MUSIC
DION’S DIVINE DISSATISFACTION At 82, the Legendary Musician is Still Stompin’ the Blues
BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH
A
track to a great artist and it’s overwhelming what they will come up with.
T THIS STAGE IN HIS CAREER, legendary Rock and Roll Hall Of Stomping Ground is filled with incredibly Fame inductee Dion DiMucci uninhibited performances and some doesn’t feel the need to impress anyone. wonderfully nuanced moments. The He has no corporate bigwigs breathing Rickie Lee Jones track [“I’ve Been down his neck and doesn’t even have to Watching”] is a good example. pick up his guitar. But driven by his own I had this love song that no one’s ever self-proclaimed divine dissatisfaction, written before. Usually when you hear a the 82-year-old New York rocker has just love song, you know the deal. She’s driving released what he considers to be his best me crazy or I love the way you’re breaking record yet. my heart, whatever the hell it is. But this For an artist who began recording love song comes from being together in the ‘50s and has consistently issued for years. We sent her the song and she quality material in every decade since really got it. She said something, I’ll share his breakthrough doo-wop and pop it with you. It’s very sad in a way. When hits, Stomping Ground may very well be she listened to the song she said, ‘I’ve his masterpiece. A superb follow-up to never experienced anything like this and last year’s critically and commercially I probably never will.’ Because she’s older successful Blues With Friends, the latest now. She won’t have a love affair that lasts collection features an impressive slate of for 50 years. You know what I’m saying? friends and 14 incendiary performances. Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Billy F It’s a touching moment on the record. As is Gibbons, Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Bonamassa, “Angel in the Alleyways.” Boz Scaggs, Mark Knopfler, Peter I love the way Patti Scialfa’s voice sounds Frampton, Sonny Landreth, Marcia Ball, with mine, she has a beautiful vibrato and Jimmy Vivino and G.E. I have none. I sent her Smith contribute to 13 of song as a really clean, Dion’s rock, soul, gospel I HAVE A FRIEND, HE the empty track. I sent just and blues-based originals. GOES, ‘YOU REALLY my vocal and guitar. She Keb’ Mo’ joins in for an KNOW HOW TO REINVENT calls me back, ‘Dion, I love inspired reimagining of the song. But do you have YOURSELF.’ I SAID, ‘NO, this Jimi Hendrix classic “Red anything else on it, like a House.” For collectors, I DIDN’T INVENT MYSELF bass, a drum, anything?’ I Bonamassa’s Keeping IN THE FIRST PLACE, said, ‘No, I’m sending it to The Blues Alive label is you empty, so if you do any pressing the disc in several AND I’M NOT ABOUT TO you’ll know deluxe formats. REINVENT MYSELF NOW.’ harmonies, exactly what I’m saying, Reached by phone in where I’m breathing, Boca Raton, Dion spoke everything. We can be like the Everly with INsite about his “built-in” need to Brothers.’ So Lee, she sends back 64 tracks. create new music. 64 tracks! My whole career isn’t 64 tracks, you know? She didn’t phone it in, man. The last time we talked was after the She layered, she stacked her voices and she Dave Edmunds Rock N Roll Revue at The brought Bruce in to play guitar and harp. Roxy, a mere 31 years ago. So we’ve got a When Bruce called me, I said, ‘64 tracks? few things to catch up on. Man, you guys really know how to make a Yeah? Oh my God, that’s incredible. guy feel loved!’ You know, I thought getting old would take longer. It’s like we blinked and The liner notes from Pete Townshend offer everything happened. some pretty high praise, too. He’s a great writer. When he sent those, Your album at the time was Yo Frankie, I called him. ‘Pete, you wrote about me in and in retrospect it seems to be the mythical terms. I’m gonna have to walk foundation of Blues With Friends as well around the house in a toga or something!’ as Stomping Ground – inspired pairings He says, ‘You want me to rewrite them?’ of solid songs with cool players. I said, ‘No!’ You’ve got to take what these It was kind of fun making that record, guys give you. Otherwise, you start working with Edmunds, Lou Reed, Bryan manipulating the whole thing. I couldn’t Adams. We hung out a lot while making even plan it if I tried. So to me, I think it. Keith Richards or Eric Clapton would Stomping Ground is the best album I’ve come by, you know. But I really got into ever recorded. When I listen to it in the something with the new stuff. I went in car, I’m like, ‘Wow, this sounds really cool.’ and recorded 14 songs a couple of years ago. Joe Bonamassa was the catalyst and The guests obviously have tremendous he played on a song called “Blues Coming respect for you. On.” And Lee, I’d never heard anything like This is going to sound weird, but I’m glad it. Sometimes he sounds like Miles Davis, I’ve lived this long. Because I’ve never felt sometimes John Coltrane, sometimes he’s so embraced by the musical community, like Thelonious Monk. Man, I know how you know? It really feels very special to me. to write a song that rocks your heart but when it comes to the window dressing - or Most of your peers didn’t get that much whatever ya want to call it - on the solos, love. Either they died young or tastes that’s different. Back in the day, when I changed and they never came back after did “The Wanderer,” Buddy Lucas stepped the British Invasion. Not many survived up to the microphone and played that sax that era, but you had hits before and after solo. I didn’t have anything to do with it. It Beatlemania. was totally off the cuff. That’s what started Well a lot of people looked at the British happening with this stuff. You give a great Invasion like it was an actual invasion. I
looked at it like an infusion. They threw back to us what I was in love with in the first place, American roots music. They made me delve more into my own roots. I maybe wasn’t as popular. But there’s a big difference between being productive and popular. Popular is one thing, but with The Stones, The Beatles, Eric Burton and the Animals, they just got me more focused. My concentration wasn’t too much on, ‘Oh look what they’re doing to me’ in a bad way. When I was first making records, popular music and artistic stuff were the same. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, they were all brilliantly artistic but commercial, too. It’s refreshing to hear you this excited about a new project after so many albums in so many decades. I have a friend, he goes, ‘You really know how to reinvent yourself.’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t invent myself in the first place, and I’m not about to reinvent myself now.’ I look at it more as I’m just maturing and evolving. That’s all. I was doing this with “Ruby Baby,” “Drip Drop” and “The Wanderer,” I was doing this back then. If you listen to “Born to Cry,” when I was 16, it’s just the same thing, but evolved. I think the difference is now I don’t have to impress anybody or live up to anybody’s expectations. So it’s kinda nice, I can do what comes from the heart and hope it finds its audience.
As someone who’s been on the journey with you for quite a while now, it does seem like the Warner Brothers period, the early ‘70s releases like Sit Down Old Friend, for example, is very different from the DaySpring gospel material from the ‘80s. It all plays out like separate chapters of a biography. But the funny thing is, if you walked into my house and heard me playing any of those songs on guitar, they’d probably all just sound like Dion music. But then, when somebody like Patti gives you 64 tracks, it sounds like I’m on a different planet. But I’m not. It’s not that much different. It’s great that you’ve continued to be creative. Some artists are woefully stuck in the ‘60s - or even the ‘90s at this point. You could just hang out in Florida and do nothing but kick back and authorize reissues. But you’re not that kind of guy. You’re absolutely right. A friend of mine used call it Divine Dissatisfaction. For me, it’s just built-in and it’s not a negative thing. If you say the word dissatisfaction, it sounds like you somehow feel entitled. No, it’s God-given. You just keep going because you have to do it. You keep wanting to do more so you keep studying and you keep growing. I won’t ever stop creating. Stomping Ground is available from most music retailers and direct from the label at keepingthebluesalive.org, jbonamassa. com/collections/ktba-records, and via diondimucci.com. insiteatlanta.com • November 2021 • PG 13
