Dion DiMucci salutes the rock legends
October 12th, 2008
By Skip Sheffield
Society Editor
What befits a legend best?
For Dion DiMucci it’s a low-profile life in Boca Raton with family, friends and his church.
“I really don’t like performing in South Florida,” he said by telephone recently from New York, where he has an apartment. “I have performed at Broward Center, Sunrise and other places, but I would rather not perform in my back yard. I have a life outside music.”
Dion is as iconic a rock ‘n’ roller as America has ever seen. Now he is honoring the guitar heroes that inspired him with a new album on Saguaro Road Records, “Heroes: Giants of Early Rock,” due out Sept. 30. The 15 tunes Dion sings were made famous by late rock stars such as Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Gene Vincent, but the musicians he is specifically honoring are the guitarists behind the scenes: James Burton for Ricky Nelson, Scotty Moore for Elvis Presley, Luther Perkins for Johnny Cash and Cliff Gallup for Gene Vincent.
“There were two periods when giants walked the earth,” states Dion, who began playing guitar at age 13 and rose to stardom at age 17 with Dion & the Belmonts (“Teenager in Love”). “The 50s and the 60s. Rolling Stone began publishing in 1967, so there is a gap of history on the early rock heroes. This is my chance to champion these artists who are unknown to many.”
Took The Bus
If ever there was a scholar on the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, singer, songwriter and guitarist Dion is it. He was there when the giants of whom he speaks walked the earth, and he walked among them. Dion averted an early death at age 19 when he declined an offer to ride in a charter plane to Clear Lake, Iowa with his friends and costars, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.
“They wanted $36, and that was a lot of money back then,” he says. “That was a week’s wage for a lot of people. I took the bus.”
Holly, Valens and Big Bopper died in a fiery 1959 crash that is the stuff of life-fast, die-young rock star legends.
Dion did his own share of living fast and to excess, but he has been clean and sober for 40 years. He has watched his three daughters with beloved wife Susan grow to adulthood and careers in education over the course of 20 years in Boca Raton.
At Peace
“Mellow” is not the accurate word to describe the feisty Italian boy-wonder from The Bronx, but at age 69 Dion is a man at peace with himself and the world.
“I’ve got a great band, and we’re going to rock out and have some fun promoting this record,” he vows. “I am blessed with a bird’s-eye view of the 1950s and 60s. Most of the guys on the album are dead. I want to champion the people who made it happen. Dig it: I just got a call from Rolling Stone. They told me they are doing an issue on the top 100 singers, and I’m in it.”
Dion has amassed 20 Top 40 hits, 13 of them in the Top 20 and seven in the Top 5. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
“Giants of early Guitar Rock’ has an accompanying DVD featuring Dion and his lead guitarist, Bob “Crow” Richardson.
Visit http://www.saguaroroad.com/ for more information.
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