Music |
Dion
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Rock
Do you know the Jorge Luis Borges story, Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote? Menard wants to write the Cervantes classic — for the second time. Not from memory. Not a revised version. The same words, in the exact same order, just by a different writer.
He devises several ways to do this. And sets out. "The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical," Borges reports. Which is better? "The second is almost infinitely richer."
How can that be?
I thought of the Borges story as I contemplated the photo of Dion on the CD of ‘New Masters.’ The signature beret — perhaps it hides a receding hairline? The dark sunglasses — do they hide crow’s feet decades deep? And that gleaming smile — he’s had some ‘work’ done.
Well, we’ve all traveled a distance — when that photo was taken in 2003, Dion DiMucci was 64.
And just as we cut ourselves some slack — just as we look in our mirrors and, denying the years, affirm the unchanging integrity of the kid we used to be —maybe there’s something to be said for a guy re-recording songs that were his greatest hits 40 years earlier.
Then consider something even more improbable: that experience — and, perhaps, divine grace — can take a big talent and enlarge it over the years.
This CD is evidence. Good wine gets better over time. So does Dion. I know this sounds crazy. Dion? Of Dion and the Belmonts? That Dion? Yes. That Dion.
Put this CD on, turn the volume up and sit back. My bet: You won’t be sitting down long. Not because this is the music you knew as a kid or heard your parents play and you find the nostalgia sweet. But because this version of Dion’s songs is in every way superior to the recordings that sold millions in the 1950s and 1960s.
Talk about a "journey." Dion DiMucci started singing at five. Playing guitar at ten. Knocking them out on Bronx street corners as a young teen. Recording early with the best singers from his neighborhood — the Belmonts: Fred Milano, Angelo D’Aleo and Carlo Mastrangelo. Their sound stopped traffic: steeped in the doo-wop of the boroughs, but with a new rock edge. And their lyrics were street poetry: teen longing that was as accessible as the pizzeria on the corner.
At 21, Dion was a solo act, a millionaire twice over, with a slew of greatest hits. He was also in trouble: "The day I snorted that first white line and walked like a king through the tenement streets was the day I cut myself off from ever facing what was wrong with me, Dion, the man behind all those masks. Inside me, I never made it past 13."
The Beatles and Stones made Dion’s music obsolete. He moved to Florida, where his father in law steered him to a 12-step program that helped him kick his heroin addiction. Six months later, at the age of 28, he had a different kind of hit: "Abraham, Martin and John."
The next three decades were good to Dion. His spirituality deepened; "When I’m down to nothin’, God’s up to something," he says. His marriage to his high school sweetheart continued to flower. He toured, recorded. In 1989, he was elected to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.
And here is the part you care about — he saw new reasons to re-record his signature songs and the hits of his rivals. What might be the best voice of his generation was still strong; indeed, he could sing higher now. There was new music that could be interwoven into the old — like Elton John’s "Crocodile Rock" making an appearance in "Donna the Prima Donna." The harsh rules of pop radio were no more; a song didn’t have to end at two minutes and forty seconds. And production was vastly improved; the instruments could be mixed and layered to give his vocals greater punch.
“New Masters” shows how smart Dion was to reach back — and look forward with two new songs, "Behind Susan’s Eyes," a heartfelt rocker about his love for his wife, and "Come Heal this Land," a post-9/11 song considerably better than the treacle that came out of Nashville after the attacks. But the oldies are the goodies. Only they’re new too. Why is that? [To buy ‘New Masters’ from Amazon, click here.]
I think Dion is doing two things at once here. First he’s honoring the songs, giving voice to all those tender teen emotions. Second, he’s setting those emotions in a context — in the context of his marriage and his faith. So the songs don’t say that life is hard for love-crazed kids in a hopelessly square world. They say how beautiful that world is. The longing for a girl, the heartbreak when she leaves, the tough-guy pose you have to maintain in front of your friends — that’s the good stuff, that’s the glory of youth. And to feel that strongly is to be deliriously, gloriously alive.
The secret sauce in ‘New Masters’ is that pure love of life. The CD glows with it, and bathes the listener in it — whether you’re a four-year-old dancing in the tub, or an oldster like Dion. Life is rich, it says. Glory is possible. Get busy.
And Dion has been. Just recently, he released “Bronx in Blue,” an acoustic CD of blues classics. Again, you go: Dion? But listen: "When I was a kid, there was no Rock & Roll. In the early 50’s – late at night, I’d tune into Wheeling, West Virginia, listening to the Blues – Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘How Many More Years,’ Jimmy Reed’s ‘Bright Lights, Big City.’ After school, I’d run home to catch the last half hour of the ‘Don Larkin Country Show’ coming out of Newark. I was a Hank Williams junkie; for me, putting country and blues together – that’s what I call Rock & Roll." [To buy ‘Bronx in Blue’ from Amazon, click here.]
The music of his childhood is…the blues? Dion is full of surprises: He can play blues guitar, he’s a credible blues shouter.
So forget his age. Just open your mind the smallest inch. Dion DiMucci will take it from there.
