not the best, online sources about music. One album caught my attention, I listened to samples, bought it.

This latter day (1989) album is definitely up my street in that it's straight forward AOR. It's superbly produced by multi-instrumentalist Dave Edmunds (except for one track produced by Bryan Adams who was so enthused by the prospect of collaborating with Dion that he not only produced, wrote it, sung, played on it, he also brought in k.d. lang on backing vocals). Guest artists also include Lou Reed and Paul Simon who are open in their admiration for the man. Dion himself wrote or co-wrote seven of the ten tracks. You can tell the quality of an artist by the quality of those who want to be associated with him. (Dion has also shared a bill and a stage with Bruce Springsteen who has openly sung the man's praises.)

The songs themselves are generally pretty good. The seemingly braggadocio strut of King Of The New York Streets has a sting in the tail. Written On The Subway Wall has a Mark Knopfler guitar sound (Edmunds). And The Night Stood Still has echoes of Springsteen. Not all the songs are as strong but the overall standard is pretty high. If this isn't one of the best albums of the 80's, it's still a pretty good one. Kudos to Ace Records (UK) for re-releasing it. AMG informs me that it only made 130 in the Billboard charts. It deserved a much wider audience.

Then Amazon recommended to me an album very different to the two above.

This is a tribute to his peers of the late 50's, the foundations on which rock'n'roll is built. They are people he knew, whom he shared bills with. Here he revisits some of their greatest songs to magnificent effect. Dave Marsh the veteran rock music writer who told Dion while on air that he believed three of his albums of the 21st century were the best he's ever made. This, for which he supplies the liner notes, is one of them and it's impossible to disagree. He sings songs by Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis, by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran and Del Shannon. He jammed on guitar in hotel rooms with several of them. 

Somehow, while mostly sticking to the original arrangements, he makes them vital again, not modern exactly, but refreshed by adding his own subtle twists, and, of course, one of the greatest voices of popular music.

Now in his early seventies, Dion has been writing, singing, playing music for over 50 years and unlike any other rock star I can think of is still creatively viable as he makes some of the best music of his long career. He's got old, he's not got stale. 

Still the cool tough Italian kid from the Bronx.

MUSIC: DION (TWO AMAZON REVIEWS)

BRONX BLUES: THE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS (COLUMBIA, 1991)

Covering only three years on the Columbia label, this compilation (which includes two previously unreleased versions and a couple of alternate takes) is startlingly changeable as Dion reinvents himself.

It opens with a 1963 song "Can't We Be Sweethearts?" which could have been recorded in 1958 and sounds like it should be on the soundtrack of Grease. This and many other tracks aren't significantly different from his work with the Belmonts and early solo material, in other words doo-wop and teen idol, disturbed only by a Chuck Berry-influenced 'Gonna Make It Alone'. Following these comes a string of his better mainstream pop work with 'Ruby Baby', 'Donna the Prima Donna', 'Drip Drop' and the heartfelt ballad 'Troubled Mind' which just about hints at what is to come.

And then there's a gap of a year. I don't know whether or not Dion actually recorded during that period but on the evidence of this album it's reasonable to infer that he spent much of gap reassessing his music, probably much as a result of the British Invasion. What emerges on these final seven tracks are the Bronx Blues of the title.

Unlike, however, many white American and English blues enthusiasts, Dion does not copy the style or styles of the originators, he sings these songs his way and they are all the better for it. Forget the endless guitar solos of 'Spoonful', Dion's is taut and dynamic and intense and short. He snarls it out with an intense spartan guitar. His 'Seventh Son' is perhaps too much Bob Dylan than Willie Dixon but at least it's different. The penultimate track is 'Two Ton Feather' which he wrote and is one of the best tracks on the CD before concluding with a Bob Dylan song.

What we get in these later tracks is Dion in the process of change from pop star to rock singer. It's an exploration rather than anything definitive which it can be said his earlier work is of its type. I can't think of any other artist who started in the late 50's who transformed himself so much. Of course this results in a very varied and inconsistent album but always a fascinating one.

70'S FROM ACOUSTIC TO THE WALL OF SOUND (Ace, 2004)

Amazon review title: Too Much Talent?

No, seriously, from late 50's doo-wop to a unique take on white boy blues in 2007 via singer/songwriter and gospel and a whole lot more. In a career lasting 50 years, Dion has continually reinvented himself. From 1962-65 (as shown on the compilation Bronx Blues) he moved from teen idol with songs like Donna the Prima Donna and Drip Drop to early and excellent attempts at the Blues with Don't Start Me Talkin' and Spoonful.

This excellent Ace compilation covers 1970-76. Here he's a little more laid back as he's in singer/songwriter mode, sliding into folk and sometimes into Dylan. On If We Only Have Love, I swear he sounds like smoothie Jacques blinking Brel! In the excellent booklet, Dion remarks that at the time he was raising three young daughters, "I think that's what brought on the softer music, a lot of it anyway." Even his Phil Spector produced tracks sound almost laid-back, well, for Phil Spector anyway.

This isn't his most immediate record, unlike say 2007's Son Of Skip James which hit me like a hammer, but I've played it a few times now and it's a grower. Let it wash over you for a while and nuances and subtleties and quiet skill all gradually become apparent.

I'd just like to end with an appreciation for Ace Records (UK) who issued this compilation. They are the world's greatest reissue label, known for the amazing variety of music they issue, for the care they take in remastering, for digging out rare and unreleased cuts, for the quality of their liner notes. I'll love them forever for their series of Lightnin' Slim's Excello compilations. This Dion release is absolutely typical of the quality of their product.