Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Singer Dion DiMucci

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

Now that we’ve moved the Beatlology Interviews to its own feed, you might not be caught up. Thought you might like to hear one of my favourite episodes - singer Dion DiMucci is one of only five people still alive who are on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. Dion was also supposed to be on the plane with Buddy Holly that fateful night - and he tells us that heartbreaking story. He also gives the best description of Buddy Holly that I’ve ever heard. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit the Model Home in Westport to see for yourself. Just a short drive from Kingston or a 3 hour drive from Toronto and a 90 minute drive from Ottawa. Watercolor Westport. A better place to call home. Well, we're happy to say they have become so popular, we have moved all the Beatology episodes over to its own podcast feed. And you can find them just by searching Beatology Interviews. But here's one of my favorite interviews. I talked to Dion.

He had big hits with songs like The Wanderer and Ruby Baby in the late 50s and early 60s. He was also on that fateful tour with Buddy Hawley in 1959 and was supposed to be on that plane that day. Dion is also one of only five people still alive who were featured on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album and that's why I wanted to talk to him. Dion is a very interesting guy. Here's that interview. This is an Apostrophe Podcast production. Beatology. Dion Demucci holds a special place in the pantheon of rock and roll. He is a member of the first generation of rock stars, with his first big hit coming in 1957 with Dion and the Belmonts.

Since then, he has released over 40 albums with 11 top 10 hits and 7 chart-topping blues albums. Dion was also supposed to be on the flight with Buddy Holly that fateful night back in 1959, and he tells us that incredible story. Dion also holds another distinction. He is one of the people on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band album. And he's one of only five people still with us who grace that famous album cover. ["Ring of the Bells"] Dion was born in the Bronx in 1939. He was first influenced by the records

his father used to play. Well, you know, there was no rock and roll. It was kind of like when you were 19 years old, you could sit at the table and listen to Frank Sinatra. But my father had a record player, you know, with the needle, actual 78s. And he played Dal Jolson and he liked Louis Prima and Burl Ives. And I liked all three of those guys. I liked Burl Ives because he had that guitar picking thing going. And Louis Prima, he was a rhythm singer. And I would consider myself a rhythm singer, you know. I'm not full out voice kind of guy, you know.

That's like for pop people. You know, I'm like, I'm just like all about rhythm. So Louis Prima was that for sure. He would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if he didn't sing so many Italian songs. And Al Jolson, he was at the time singing and doing stuff outside the box at the time. But I enjoyed listening to those guys. Interestingly, one of Dion's biggest influences was the music of Hank Williams.

Well, my parents, they were like an emotional 13 year olds. They were arguing all the time. My father never had a real job and my mother had two jobs. And so the arguments went on and on. And one day, I must have been 11 years old or younger, and there was this country station coming out of Newark, New Jersey called the Don Larkin Show. He had gone into the army and fell in love with country music. Started this country music station and started playing Hank Williams and Lefty Frazell. And I had, by sheer chance, you know,

I had this little transistor and hit on this song one day, Honky Tonk Blues. To be honest with you, Terry, I've never been the same. Wow, how so? Well, it hurled me into a place of enchantment, a place of delight, of pleasure. And I think, like, I'm not that hard to understand because my whole life has been trying to create a song to kind of transmit to you and maybe others the same feeling I got when I heard Hank Williams. And then I heard Jimmy Reed and that really did it.

I wanted to maybe communicate like Hank Williams and groove like Jimmy Reed. But I used the word enchantment because I was in this whirlwind of arguments and then I found a quiet place in the house where I could listen to these guys and maybe then get a guitar and I started I don't know I just got thrown on this road when I was a preteen. Remarkably Dion knew 40 Hank Williams songs by the time he was 13.

In the audible version of his new book, titled Dion, Rock and Roll Philosopher, Dion included a tape of himself at age 13, singing Hank Williams song Jumbalaya on the Paul Whiteman talent show in 1952. I was crazy in love with Hank Williams music, his stories. He was like teaching me how to live. When I got on tour with Buddy Holly

and Waylon Jennings was playing bass for him at the time, I got on the bus with those guys. They were amazed because I knew the back sides of the hit records. Right. I'd play a song like Never Again and they'd go, when'd you get that? I said, I don't know, that's the backside of Chambalaya or Cold, Cold Heart.

