Dion

DION’S DIVINE DISSATISFACTION

At 82, the Legendary Musician is Still Stompin’ the Blues

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

AT THIS STAGE IN HIS CAREER, legendary Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Dion DiMucci doesn’t feel the need to impress anyone. He has no corporate bigwigs breathing down his neck and doesn’t even have to pick up his guitar. But driven by his own self-proclaimed divine dissatisfaction, the 82-year-old New York rocker has just released what he considers to be his best record yet. For an artist who began recording in the ‘50s and has consistently issued quality material in every decade since his breakthrough doo-wop and pop hits, Stomping Ground may very well be his masterpiece. A superb follow-up to last year’s critically and commercially successful Blues With Friends, the latest collection features an impressive slate of friends and 14 incendiary performances. Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Billy F Gibbons, Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Bonamassa, Boz Scaggs, Mark Knopfler, Peter Frampton, Sonny Landreth, Marcia Ball, Jimmy Vivino and G.E. Smith contribute to 13 of Dion’s rock, soul, gospel and blues-based originals. Keb’ Mo’ joins in for an inspired reimagining of the Jimi Hendrix classic “Red House.” For collectors, Bonamassa’s Keeping The Blues Alive label is pressing the disc in several deluxe formats. Reached by phone in Boca Raton, Dion spoke with INsite about his “built-in” need to create new music. The last time we talked was after the Dave Edmunds Rock N Roll Revue at The Roxy, a mere 31 years ago. So we’ve got a few things to catch up on. Yeah? Oh my God, that’s incredible. You know, I thought getting old would take longer. It’s like we blinked and everything happened. Your album at the time was Yo Frankie, and in retrospect it seems to be the foundation of Blues With Friends as well as Stomping Ground – inspired pairings of solid songs with cool players. It was kind of fun making that record, working with Edmunds, Lou Reed, Bryan Adams. We hung out a lot while making it. Keith Richards or Eric Clapton would come by, you know. But I really got into something with the new stuff. I went in and recorded 14 songs a couple of years ago. Joe Bonamassa was the catalyst and he played on a song called “Blues Coming On.” And Lee, I’d never heard anything like it. Sometimes he sounds like Miles Davis, sometimes John Coltrane, sometimes he’s like Thelonious Monk. Man, I know how to write a song that rocks your heart but when it comes to the window dressing - or whatever ya want to call it - on the solos, that’s different. Back in the day, when I did “The Wanderer,” Buddy Lucas stepped up to the microphone and played that sax solo. I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was totally off the cuff. That’s what started happening with this stuff. You give a great track to a great artist and it’s overwhelming what they will come up with. Stomping Ground is filled with incredibly uninhibited performances and some wonderfully nuanced moments. The Rickie Lee Jones track [“I’ve Been Watching”] is a good example. I had this love song that no one’s ever written before. Usually when you hear a love song, you know the deal. She’s driving me crazy or I love the way you’re breaking my heart, whatever the hell it is. But this love song comes from being together for years. We sent her the song and she really got it. She said something, I’ll share it with you. It’s very sad in a way. When she listened to the song she said, ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this and I probably never will.’ Because she’s older now. She won’t have a love affair that lasts for 50 years. You know what I’m saying? It’s a touching moment on the record. As is “Angel in the Alleyways.” I love the way Patti Scialfa’s voice sounds with mine, she has a beautiful vibrato and I have none. I sent her

I HAVE A FRIEND, HE GOES, ‘YOU REALLY the song as a really clean, empty track. I sent just my vocal and guitar. She KNOW HOW TO REINVENT calls me back, ‘Dion, I love YOURSELF.’ I SAID, ‘NO, I DIDN’T INVENT MYSELF this song. But do you have anything else on it, like a bass, a drum, anything?’ I

IN THE FIRST PLACE, said, ‘No, I’m sending it to AND I’M NOT ABOUT TO you empty, so if you do any REINVENT MYSELF NOW.’ harmonies, you’ll know exactly what I’m saying, where I’m breathing, everything. We can be like the Everly Brothers.’ So Lee, she sends back 64 tracks. 64 tracks! My whole career isn’t 64 tracks, you know? She didn’t phone it in, man. She layered, she stacked her voices and she brought Bruce in to play guitar and harp. When Bruce called me, I said, ‘64 tracks? Man, you guys really know how to make a guy feel loved!’ The liner notes from Pete Townshend offer some pretty high praise, too. He’s a great writer. When he sent those, I called him. ‘Pete, you wrote about me in mythical terms. I’m gonna have to walk around the house in a toga or something!’ He says, ‘You want me to rewrite them?’ I said, ‘No!’ You’ve got to take what these guys give you. Otherwise, you start manipulating the whole thing. I couldn’t even plan it if I tried. So to me, I think Stomping Ground is the best album I’ve ever recorded. When I listen to it in the car, I’m like, ‘Wow, this sounds really cool.’ The guests obviously have tremendous respect for you. This is going to sound weird, but I’m glad I’ve lived this long. Because I’ve never felt so embraced by the musical community, you know? It really feels very special to me. Most of your peers didn’t get that much love. Either they died young or tastes changed and they never came back after the British Invasion. Not many survived that era, but you had hits before and after Beatlemania. Well a lot of people looked at the British 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.