Return of the Wanderer

Performer: Dion
Artist: Henry Gross; Eric Weissberg; Lani Groves; Terry Cashman
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Personnel: Dion DiMucci (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars), Tommy West (acoustic guitar, background vocals), Rusty Steele (guitar, background vocals), Lee Foy (saxophone, flute, harmonica, background vocals), Mark Tiernan (keyboards, background vocals), Jon Cobert (synthesizer), Danny Weston (bass), Jim Kestle (bass, background vocals), Buzz London (drums, percussion), Jimmy Maelen, Bruce Tergessen (percussion), Marty Nelson, Vivian Cherry (background vocals). Compilation producer: Steve Hoffman. Recorded at Bayshore Recording Studios, Miami, Florida and The Hit Factory, New York in 1978. 2 LPs on 1 CD. Both of these albums, from 1978 and 1979, respectively, were made with the Streetheart Band, Dion's then-touring outfit. FIRE went unreleased at the time for reasons unaddressed in the CD's liner notes (there aren't any). Stylistically, the two are pretty much of a piece, although RETURN has a bit of a '70s West Coast studio rock-lite sound (think Linda Ronstadt or the Eagles), while FIRE has mild funk touches and in general attempts to rock out a little more. RETURN has stronger material, by and large; there are excellent covers of Tom Waits' "Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night," and Bob Dylan's "Spanish Harlem Incident," both of which suit Dion's jazz-inflected vocals to a tee, while his own "I Used to Be a Brooklyn Dodger" is as fine an ode to a vanished era as you could wish.

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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