I still know his songs till this day. There's a great photo in your book of you singing a Hank Williams song to Tony Bennett. I think you're about 13 in that shot too. You want to know, Terry, somebody introduced me to this agency guy, and he took me up to Tony Bennett's dressing room, because I was very fortunate. I was in the Bronx. It was just like a train ride away to get to Radio City Music Hall, where he was playing. And my parents brought me down. I met this guy. They brought me up to the dressing room and I sang him Cole Cole Hart.

But I kid you not, in my head, Tony Bennett made a hit record out of this song, cold, cold heart. And in my head, I was singing it better than he. I was like, I wanna show you how to really sing it. That's what I was thinking. You gotta love that for a 13 year old. Yeah, what could I tell you? In my head, I thought I sounded like Hank Williams.

It wasn't a bragging thing or kind of an overconfident thing. It was just like a thing of beauty. Like, I wanted to show, no, this is the way it's done. Like, this song is so beautiful. You have to do it this way. You know, in my mind, that's what I was thinking. ["The Last Supper"] You know, in my mind, that's what I was thinking. How important Dion was radio to you in your early years?

Well, it was when I found this Don Larkin show in Newark, New Jersey. Terry, there were times I couldn't even concentrate in junior high school. I couldn't wait to get home because I think it ran from like three o'clock to 4.30 or four o'clock, something like that. So I would run home to just get the last 20 minutes of the show. Then one day my landlady had a Pantron tape recorder

and I started recording the last 20 minutes of the Don Larkin Show. And that's where I caught a lot of good music. And I learned a couple of chords and then I could start fooling with the words and singing them and it was a joy at my age. I'm telling you, I got lost in this world. Not only was the radio that important, like at night when Rock and Roll came along, one of the first records I heard was OG,

and then I heard Lloyd Price, and then I heard, you know, Chuck Berry and Little Rich, and I was under the blankets with that transistor all night listening to that music. Again, I was enthralled. And then I found this record shop on Fordham Road which is just a little west of Fordham University and that was about I'd say a little over a mile from my house but I used to walk up to Fordham Road and I met this fellow Lou Cichetti who owned the

record store and he took a liking to me and he would call me every time a Hank Williams record came out. Say, we got a new Hank Williams record and it's called Set in the Woods on Fire. You want to come up and hear it? Man, I'd run up to Lou Chiquetti's, it was called Cousins Record Store. Then I start collecting 78s of Hank Williams and off I went. When did Doo-Wop come into your life and how? Well, I was a neighborhood attraction because I bought this J-200 guitar. I got a little job and used to deliver sandwiches at lunchtime.

Had a bunch of quarters. I'm talking about a bunch of quarters. Because that guitar cost $325 at the time. Wow. It was a guitar that you lusted after. Of course, Elvis Presley had one. He sang Teddy Bear with it. I wanted one of those guitars and I got one. I used to play the church dances.

This songwriter in my neighborhood, his name was Pat Noto, he said, there's this little record company that's opening up in Manhattan, the Schwartz Brothers opened it, I'd like to take you down there. So he took me down to meet the Schwartz Brothers and I walked in.

It was just a little room they had, you know, it wasn't a big record company. It was, you know, maybe 12 by 12 room. They had a piano and a file cabinet and table. And I sang them a couple of songs. I sang them one Carl Perkins song and one Fats Thaumano song. They went crazy.

They signed me right there. How old were you? I was 17. So my parents had to come down and witness the signature, you know? And they put me on this track, this existing track that they had, with just a full orchestra with violins and harps and it was called The Chosen Few. You could probably Google it. So when I finished singing with them,

they wanted me to sing with this group called the Timbalanes. They sounded like they were from Oklahoma. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- some guys down here. So I went up and I recruited the best of the best that I knew that were hanging out in the candy stores. That's where we'd hang out at that time. And they were from different neighborhoods. Carlo Mastrangelo and Freddie Milano. I knew Carlo Mastrangelo from the Talley's pool room. Freddie Milano from MAPES Avenue, he would sleep on the jukebox. He would just bury himself in it and keep playing songs and harmonizing.

