Had lunch Thursday with some friends from the West Coast. Talking about San Francisco made me nostalgic. Good conversation, good lunch at Mile End deli. It was DELIcious. (Sorry).
I’ve been stop-starting on some stories that I need to focus on. There are so many paths for me to go down, that I need a compass.
I really enjoyed the use of the phrase city-savvy in a sentence — as an alternative for streetwise. What sentence you are asking? The one I just wrote. (Sorry again).
Stay tuned for details about an after party for MikeMadness 3X3 basketball tournament. The tournament is Saturday July 20 to raise money for Lewy body research and awareness. We have raised about $25,000 overall in the previous tournaments. This will be the third and I hope we can raise $25,000 altogether this year to bring our total for three years to $50,000.
Soundtrack album I bought in a bargain bin to pluck songs for mixed tapes.
This was one of those where they had a beach-y type movie with Matt Dillon, early career, and needed some feel-good, finger-popping songs. So with Motown you can’t go wrong, right? Well.
These are tried and true, mostly great songs: ‘Heat Wave’ by Martha and the Vandellas, ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ by Little Richard, ‘It’s All Right’ by the Impressions (my favorite).
And there’s also ‘MySweet Lord’ oh I mean ‘She’s so Fine’ by the Chiffons. But there’s a little trick they play by dropping in a song or two that were actually new amid the time tested Top Motown Hits listed above.. With hopes of making it big as if the magic would transfer by being on the same disc.
On this album, that song is the lead song, , ‘Breakaway’ by Jesse Frederick. Never heard of it? Nor have many people. But there’s Dion chasing Runaround Sue.
Summed up, lots of good songs, but songs that are available on myriad compilations.
ALBUMS: Dion and the Belmonts 24 Original Classics (1984); Dion (1968)
MVC Rating: Classics 4.5/$$$; Dion 4.0/$$
If you are going to cover Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix you better do it like Dion did it by totally deconstructing, making it virtually unrecognizable from the original.
He made it a slow smoldering, jazzy nightclub song : . ‘Excuse me while I kiss the sky’ he sings slowly, quietly, dragging the words out, and the line dissolves into flute, be-bop scats and an ethereal echo effects.
You may not like this treatment, click on link above to hear, but if he tried to do it like Hendrix, it would surely be a fiasco. On that song I give kudos for the creative arrangement.
Now on to the songs he was known for. Dion came out of the doo-wop New York City scene, where you got up a group of friends in the neighborhood and sang on the porch or stoop.
He hooked up with Bronx buddies: Fred Milano, Angelo D’Aleo, and Carlo Mastrangelo.
And of course you snapped your fingers as your voices — being the main musical instruments — blended in perfect harmony. Dion came from that scene and –became one the top singers in the era of the late 1950s after Elvis went into the Army and before the Beatles and British invasion.
Songs like Runaround Sue, which is addressing presumably an ex-girlfriend in a non-complimentary way:
People let me put you wise– Sue goes out with other guys
In the Wanderer, Dion is the macho loverboy who has goes from town to town loving and leaving them.
Oh well, there’s Flo on my left and then there’s Mary on my right
And Janie is the girl well that I’ll be with tonight
And when she asks me, which one I love the best?
I tear open my shirt and I show “Rosie” on my chest
Dion had lots of hits both as a front man for a band, (the Belmonts) and by himself. But the street corner dude was apparently hiding a heroin habit that began in his teens. Disappearing for a while he re-emerged with a softer folksy style that brought the hit ‘Abraham, Martin and John’ about the slain leaders.
Dion had a very soulful voice and feel for the song. The two-disc compilation I have is a great place to start. But I’ve found his discography to be deep. He did great songs that are sometimes hidden on albums like Born to Be with You. Beautiful.
He also did a very personal song, that may be one of the best and honest ‘getting sober’ songs ever done called ‘In Your Own Backyard.’ Listen to it below:
