In some ways Dion DiMucci’s career has come full circle. Few knew, but back when the legendary singer was scoring hits like "Teenager in Love" and "The Wanderer" in the late ’50s and early ’60s, he was also nurturing a secret love of country blues. In fact, upon first hearing the music of Robert Johnson, in 1959, Dion says he "recognized intuitively that these blues guys were backroad poet geniuses."
Flash forward nearly four decades, and the rock and roll pioneer has himself fully embraced roots music traditions. First, in 2006, he released a stripped-to-the-bones country blues album titled Bronx in Blue. Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, Dion brought empathy to classics by the likes of Willie Dixon, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and yes, Robert Johnson. He also tossed in a couple of worthy blues originals.
Dion's latest CD is a more than worthy follow-up. Titled Son of Skip James, the disc cuts a wider swath, stylistically, than Bronx in Blue—but not by much. At the outer fringes are a swing-jazz version of Chuck Berry's "Nadine" and an upbeat rendering of Bob Dylan's "Baby I'm in the Mood for You," but for the most part Dion hews close to the bare-bones spirit that earned its predecessor a Grammy nomination.
High points on the CD include covers of Junior Wells' "Hoodoo Man Blues," Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man," and Robert Johnson's "If I Had Possession (Over Judgment Day)," each of which is rife with fine harmonica playing, sublime acoustic guitar work, and—of course—Dion’s famously supple voice. As the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer explains in the following interview, the discovery that he has a facility for this type of music has been a pleasant surprise.
You had a profound love of the blues as early as the late ’50s. Why the long wait to record a blues album?
It's a funny thing. I was doing an interview for NPR, and I was punctuating some stories with songs I grew up with, to explain where I came from—the journey. After the interview everyone came out of the control room and said, "You've got to record those songs!" People like Bonnie Raitt and Van Morrison had been telling me for a long time that I should record a blues album.
What was your resistance to that, till now?
It just never dawned on me. I just looked at it as stuff I grew up with. I didn't realize how much that music was a part of me. It never occurred to me that it was at the center of my being. The truth is, this music comes very easily to me. If you listen to the first album, Bronx in Blue, that's really more of a traditional blues album. I embellished things a little on the new one.
Why did you do things a little differently on this album?
That's just the way it went. There's a bit of instinct involved. I'm expressing what’s fresh for me, emotionally—what’s on my mind. When I started the new album, I was doing it totally 'traditional.' I did "I’m a Guitar King," and "Drop Down Mama," and "Hoodoo Man Blues," and "Devil Got My Woman." And then, one day in the studio, I just decided I was going to call the album Son of Skip James. I had just done the Skip James song—"Devil Got My Woman"—and I was thinking about the time I first met him. That title became a kind of mission statement. I didn't think any more about it until about a month later, when the actual song—"Son of Skip James"—came flying out of me. That song was about what I remembered of him, and how I related to him. I was looking up to him as a mentor, and as a father of the roots of what I was doing.
You recorded some blues material early in your career, but very little of it saw the light of day. How come?
Well, I was discouraged. Every time I did it, people were like, "Yeah that’s nice, but …." Everything was about hit records, in my day. I guess I just got into that mode. It's almost like a narcotic. At the time I came into the business, if you had a hit record, you desperately wanted another one. You weren't thinking, "Well, let me do whatever I want." That's what the business was, and that’s what was expected. The whole industry was geared around getting hits.
And that's what kept you from pursuing blues music?
Well, it's hard to explain. But imagine it's 1957, and I have a hit record and then I go to the Brooklyn Fox Theater, along with Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Those guys weren't even singing real "black" music! They weren't singing Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters. The way I explain it is, if you take the blues and you take country music, and put them together, then you have the rock and roll of my day. Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Fats Domino took the blues and turned it into a major chord, which led to rock and roll. I was working with these guys, and I couldn't just come in and imitate Jimmy Reed or Muddy Waters, the way the Stones did later on. That would have been bizarre. People would have thought, "What is he doing?"
Are you saying the British Invasion made the blues a more viable option for rock and roll artists?
I don't really like to call it the British Invasion. I prefer to call it the "British Infusion." Americans dropped the ball, but those British artists really picked up the ball and ran with it. They brought in a lot of good stuff. In my case, I was searching for something. After I had a number of hit records, I was kind of hungry to look for the roots of it all. I was living in New York, and I loved listening to the new stuff that was coming into the Village. People like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Lightnin' Hopkins were coming into Greenwich Village to play. I think that's where my love of blues was solidified. I had grown up listening to it, but here it was, right in front of me, for the first time.
What did you think when you heard people like Eric Clapton and the Stones playing Robert Johnson songs?
I knew what they were doing. That's why I call it the "British Infusion." The thing is, I heard Robert Johnson way before they did. I first heard Robert Johnson in 1959, on a compilation record. And then, in 1961, when I was at Columbia Records, John Hammond played King of the Delta Blues Singers for me. Hammond said, "Dion, this album sold 25,000 records." He was smiling from ear to ear. Here I am, having sold millions—having had 12 gold records, 12 "million-sellers"—and yet I knew what he was saying had significance.
On Bronx in Blue I did "Crossroads." I explored the spiritual side of that song. Everybody says Johnson sold his soul to the devil. But actually he says he went down to the crossroads, fell down on his knees, and asked the Lord to have mercy on him. To me, it sounds like he's crying out to God on that song. That's why I define the blues as the naked cry of the human heart apart from God, and longing to be in union with God. We all feel that sense of, "Why am I here? What am I doing? What's life about?"
You once said you can learn to sing rock and roll, but you can't learn to sing the blues. Do you still feel that way?
I do. Some people can do it and some people can't. It's as simple as that. I do think I have that gift. I don’t really think when I do it. It just feels natural, like it comes from the center of me. It's like basketball. You can practice, but then you have to let go and trust your instincts when you're in the game.
Do you have any regrets about not pursuing blues music earlier in your career?
If I allowed myself to think that way, I would be saying "What if?" all the time. I've been blessed. I love life and I have no regrets. I live my life one day at a time, and try to make good choices so that my life moves along in a graceful way. I was recently talking with someone about the concepts of freedom and truth, which is what rock and rollers presumably love. My problem is that sometimes that gets mixed up with license—the license to do anything you want. I said, 'Listen, if you're confusing freedom with license, you could be in bondage to any vice you want, without considering anyone in your family, or the consequences of your actions to society, or to your family or to yourself." It's important to look at your choices carefully.