And Angelo DeLeo lived on Belmont Avenue, also Freddie Milano did, but he was an opera singer. He was taking opera lessons, but he had such a beautiful voice. So I got him, and I'm not gonna believe this. They come up to my parents' home. I had a little bedroom, and we started singing I Wonder Why, and I gave them some parts.

I said, you sing this, you sing this. So by the time we got the parts down and started hitting that song, I felt like I was on a carousel in heaven. And we brought that song down to Lori Records. And I kid you not, the beginning of I Wonder Why, I think it's as original as the beginning of Johnny B. Goode, you know, Chuck Berry playing that guitar part

in the doo-wop field. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh- like a New Orleans jazz band, just everybody playing something different. And it all made sense. Carlo was singing, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da was, he was way up on top doing some riffing and we were all singing four different things. Wow. And it came together, it was a defining moment in my life, like a golden moment I will never forget. I never experienced anything like that. It was live. I was like right in the middle of it. And then Dion and the Belamonts came out of that? We went down to Lori Records and I was Deon.

We said, let's get a name, you know? So in my mind, you look for a name. It had a hit on three criteria. It had to be good for bowling team, a gang, and a rock and roll group. I love it. You know, like the Rolling Stones gotta be a great name, you know, but Electric Alarm Clock, what was some of those names, you know, like?

Strawberry Alarm Clock. Yeah, Strawberry Alarm, it didn't work for a gang, you know what I mean, or the wall flowers. It wouldn't work for a gang. I mean, great name, but you know what I'm saying? We would go through the deal. Let's name ourselves after Bird. Well, you know, they do have the flamingos and they do have the Oreos and the Robins.

Oh, they're all taken. Let's name ourselves after a bug. They got the crickets and then we started with street names. So we got Dion and the Belmonts. Dion and the Belmonts were an instant hit. Here they are on Dick Clark's American Bandstand show back in 1960. Let me point out the American Bandstand Poll Award for the best vocal group of the year, the Photo Play Magazine on behalf of the fact that they won the outstanding new vocal group of 1959. This represents a gold record for a song called Where or When. Here are Dion and the Belmonts.

Now you stayed with Dion and the Belmonts how long before you went out on your own? You know we weren't together that long. We were together a year and a half. long. We were together a year and a half. We made it very big with three songs, I Wonder Why, Teenager in Love, and a song called Where or When. And then after I put Where or When together for the group, because Alan Sussell, he became head of Lori Records, and it was his favorite song, and I wanted to do it for him. It was a little out of our backyard. After we recorded that song, the three guys that I recruited and sang in the group Deon and the Belmonts, they wanted to do every song that way. I said no, I just did this for Alan. I wanted to have a rock out of little. So it got a little contentious and we decided to go our own ways.

So if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't have made Runaround Sue and The Wanderer and Ruby Baby. ["The Wanderer"] The Wanderer is a classic and is included on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was originally the B-side of a single Dion put out in 1961

but DJs flipped it over and preferred The Wanderer. It would reach number two on the Billboard chart and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2017. Dion has said he never got credit for co-writing it. You know, we were young and you don't know better. At the time, I probably would have did the same thing again, but I was writing songs with Ernie Maresca and he'd say, you take this one. Because I tell you, he did a lot with it.

He put a lot into that song. You know, a lot of the songs were like my ideas but the one that I think we both got the idea there was a guy named Jackie Burns in my neighborhood he used to strut down the street with tattoos all over his body he was ahead of his time Terry you know what I'm saying yeah But Jackie was a bit different and he had an attitude and he deserved the song. You know what I'm saying? So we called him The Wanderer because he definitely had girls' names tattooed on his arm. Flo, Janie, Rosie.

You said that song, Dion, was a dark song sung in a major key. I thought that was interesting. I was at a rehearsal one time and Springsteen started talking to me about it. Bruce Springsteen said, he said, man, if everybody would grab onto that couplet and the bridge, you know, I have my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere. But what Bruce and I were saying was, if you could grab onto what that song is saying and really understand it. Because he says, I roam from town to town.

