In February 1959, 19-year-old Dion DiMucci, with the Belmonts, was one of the four headliners of the Winter Dance Party Tour. After playing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Dion opted for a bus instead of spending $36 for a flight to the next venue. That was a lot of money for a working-class Bronx boy; it was his parents’ rent for the month, after all.
As it turned out, that financial decision spared his life. That ill-fated flight claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. The loss of those artists is frequently referred to as “The Day the Music Died“, yet their music lives on through Dion, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.
In January 1959, Dion DiMucci and the Belmonts had a hit with the doo-wop ballad “Teenager in Love”. After splitting with the Belmonts, Dion had a number-one hit with “Runaround Sue” in 1961. Still, it’s the same old story: success cannot bring happiness.
In the early 1960s, Dion DiMucci returned to heroin, which he first started using as a teenager, as well as turning to drink. With the rise of the British Invasion bands, Dion’s popularity waned. He continued releasing albums for the next decade, such as Born to Be with You (1975), before becoming a born-again Christian in 1979, followed by a string of religious records throughout the 1980s. Throughout these experiences, he remained well-respected among musicians, with guest appearances from Lou Reed and Paul Simon on his 1989 album Yo Frankie.
The last three decades have seen Dion DiMucci reinvent himself as a bluesman, collaborating with musical luminaries and achieving commercial success. As stated in a previously published PopMatters article, Dion’s influence can be seen in Bruce Springsteen and Father John Misty’s music. Indeed, his legacy is far-reaching. In his eighth decade of making music, Dion released the doo-wop “New York Minute”, a love letter to New York City and his wife of more than 60 years, Susan.
PopMatters met Dion DiMucci to discuss his and Adam Jablin’s new book, Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher. We discuss his musical conversion, creativity, the blues, and how finding faith has made him a better writer.
“Yo, Jack.” That’s Dion, calling from the sunny climes of Florida via Zoom. His strong Bronx accent is part swagger, part attitude. With a baseball hat and spectacles and a white goatee, Dion is buoyant, friendly, and funny—effortlessly cool. We begin the conversation with the release of his new single, “New York Minute”. Enlivened by the discussion, Dion starts an a capella rendition, handclaps, and all, as if he’s a teenager again, standing on a Bronx street corner with his buddies, singing four-part harmonies, his scintillating eyes brimming with music and youth.
“I have known Adam since he was 12 years old,” Dion says in reflection of his friendship with Adam Jablin, the co-author of Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher. “We have been friends a long time. We are in recovery together. We both don’t drink or take drugs. We are in this 12-step spiritual-based program together.”
Explaining how the book came to fruition, Dion states, “A philosopher is a lover of wisdom. And who doesn’t love wisdom? We’d discuss these things at lunches. We’d be fascinated. One day, Adam says, ‘I wish my family were here. I wish all my friends were here. I wish my kids were here. I like everybody to hear these conversations. They’re so interesting to me.’ I find them interesting, too. So I said, let’s document some of them. Maybe we could write a book on the conversations. So sometimes, we use a voice memo. Within five years of doing this, he comes up to me and says, ‘We have a book.’”
Dion DiMucci has music coursing through his veins: his grandfather took him to see La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, and other numerous operas at his local Windsor Theater. Also, his grandfather listened to the opera tenor Enrico Caruso on 78s while his father would have records by Al Jolson, Louis Prima, and Burl Ives. By the time he turned 13, Dion knew 40 Hank Williams songs. Making music his career, he has sung rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, doo-wop, blues, and country.
What’s his favorite music genre? “It is probably the blues because that was my first love,” he says. “Even Hank Williams did honky-tonk blues. It was country blues. I loved Jimmy Reed when I was young. Even Louis Prima and Al Jolson—my father’s favourites— were steeped in New Orleans.
“I think the roots for me are the blues,” he continues. “They affected me. Kind of changed my DNA. Dylan wrote something for my book. He said, ‘A Teenager in Love’ comes from the blues, which I would never have thought. But he could hear it. Even ‘Runaway Sue’ is cleverly disguised as a blues song.”
As a series of conversations, Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher covers the whole gamut of issues from the personal to the universal, with Dion revealing some pivotal moments from his life. He writes about the peaks and troughs of his music career and substance abuse and recovery. At times, Jablin comes to Dion for advice. Although this is certainly not a self-help book, plenty of pragmatic advice can be found.
“The reason I called it Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher is the art of philosophy is making distinctions,” Dion explains. “Make bad distinctions, it’s bad philosophy. I have a mentor in my life. He is like a wordsmith. He likes defining words and making distinctions. A good distinction would be to distinguish between a person and his opinion. Another example is that I know a lot of successful people, but they are not fulfilled. These stories are very simple, but they can be very potent. If you honestly talk about them.”
