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Still Wandering

Dion's got a hot 'Nu' Sound

Dion's 'Deja Nu' rocks on in tradition

Still Wandering
By Dave Marsh

For sheer talent, there's never been a group of rock'n'rollers as great as the first generation. Little Richard, the Everly Brothers and Fats Domino had unparalleled voices; no one has written better songs than Chuck Berry; Bo Diddley's rhythmic command remains even deeper in the bedrock than James Brown's. Jerry Lee Lewis was both a great singer and a great pianist. And that's to speak only of survivors.

Yet none of these sustained his creativity. At most, one or the other will turn up every few years with a record that shadows his early work.

The exception is Dion.. He's remembered as a great rock balladeer and swinging rhythm machine, for hits like "The Wanderer," "Runaround Sue," "Ruby Baby" and "I Wonder Why." But Dion also made impressive albums as a singer-songwriter from the late '60s well into the '80s. A few weeks ago, I went through all of his music again while writing notes for a comprehensive three-disc set EMI will release this fall. I discovered a singular vision expressed across four decades. In an essay in the set, Bob Dylan claims that Dion knew everything when he made "A Teenager in Love." And he never forgot it. Doubt me? Get a copy of Deja Nu (Collectables).

He sings easier here than he has in decades, especially on "Shu-Bop," a mature reflection on puppy love (it's about the first time he saw his wife) with a doo-wop arrangement, and Bruce Springsteen's "Book of Dreams" and "If I Should Fall Behind," which he also interprets as doowop. He's always been an under-rated writer. "Every Day (That I'm With You)," written with Scott Kempner, is a tribute to his friend Buddy Holly. It has lines that Dylan and Bruce Springsteen (another box set liner note contributor) might envy for the way it expresses what it costs to live as a sober adult: "Every day you call upon the angels I they do what you tell 'em to." Dion is not only a deeply religious person; he is a deeply spiritual artist.

This doesn't preclude being a great rock'n'roller. "Hug My Radiator," sung here for the first time, is a Chuck Berry rocker he began putting together on the 1959 Winter Dance Party tour. Buddy and the boys chartered that plane mainly because the heater on the bus sucked; Dion turned down the ride and never finished the song 'til these sessions. Dion, one of rock's great unrecognized guitarists, plays it like a man still desperate for all the warmth he can find.

The trade papers say that "Shu Bop" and "Book of Dreams" are getting radio airplay, which is what a guy who sings so much about everyday miracles deserves. Or maybe it's no miracle. Maybe those angels really are at your command, or maybe another thing he sings in "Every Day" is true about Dion himself: "The sun is always shining somewhere when you smile / The chimes of freedom when your heart beats in time."

From The New York Daily News

Dion's got a hot 'Nu' Sound
By David Hinckley
Daily News Feature Writer

It took Dion decades to start liking the years when he was helping to shape rock 'n' roll with songs like "Teenager in Love" and "Runaround Sue."
   But these days he likes them a lot, and that fondness lies behind "Deja Nu." the best record he's made in years and one of the best records anyone had made this year.
   Collectables Records, which put it out in the U.S., is hoping lead track "Shu-Bop" will be picked up as a single, and it's got the right kind of infectious, finger-snapping beat. WCBS-FM is already playing it, a fact Dion notes and appreciates.
   "[Program Director] Joe McCoy and CBS have been great to me," he says.
   WCBS-FM some time ago adopted Dion as the quintessential New York rock 'n' roll hometown boy, and wisely so. The music and the attitude, it's all there, right off the streets of the Bronx.
   Dion turned 61 this week, which makes it remarkable that he still sounds so comfortable with the musical ambience of the late 50's - songs that have teenage trappings and grownup style.
   The tunes on "Deja Nu' adroitly mixes rockabilly with street-corner harmony, and includes the standout tracks "Every Day (That I With You), " a tribute to Buddy Holly, the rockers "You Move Me" and "Hey, Suzy," the raucous "I Can Laugh At It Now" and the dreamy "Ride With You."
   He does two Bruce Springsteen tunes, "If I Should Fall Behind" and "Book of Dreams," a great wedding day song to which Dion does full justice.
   "I tell Bruce I use vocal harmonies the way he uses synthesizers," says Dion. "Bruce is such a great writer anyhow." Most of "Deja Nu" was born two years ago, when Dion was working with Chazz Palminteri on a movie of his autobiography "The Wanderer." Licensing original songs was so expensive he started writing new ones.
   Then he recorded them in the old style, a lean sound and harmonies. "I just want guys whose voices blend," he says. "I sing some riffs, and we go from there."
   "So a song like "Ride With You" sounds like it's between Fats Domino and Phil Spector. That's what I want. Personally, I'd love to hear a new Fats records, or Little Richard. So I figure some people will like this."
   Knowing he's seen in that kind of company, Dion says, still intrigues him. "If I didn't know me," he says, "I'd be impressed."
   "But artists I love, like John Lee Hooker, or Hank Williams if he were around, they wouldn't see themselves the way I see them. You can't. You'd be insane if you walked around thinking about yourself like that."
   But the rest of us can.