I go through life without a care. I'm as happy as a clown. And clowns are not usually happy with my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere. Like for a second there, the song turns in on himself and he's just playing women and he's going nowhere and it's not fulfilling. You know, when I sing it, it sounds like it's about a cool guy,

but you know, there's a bit of both in it. But if you really look at it, he sees himself accurately for a second there and then he just keeps going on, but he doesn't know how to get out of it. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Trivia question. Billboard named the album, Blues with Friends, the number one blues album of 2020.

Who was the artist? Answer after this. How do you know if the price of a car is a good price? That's always been a sticking point for me. Is it reasonable? Is it high? Or is it suspiciously low? Don't you wish the price tag could be,

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Canada's sovereignty is being threatened. While it's uniting Canadians like never before, it's also exposing Canada's weaknesses. It's time to ask the tough questions. If you wish there was a Canadian podcast equivalent to The Daily or the Ezra Klein show, well there is. It's called Gloves Off, hosted by Stephen Marsh. It's an eight-part limited series all about the threat to Canada's sovereignty and what we can do about it. Gloves Off takes a practical approach to this crisis because Canada needs to think about itself

and its place in the world in a frank, even brutal way. Each episode answers a tough question that we've never had to consider before, such as how much trouble are we in? How unprepared are we? How do we not go broke? How do we fight back? And what does the new normal look like? Subscribe to Gloves Off with Stephen Marsh wherever you listen to podcasts

or follow the podcast on YouTube at gloves-offpod. We talk about small, smart companies a lot on this show. Well, here's some big news for small businesses. TurboTax is launching TurboTax Business for small business owners. This is really big news because now owners can file their own T2 corporate tax return. Filing business tax can be complicated and stressful. And that's why this is such a big deal because it's the first assisted T2 filing solution in Canada where you can do it yourself with the help of experts. TurboTax Business does all the calculations for you and when you file with the new TurboTax business, you get unlimited help from experts who understand small businesses. They'll answer any questions you have, stay

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Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon also played with Dion on the record. What many people may forget is that Dion was on that fateful winter dance party tour with Buddy Holly in 1959. The acts included Buddy Holly and his band, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Dion and the Belmonts. What was Buddy Holly like? Well, Buddy Holly was, he was a beautiful guy. Very statuesque, very tall, because I'm like 5'9", he was like,

he was taller than me, but statuesque, and just very decisive. He was an attractive guy, you know, I mean, not only the way he looked, but just the way he handled himself. He was clean, he was very deliberate, very decisive. And I mean decisive. He made decisions like this.

But Buddy, he was starting a publishing company, got married, he fell in love, made the decision, got married to Maria Elena. He moved to New York out of his comfort zone for sure. It would be like me moving to Texas, I guess. He just wanted to start a record company. The guy was like an old soul and a young body. He was like 21, 22 at the time.

And he was something to behold, you know, I kind of looked up to him. You know what attracted me to him? His decision making, how he knew, he just knew what he wanted to do, what he heard, where he was going. He just was very clear on the path and it was attractive to me because I was insecure.

I was like, how does he do that? That is remarkable for someone 21, 22 to be that decisive. He was taking flying lessons out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Really? Yeah. And he comes from Texas. So he always had a gun. He always carried a gun.

Buddy, why do you carry a gun? Hey. He was his own security guard. He says, I carry a lot of money, so, you know. The 1959 Winter Dance Party was a tour across the American Midwest. The bands traveled in a cold, uncomfortable bus. It was so cold, Buddy Holly's drummer got frostbite on his feet at one point. After the tour had performed at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the next stop was Moorhead,

Minnesota. Buddy Holly decided to charter a plane, so instead of a cold five and a half hour bus trip, the plane would get him there in 90 minutes. But the small plane only had four seats. Buddy and the pilot had two seats, and that left two more. There are a lot of stories about this fateful night, but here's the story from someone

who was there. It all came down to the flip of a coin. It has been called, The Day the Music Died. Well, there's a lot of crazy stories out there, you know. I mean, when it happened, you know, you don't want to take advantage of, you know, start using it as a springboard for something. My neighborhood, you know, somebody died. It was very sacred. It was very private.

