Déjà Nu

Performer: Dion
Engineer: Dion DiMucci; Bob Cadway
Producer: Dion DiMucci; Bob Cadway
Distributor: Gotham Distributing Corp.

Notes: Personnel: Dion DiMucci (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Bob Cadway (electric guitar); Jerry Harshaw (saxophone); Shane Keister (keyboards); Warren Odze (drums); Louis Colletti, Jim Gallager (background vocals). Audio Mixer: Bob Cadway. Liner Note Author: Dion DiMucci. Recording information: Bobby Hatton Recording, Pompano Beach, FL; Joe Bologna Recording, Long Island, NY; Media Recording, Merrick, NY; The Upper Room, Boca Raton, FL. Arranger: Dion DiMucci. A major influence on artists as varied as roots rocker Dave Edmunds, Lou Reed, and Bruce Springsteen (two of whose Lucky Town songs he covers here), Dion effectively mixes his tough yet delicate city-styled street corner harmonies with basic Chuck Berry chords to produce evocative tunes that, although embedded in the echoes of his youth, bubble with a soothing, low-key effervescence. Dion's perennially youthful voice delightfully swoops and swirls on the autobiographical "In New York City" and the Everly Brothers-styled "Hey Suzy," but it's on the Springsteen tracks, especially the beautiful a cappella ballad "If I Should Fall Behind," which seems like it was written with this arrangement in mind, that the concept fully clicks. The band chugs behind him with shabby charm, the backing vocalists are warm and subtle, the sound sparsely clean, and the album cruises along like a shiny '50s convertible primed on hi-test. Some of these songs, like the magnificent opener "Shu Bop (The Lost Track)," although retro in concept, sound lean and fresh with little of the stylized production of the doo wop era. Dion sings with the joyous vitality of his youth throughout, making the appropriately named Deja Nu one of the best, and most fully realized, albums of his extensive yet uneven career. ~ Hal Horowitz

Mojo (Publisher) (10/00, p.104) - "...A set of songs that might have been born in the '50s and early '60s but, in the main, are newborn, self-penned cheer-raisers....[An] excellent release."

Not unlike his friend Bobby Darin, Dion Dimucci was a native New Yorker who started out as a rock & roller in the 1950s and went through a series of drastic stylistic changes. He began as a doo wop hitmaker with his group the Belmonts, turning out such smashes as "Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer." Over the ensuing decades, the artistically restless Dion tried his hand at blues, folk-rock, Phil Spector-produced pop, and hard-edged rock & roll, managing to maintain his credibility and integrity all along the way, and eventually getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

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