Dion DiMucci advocates for self-improvement and sees his belief system manifesting in real-life situations. ”Because when you see what you believe, you see it in relationships: with your wife, kids, friends, and family. You see it physically. So that is what the book is about. To show you how these principles play out when the rubber hits the road or relationships get ornery, sticky, or joyful.”
Spiritual longing was in him early on. At 15, Dion DiMucci wrote his first song, “Born to Cry“, which, later released in 1962, has the line: “Someday and maybe soon / That master will call.” In 1963, he sang the Doc Pomus-written song “Troubled Mind”. Opening with the word “Lord”, Dion stretches it to the point that you know the singer is not at peace and is longing for salvation. Later, he repeats “drifted” twice, with a greater sense of urgency the second time—perhaps in hopes of bringing on an ascension to heaven – anything to take him away from his wandering existence. A week before his death, Lou Reed requested his manager to find a recording of “Trouble Mind”. After listening to Dion’s rendition, Reed said, “Now I can die in peace,” Dion writes in Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher.
“I was in love with the search for truth,” Dion reveals. “I was underlining the word search. Capital letters. I was in love with the search. But god forbid you should accept the truth. People say there is no such thing as truth. I was a junkie. So I had to search for the truth for myself.
“You cannot build your life on a lie,” he says, “or it will fall apart. Sometimes God will give you everything you want to show you what you need. But, in life, people do not look at that. Everything they want – something is wrong. I need more money. More sex. Power. Honour. Prestige. And it doesn’t fill you. Well, it didn’t fill me.“
Does he feel that the search was always about him looking for faith? “That day that I had the spiritual awakening, I wasn’t looking for it,” Dion says, referring to 14 December 1979 when, out for his daily six-mile jog, Jesus Christ appeared to him, and he became a born-again Christian. “However, consciously, I did ask. I was frustrated. Something was wrong. Something was missing.
“I was in recovery for 11 years [Dion has been sober since 1 April 1968]. I was happily married. I had three daughters. They never have seen me drink or take drugs,” he continues, “But I went out jogging. I was 38 years old. I said, ‘God, it would be nice to be closer to you.’ That’s all I said. My life was changed in an instant. I had this awakening of who God was. What forgiveness, mercy, grace, and freedom meant.”
“I have always looked at nature with awe and wonder,” Dion continues. “I was a weird kid. I was always thinking about that. ‘Why am I here?’ I was on tour with Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper. For two weeks, I was with them, and the carpet was ripped right from under my feet. They did right, two weeks into the tour. I was left with a lot of questions at 19. ‘What’s life about?’ ‘Where am I going?’ ‘Who am I?’”
Has his relationship with creativity changed since his spiritual awakening? Dion says, “In the last five years, I have written 40 of the best songs of my life. Even Bob Dylan said so. I’ll take his word for it. I always say, ‘I am under the spout where the glory comes out.’ It has made me truly open-minded and opened me to looking at relationships from different angles. On the last album [ 2024’s Girl Friends], I wrote songs called ‘Soul Force’ and ‘Do Ladies Get the Blues.’ I think it has made me a better writer.
Dion DiMucci is a satirical writer. For example, the narrator of “King of the New York Streets” is bold and full of braggadocio, a Casanova figure who races cars and indulges in cocaine. He creates these supercilious and leather-garbed characters, the type of guys he grew up with in the Bronx. Beneath the surface, however, they have moments of self-realisation. You see it in the bridge of his 1961 song, “The Wanderer”, where the narrator understands that he has nowhere to go.
“In songs, sometimes you bring your experience into it,” Dion responds when I ask if his characters are purely fictional. “It’s a little autobiographical. But no. I talk to many friends, like Stevie [Steven van Zandt] and Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes, you are just like an actor in the song. But I think relationships trigger writing these songs in a lot of ways.
“A lot of myself is in the songs,” he says, “but I’m not necessarily the character in the song, especially when it comes to what I call braggin’ rights. It’s satire, you get me. I love that kind of stuff. It is such fun putting yourself into the character’s place. Braggin’ is so much fun.”
With the chapter “my top lists”, which includes Dion’s favourite albums, blues songs, doo-wop songs, films, books, and artists in mind, I asked if, in any way, Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher was influenced by Bob Dylan’s 2022 book The Philosophy of Modern Song. “No. Not really. Because [Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher] was almost finished before The Philosophy of Modern Song came out.”
“It’s funny that I used the word philosopher [in the title]. I like [Bob Dylan’s] book. It was funny. I laughed through the whole thing. He’s got a great sense of humour.”
Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher is about the friendship between Dion DiMucci and Adam Jablin; but it goes beyond their relationship, as it addresses fundamental issues—faith, addiction, meaning, and personal fulfilment—that affect everyone. Overall, Dion: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher is for readers who are searching—and for those who have arrived. At the end of the conversation, I am left with the impression that the sobriquet Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher is apt. Indeed, Dion loves wisdom—and the blues, too.