It was just family, you know. You just grieved privately, I guess. But I was on tour with the guys, and it was cold. You know, we were crisscrossing the Midwest, playing all these clubs out there that really were converted skating rinks and stuff you know there was a dance halls and rock and roll wasn't a business we were just starting out we didn't even have monitors lights or you know it was

like turn on the light turn on the mic you know that was it we're lucky we had some plugs for the amplifiers it got so crazy out there we had had like a little yellow, looked like a Baptist school bus, you know what I'm saying? Like a 50s bus. It wasn't anything like Willie Nelson, one of these Golden Eagle jobs or something, you know. So the heater kept breaking, the bands on the fan kept breaking, and the heater, and the bus broke down so many times that Buddy got fed up and he wanted to get some rest and do some laundry. So when we hit Clear Lake, Iowa, about five o'clock, you know, at the surf ballroom, everybody

ran in it to try to take some showers and get ready for an 8 o'clock show. He went out to the airport or made a call right there at the Surf Ballroom to charter a plane. And he found out who to talk to and he chartered a one-engine He chartered a one-engine Beechcraft Bonanza or something like that, you know. Had four seats. And we got together in one dressing room. J.P. Richardson, the Big Boppa, Richie Balance, Buddy Holly and myself, we were like the headliners who were co-headlining the tour. So we got in the room and he said, listen, I chartered a plane

and he tried to recruit two of the guys because he said there's a seat for the pilot, there's a seat for me. There's two seats left and one of you guys can't fly. So what do you think if we flip a coin? I said, you know, sure. So we flipped. I end up winning the coin toss, but when he said $36, it was the amount of money my parents were arguing about back in the Bronx forever. The seat on the plane cost $36, which was the same amount of money his parents paid for monthly rent back in the Bronx. And money was one of the things his parents always argued about.

To me, it was like throwing away $36 for like an hour and a half plane ride. I said no that's not going to happen. So I gave my seat to Richie. I said take your coat. You know because he was cold. He had a cold and his mother shipped him a like a pea coat

in a cardboard box. I remember him unwrapping it because he didn't even buy a coat on the road. He was like so young. He was 17. He called and had his mother buy a coat for him. That was crazy. So I think they took off that night from Dryer Airfield and I think they crashed within five minutes. You know, the pilot Peterson, he didn't know how to read the instruments and a storm came in and they call it scud running. If you go up in a small plane like that and you run into some bad weather like snow or something, you try to fly under the clouds. You see the lights on the farm houses and the street lights and car lights, you know, you fly under the clouds.

But I think it was so blinding. He didn't know if he was level. And if you're just a little off, it's like the same thing happened to John F. Kennedy Jr. He got disoriented and vertigo, and it just took him down. I think he drove the plane right into the ground. From the investigation, when they probed into that, that's what they said happened.

How did you hear that the plane had gone down? We were on the road when they got into that plane. We were headed for Fago, North Dakota, or Moorhead, Minnesota, which was pretty close to each other. We were working up there. And it was going to be an all-night drive. The next morning, when we got in about 10 o'clock in the morning and walked into the hotel, all the locals were watching this black and white TV.

And it was saying like, three rock and roll stars died in a plane crash. It was unreal. It was like, it was unreal. I don't even know how to explain it, but it was unreal. You couldn't like process it. You know, I was in the back of the bus with these guys for two weeks, trading off songs, you know, listening to Richie sing these body-o songs.

You know, he was Chicano. Listening to the Big Boppa, who was a great songwriter, he had some real interesting songs and he was a great guy to hang out with. He was just a very uplifting kind of guy, you know, very jovial. He was full of joy. He was about 27, 28. He was like an uncle to me, you know, like a fun uncle. You know, beer drinking, dart throwing, just a fun guy.

And Buddy was just, you wanted to be around him. You just wanted to be around the guy. He walked in the room and man, he was somebody he wanted to be around the guy. He walked in a room and man, he was somebody he wanted to be with. And I just, I miss those guys on a lot of levels. You know, we were friends, we were musicians, songwriters. We loved what we were doing. It felt like somebody, you know, ripped the floor out from under me.