From the Palm Beach Post

Dion's 'Deja Nu' rocks on in tradition
By Charles Passey
Palm Beach Post Music Writer

The first time you hear Dion's voice on Deja Nu, The Boca Raton-based rock pioneer's latest album, it comes from a faraway place -- in more ways than one. After a carefree chorus of "shu-bop," there's a cry of wanting in the distance, the sound of a man lost in love. But it's also the sound of a man seduced by the past -- this is the plaintive singing associated with the doo-wop era of the late 50's and early '60's, when the Bronx-born Dion rose to fame.

By the time the 61-year-old Dion shifts into the song's first verse, his voice bursting with a confident metallic ring, it's clear we're headed on a nostalgia trip, but with a difference. This is new music, not some ditty tossed off nearly a half-century ago. The aptly titled Deja Nu is a grand experiment in rediscovering rock's roots. Sometimes it takes an elder statesman to find something in a genre that so many overhyped bubble-gum bands and metal rappers have missed -- namely, honesty, freshness and true attitude.

In stripping the music back to its soulful beginnings, Dion has reclaimed its earthy essence. But this isn't nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia. Aside from the fact the songs are of recent vintage, the album invests a bit more wisdom into the Happy Days Style, with slightly modernized musical and lyrical touches. The result is a recording that sounds old and new at once -- hence, Deja Nu.

Not that the technology behind this effort has anything to do with today's studio wizardry. Dion and co-producer Bob Cadway have painfully re-created a rock 'n' roll era of barroom pianos, gutsy saxophones and simple drum sets. And it's captured with a limited use of microphones, making the sound anything but clean. After all, that's the way they did it back then.

One can detect autobiographical elements in most of the album's 12 cuts. (In all but three instances, Dion takes full songwriting credits or shares it with long-time colleagues.) Songs refer to Dion's one-time tour partners Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens (Hug My Radiator, Every Day (That I'm With You) ); his teenage fascination with women and cars (Ride With You, You Move Me, Hey Suzy); his later mature outlook on love (In New York City, covers of Bruce Springsteen's Book of Dreams and If I Should Fall Behind).

Along the way, Dion not only celebrates doo-wop, but the blues, rockabilly and even a pre-Garth and Shania brand of country,

Several tracks stand out, beginning with the doo-wop opener, Shu Bop. Against that tightly arranged vocal background, Dion sings of having "to find a way to make you look my way.. There was joy in my heart." Despite its sense of romantic yearning -- or perhaps because of it -- this is a sunrise of a song, all infectious optimism.

From there, Hug My Radiator, which traces Dion's touring days with Holly and Valens during a frost-bitten winter, offers another brand of ear-grabbing songmanship. It's a rockabilly rant, a tune that doesn't want to end, right down to Dion's ad-libbed "c-mons" and uh huhs." Ride With You, You Move Me and Hey Suzy are similarly upbeat, sometimes blending in an element of honky-tonkiness.

The Springsteen covers accomplish what covers are supposed to, letting us hear time-tested songs in a new light. By reducing Springsteen's instrumental backdrop to nearly nothing, Dion lets the vocals do the work -- doo-wop here becomes a prism in which the songs' sparse emotions are refracted and made even more plainly human.

But if one had to pick a favorite on Deja-Nu, the vote would go to Every Day, a mid '60's-style song whose country and folk-inspired gentleness (think a blend of Bob Dylan and Glen Campbell) makes it instantly appreciable, but whose message reflects a deeper truth. Dion is following the ghost of Buddy Holly here, calling "upon the angels" and "walking just a little south of heaven." It's a mighty challenge keeping pace, but as he sings, "it's a great big country and I've got time to kill."

Deja Nu is a portrait of that country when it indeed seemed big and great -- and when its music served as a restless tour guide. But the album doesn't merely look back -- its sound is retro, but its sense of awareness is contemporary. In embracing the past, Dion has achieved a small miracle: He's made rock feel young again.

GRADE: A