Dion

Dion

The Record Wagon, Autumn 1959, Channel 13, New York

Dion & the Belmonts had been frequent guests on my weekday television show, but of all the artists, Dion was the most distant. The Belmonts - Carlo, Angelo and Freddie - were fun and funny and engratiating. But Dion ... I just could not connect with him. To me, Dion’s aloof attitude was more than apathy; something deeper was troubling him.

Just a few months earlier, in February 1959, Dion had escaped death by declining to fly in the Beechcraft air charter that crashed, killing Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper – the infamous “Day The Music Died.” Dion was offered a seat, but said, “I decided I couldn’t afford the $36 cost to the next stop on our [Winter Dance Party] tour.”

Carlo Mastrangelo, Fred Milano,

Dion DiMucci and Angelo D'Aleo

YouTube Video: "I Wonder Why" '58

The free-wheeling format of The Record Wagon, allowing our studio audience to select the dance play list, helped define our show’s unique New York flair. A controversy erupted over a highly-unlikely double-sided record of two old standards by Dion & the Belmonts - “Where Or When,” (the Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart standard written in 1936 for the musical Babes In Arms) and “That’s My Desire,” the signature tune and big hit record for Frankie Laine. The two sides were the latest (and last) release of Dion & the Belmonts and, while the nation’s disc jockeys were playing “Where Or When,” our audience demanded we flip the record to the more dramatic, a cappella sounding, “That’s My Desire.”

I milked the disagreement, making a big deal out of it every day, challenging the kids in our studio to vote, shouting out their preference. The hoopla was ongoing, and I pounded away on the controversy, and “That’s My Desire” became an East Coast hit.

Several weeks later, I was rehearsing with the band Orchid over at Morris Levy’s “Roundtable” club, when Dion appeared in the doorway. I learned later that he had spent a good part of the day tracking me down. “I just came by to thank you,” he said. “My mom told me what you did for me while I was away, and I am grateful.” You could have knocked me for a loop. I later learned that Dion had gone away for “the cure,” (as Rehab was called back then) and while he was gone, I had kept his name alive at home where it counted the most to him. He was clean, clear-eyed and grateful - an all-new Dion. I was very moved by his gesture.

Dion, the Belmonts and the Delicates, The Terrace Ballroom, Newark NJ, 1959: Carlo, Arlene, Freddy, Peggy, Dion and Denise

That night I had a dream about Dion, which I unraveled the next morning in my session with my therapist, Dr. Cohen. I had dreamed that a robot had four small Scrabble-sized chips placed in the fold of its arm, a square slot, at the vein favored by heroin shooters. The chips had plus and minus symbols on them.

But as I lay down on the couch, I suddenly blurted out the meaning of the dream:

I said “There was this big clay robot – whoops, I had said "Clay", and in my dreams the robot was mummy-like, appearing in a smooth plaster cast, made of clay. Of course – the “clay” robot was me. I wanted to change my minus chips into plus clips, to be rehabilitated just like Dion. I too wanted to be “a good person,” as Dion had now become.

This was a positive break-though for me, as it had been for Dion, an intensely creative and kindhearted friend throughout all the years we interacted professionally.

He had found an inner peace.

Later, Dion went solo with the guidance of his new personal manager Sal Bonafede, signing a multi-million dollar Columbia Records contract, and recording “Ruby Baby” and “Donna The Prima Donna,” (Backed in the studio by the Del Satins) creating, as Bobby Darin once told him “Bronx Blues,” a whole new urban sound. Dion’s contract with Columbia Records was a major news event; Dion was the first rock ‘n’ roll artist signed to the major, prestigious Columbia Records. That year Dion headlined my ten day Brooklyn Paramount Christmas show and joined Chubby Checker and me in Hollywood to film Columbia pictures Twist Around the Clock (he performed "The Wanderer"), and Teenage Millionaire, a film with Jimmy Clanton. Our bond endured.

Dion, Official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Biography

Induction Year: 1989

Induction Category: Performer

"Singer Dion DiMucci, better known simply as Dion, epitomized the indigenous music of the Bronx streets where he grew up. In 1957, he teamed with three neighborhood pals - Fred Milano, Angelo D’Aleo and Carlo Mastrangelo - to form a vocal group that earned a reputation as the best streetcorner singers for miles. Dion and the Belmonts (named for Belmont Avenue, in the Bronx) perfected four-part harmonies while falling under the spell of rock and roll. The quartet combined the doo-wop sound of their home turf with a raft of rock and roll and R&B influences that included Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

With the encouragement of Dion’s parents, the budding singer got signed to the New York based Mohawk label (later Laurie Records) and was initially groomed as a solo singer. Soon after his debut single, “The Chosen Few,” Dion brought the Belmonts on board.

In early 1958, Dion and the Belmonts recorded their first Top Forty hit, “I Wonder Why.” A year later, they cracked the Top Ten with “A Teenager in Love,” written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. That winter, as the single moved up the charts, Dion and the Belmonts joined the Winter Dance Party, a package tour. Because he balked at paying the $35 it would have cost him, Dion declined an invitation to fly on the chartered plane that went down on February 3rd, 1959, killing fellow musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson.

Dion and the Belmonts scored their biggest hit, “Where or When,” in 1960, but the group found itself being steered in a polished, adult-pop direction and Dion left to reclaim his rock and roll roots.

In 1961, he hit upon a loose, swaggering style that he could call his own with the songs “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” At this time, Dion was nearly alone among all the “teen idols” in attempting to equal the sultry charge that Elvis Presley had brought to rock and roll. Other hits in the same swinging, spontaneous vein followed: “Lovers Who Wander,” “Little Diane,” “Ruby Baby,” “Donna the Prima Donna.”

Dion’s star subsequently dimmed in the wake of the British Invasion and some personal setbacks that included a struggle with drug addiction. However, he re-emerged in 1968 with a more introspective, folk-based style that earned him his tenth Top Ten song, a thoughtful ode to slain martyrs entitled “Abraham, Martin and John.” In 1973, he reunited with the Belmonts for a concert at Madison Square Garden that resulted in a well-received live album, Reunion. Subsequently, the ever-versatile Dion added Christian music to a stylistic canon that includes folk, doo-wop, rhythm & blues, and rock and roll.”