When I got home, the girl I was dating, who I'm married to today, I mean, we've been married 62 years. She said I was just in shock for like two weeks. I sat in my bedroom singing Richie Valens' Buddy Holly songs. I just didn't know how to, you know, digest it or they didn't have grieve counseling in the Bronx in 1959. But it was certainly something traumatic that happened to me. I got caught up in a lot of drugs at the time because, you know, I took one hit to see what it would do and it did the trick and off I went with this because this was like, ah, you know, I took one hit to see what it would do and it did the trick

and off I went with this because this was like, ah, this is what I've been looking for. I don't have to feel, you know, this is like a shortcut to making me all right, you know, but, right, you know, you think you found heaven and you found hell. That's what that's all about. The promoters of the winter dance party insisted that the tour had to go on in spite of the tragedy, which was very hard on everyone. Other acts were brought in, one of which was singer Bobby V and his band. V had an interesting keyboard player

that went under the name Elston Gunn, spelled with three N's. His real name was Bob Zimmerman. You know him as Bob Dylan. Well, Bob Dylan was playing keyboards for Bobby V. That's hard to believe. Yeah, Bobby V. always said, I don't like to get him on the mic, he sings too damn loud.

Why does he sing loud? I don't know how he was singing at the time, but Bobby V came on. I never met him before. Lenten my guitar strap. He had no guitar strap. We were friends for decades. He was one sweet man.

That guy was a lovely guy. And Bob Dylan became a big friend of yours, right? Well, yeah, in a way. You know, Bob's a funny guy. You don't hang with him and go for lunch with him every day, you know. But I love him and I, wow, to me he's the greatest songwriter of the 20th century and beyond. And he's a great blues singer and I love the blues.

And yeah, he's a great man. And he did the liner notes for Blues with Friends for you. He did, he did. That was really nice of him. He put out a book. This I got to brag about because I like what he said. He put out a book called The Philosophy of Martin Song. And in the book he says, Dion is an elder legend, a bluesman from another delta. And I went, yeah, I'm from the Bronx. It's like Bronx soul.

A different Delta. That's such a great line. Yeah, he knows how to put words together, man. He does. Bruce Springsteen once said he felt that Dion was the link between Sinatra and rock and roll. I wondered if Dion agreed with that assessment. Well, in a sense, I know what he's talking about because there was this crooning age

in the 40s maybe and leading into the early 50s. And then rock and roll came in, and maybe I have some of that in me, like on the cutting line of it. Because in that day, it was show business. And the show business thing was, the artists would perform on stage, go back to the dressing room, and everybody would walk into the dressing room,

and he was the star. Well, that went away with Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll, you know, they were like, hey, is everybody having a good time? Well, we didn't care if you were having a good time. We were like, hey, we're gonna take you on a trip. You wanna come? You come.

You don't want? Don't. Here we go. Hold on to your ass. You know, da-da-da-da-da. It was like the balance between, You come you don't want don't here. We go hold on to your ass, you know down on it It was like the balance between it was going from show business to rock and roll Don't go away, we'll be right back The last time I was in Italy it was as always

glorious the people people, the food, the countryside, bellissimo. Loved it all except wandering around trying to find public wifi spots, then trying to decipher the passwords. You know what I wish I had? An eSIM from Salie. When you download the Salie app app on your mobile device you are instantly connected and you only have to download it once for up to 200 countries. How convenient is that? Here's the best part. With a SAILI eSIM you don't have to

wait in line at the airport to get a local SIM card, you avoid scammers selling fake SIM cards at airports and train stations and you never have to wander aimlessly looking for public Wi-Fi spots. With eSIM, you're always connected. And hey, want to get an exclusive 15% discount on SAILI data plans? Just download the app and use the code TERRY at checkout or go to saili.com slash terry. That's salee, s-a-i-l-y dot com slash terry for a 15% discount. Happy traveling. Some things just take too long.

A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app

and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over deliver. Dick Clark was an important figure in Dion's life. He brought Dion and the Belmonts to television, which accelerated their stardom. Clark was the bridge between radio and television for those early rock and rollers. Dion would eventually induct Dick Clark into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Man, his show was important to all of us because here I am living in the Bronx,

turn on the TV and I see Chuck Berry dancing across my living room floor and then Bo Diddley riding on his bicycle and then I see Chuck Berry dancing across my living room floor. And then Bo Diddley riding on his bicycle. And then I see Little Richard. I mean, he brought these people right into my house. And I was just starting out. He did a lot for us. Because that was the original MTV or the original Google or YouTube.

You know what I'm saying? He was the original. Deon's career struggled in the mid-60s, but in 1968, he released a song titled Abraham Martin and John. It would surprise Deon by going to number one. Well, mid-60s for me were pretty confusing period of turmoil for the states because they were at war and all the protesting going on. But everybody was using a lot of drugs. I certainly was into drugs.

I was like very lost in that. But I was whacked out. And it was 1968, February of 1968, and Frankie Lyman and I would hang out and we were using heroin and he died of an overdose. And it scared the hell out of me. It really scared me. I think the following month I was trying to get out of it.

I didn't know how to get out of it. A guy brought me into a spiritual-based 12-step program, and I never looked back. I grabbed onto it with everything I had. So I've been clean and sober like 57 years. And the day I got, this is crazy, I got clean and sober, I say April 1st, 1968. Four days later, Martin Luther King was gunned down.

And then Bobby Kennedy talked at his funeral and he said, who's going to be the next senseless victim of violence? He just made a beautiful speech. And then he was shot down. And my friend Dick Holler, he said he wrote the song in 20 minutes. Wow. But it was very different than the way I recorded it. It was kind of like an up-tempo gospel song, you know,

anybody here see my old friend Abraham, can you tell me where he's gone? So he brings me the song. I was living in North Miami. Don't know why he brought it to me, but he brought it to me. And I didn't like it. Oh. Well, I thought it was opportunist. You know, we're getting back to what happened with Buddy

Holly, Richie Valley, to use it as an opportunity to capitalize on somebody's death. And I just felt it was distasteful, you know? And my wife and her mom said, no, Dion, that's the gospel. That's a beautiful song. You should listen to it again. That's a beautiful song.

Listen to what it's saying. So I listened to it and it kind of penetrated and I thought, well, if I could do it in another way. ["The Last Supper"] But I arranged it, I put it together, brought it to Lori Records, and who knew it would be a number one song? I had no idea. But they got John Abbott from Staten Island

to do an arrangement on it that was incredible. The next thing I know there's harps in the studio and there's a sitar, English horns, French horns, and a whole string section. But you know the verses were Abraham, Martin, John. I said we have to open that up and put a little distance between John and Martin Luther King, you know. So I put the song, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? I put like a little instrumental in the middle of the song, and that's where you hear the sitar. The tone you struck with that arrangement, Dion, and the way you handled the vocal, it

was almost sacred, that song. You know, Terry, it's a strange thing, but it's like I think the song and the singer and the whole idea, just like when the stars come together in the right place, you know, I just got over being, you know, I was clean and sober, and I had a lot of gratitude there, but it's still a lot of fear about

the future and I think all that came to play in that song for some reason. It's just like the song met me at the right time. Let's talk Beatles now. When did you first hear the Beatles? Well, I was in England. I was in a studio with a diss track. I don't remember his name. He said, what do you think of this record?

And I just remember thinking, sounds like the Everly Brothers Gone Electric. Do you remember the song that you heard? What was the first one they had out? Love Me Do? Yeah, it could have been that. I'm telling you, I never grabbed onto it very quickly because I'm like blues-based. I was like much more into listening to blues-based artists,

you know, like Little Richard and Otis Redding. So I wasn't too into the structure of the chords, but I really became a fan when it was, what was the album? Norwegian Wood. That was a great album. Rubber Soul. Rubber Soul. Rubber Soul.

One day around 1964, Dion ran into John Lennon and Ringo Starr in a store in New York. Yeah, it was like in February. They just made their first trip here. Sid Bernstein brought them over. They were going to play Carnegie Hall or something or do the Ed Sullivan show. I lived on 57th Street at the time. I was recording for Columbia. And I met John and Ringo in a store on 57th Street. We were talking.

I guess he liked my record of Ruby Baby. And they told me they do that song in Hamburg, Germany, when they were honing their skills. And we ended up buying the same leather jacket. He wore it on Rubber Soul. He wore the jacket. I still have it. So that's the one on the cover of that album. Wow. If you look at the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album, you see a collage of famous

people standing behind the Beatles. Those people were the Beatles heroes. Dion was surprised to learn he was one of only five people still alive who were on that famous cover. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, a sculptor named Larry Bell, and Dion himself. Dylan and Dion are the only two rock artists on that cover, with the exception perhaps of the late Stu Sutcliffe, the Fifth Beatle. The photo of Dion's face was taken from Dion's Ruby Baby album, and it's believed Lennon wanted Dion on the cover because he loved the song Ruby Baby so much. I asked Dion how it felt to be included on the most famous album cover in history.

Well, you know, I'm from the Bronx, so I went around saying, hey, you want to have a very successful album? Put my face on the cover of your album. You know, I couldn't help it. You know, there's a thing in rock and roll or in the blues, certainly, that we call it bragging rights. You know, I'm the hoochie coochie man. I'm the walker.

I'm king of the New York streets. I'm the gangster of love, you know. So I always have that thing going on in me because it's part of me. So you know, I always say to people, I mean about my own music, talking about me now, that I say, if you get satire, you get me, you know? Anyway, but they made some crazy good music. I mean, just crazy good. They're just great songwriters, you know?

And I envy that and I look up to that. I respect that. Because people could write songs, but great songs. Right. That's another story. Do you remember the first moment when you held that album in your hand when you finally saw your face on that album?

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Had they called you for permission? No, that's one of the beautiful things about that era. They probably didn't have to call anybody. Now you'd have to call every 52 estates. And the photographers. And the photographers and the lawyers.

It's crazy. But it was beautifully created. They could do anything they wanted. And they did. And they were very, very prolific and imaginative writers and singers and creators. They were on a roll. Dion has just published a new book titled Dion Rock and Roll Philosopher. It's a book that contains a lot of hard-won wisdom together with great stories of his ups and downs, his

struggle with addiction, his faith and recovery, and it's filled with great photos from his career. There are about 55 different stories in the book. The audible version also contains 60 songs, as well as Lou Reed's 1989 speech when he inducted Dion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dion's speech inducting Dick Clark into the Hall, and Stevie Van Zandt's recent speech honoring Dion at the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. Respective music writer Dave Marsh wrote that Dion is really the only first generation rock and roll artist still putting out new, highly rated, relevant music today. As I mentioned, Dion has released seven chart-topping blues albums, three of which went to number

one on the Billboard chart. Well, he said I was the only guy that's still relevant and creative and I started arguing with him and I lost. How so? Well, I was telling him, you know, I think this guy did this and this guy said no, no, no, no, no. You know, he knows his stuff. But anyway, like I said, he won the argument. So I went home and I told my wife, I said, Dave Marsh said, I'm the only guy from the 50s who's still relevant and creative. She turned it into a dare.

She said, what are you gonna do next? ["Dare to Dance"] You can bet Dion will do something interesting next. His place in the rock and roll world is firmly established. Springsteen, Lou Reed and Paul Simon all cite Dion as one of their primary influences. Check out his new book, Dion Rock and Roll Philosopher, also available as an audiobook on Audible. And give The Wanderer a spin tonight. Thanks goes out to Dion and special thanks to Carol Chenkin.

I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the TearStream Mobile Recording Studio. Director, Callie O'Reilly. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the TearStream mobile recording studio. Director, Callie O'Reilly. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Chief sound engineer, Jeff Devine. Tunes provided by APM Music. Hey, let's be social.

Follow me at TerryOInfluence. This podcast is powered by Acast. And stay tuned for more Betalology interviews coming up. The last time I was in Italy, it was, as always, glorious. The people, the food, the countryside. Bellissimo. Loved it all except wandering around trying to find public Wi-Fi spots, then trying to decipher the passwords. You know what I wish I had? An eSIM from SAILI. When you download the SAILI app on your mobile device, you are instantly connected, and you only have to download it once for up to 200 countries. How convenient is that? Here's the best part. With a SALE eSIM, you don't have to wait

in line at the airport to get a local SIM card. You avoid scammers selling fake SIM cards at airports and train stations. And you never have to wander aimlessly looking for public Wi-Fi spots. With eSIM, you're always connected. And hey, want to get an exclusive 15% discount on SAILI data plans? Just download the app and use the code TERRY at checkout or go to saili.com slash terry. That's saili, S-A-I-L-Y dot com slash terry for a 15% discount. Happy traveling. traveling. What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart

shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver.