Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Dion is ringing in 2012 with the release of his new studio album Tank Full of Blues, the third in a trilogy of tributes to the genre he holds closest to his heart. Fittingly, Dion’s Bronx-meets-blues 11-track love letter to the men and women who built the foundation for rock and roll arrives on the recently revived British label Blue Horizon, home to releases by British blues rock giants like John Mayall, Eric Clapton, the original Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, and the late Irish guitar master Rory Gallagher.
What A Gas, Man: As mentioned, Tank Full of Blues is the third homage in Dion’s series of tributes to the genre. In 2006, he issued Bronx in Blues, a 12-track collection that featured the former Belmonts singer’s interpretations of blues (and later rock) standard such as “Crossroads,” “Who Do You Love,” “Travelin’ Riverside Blues,” and “Terraplane Blues.” The following year, he released Son of Skip James, which featured a baker’s dozen songs originally cut by seminal blues and rock acts such as Skip James, Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, and Chuck Berry.
Dion’s love of blues and country – the pillars of what would later morph into rock and roll – began at a very early age. As a youngster in the Bronx, he and his buddies would assemble on street corners and sing the latest R&B, blues and country (especially Hank Williams, an early influence) songs playing on the radio. In 1957, Dion along with neighborhood pals Carlo Mastrangelo, Freddie Milano, and Angelo D’Aleo formed Dion and the Belmonts, named after Belmont Ave. in the heart of the Bronx. The group became pioneers of rock and roll, but he never forgot the true groundbreakers.
More than 50 years after filling his musical tank full of the highest grade American music, Dion continues to tip his trademark beret to the blues on Tank Full of Blues. The album, replete with songs about cars, bars, girls, and cryin’, accelerates from the starting line with the title track, followed by “I Read It (In the Rolling Stone),” “Holly Brown,” “Ride’s Blues (For Robert Johnson),” “Two Train Medley: Still a Fool/Ramblin’ On My Mind,” “Do You Love Me Baby,” “You Keep Me Cryin’,” "My Michelle,” “My Baby’s Cryin’,” “I’m Ready to Go,” and “Bronx Poem.”
Dion decided to record Tank Full of Blues using a stripped down trio configuration, with his own sometimes sweet, sometimes saucy guitar driving each song along. He wrote nine of the tracks on the album and co-wrote the other two. He’s come a long way from the street corners of the Bronx; in fact, on his latest album you will find him much closer to the crossroads in the Delta, cradle of the blues and the place that gave birth to rock and roll. So in that sense it seems Dion DiMucci has come full circle, and he got there on a Full Tank of Blues.
Filler Up: Ride shotgun while you watch this video montage of Dion as you listen to the title track of Tank Full of Blues:
As A Matter of Fact…
* Dion was born Dion Francis DiMucci on July 18, 1939 in the Bronx, NY. As a child, he tagged along with his vaudeville entertainer father on tour, where he was exposed to and grew to love country, blues and doo-wop music.
* The success of 1958’s “I Wonder Why” earned Dion and the Belmonts a slot on the fateful Winter Dance Party tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Dion turned down an invitation to pay $36 (a month’s rent at the time) for the flight that crashed and killed the three rock and roll legends. Instead, he turned to Valens and said, “You go.”
* In 1968, Dion recorded “Abraham, Martin & John,” a tune written in response to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. The song soared to No. 4 on the charts, sold over a million copies and revived his career after years of battling drug addiction.
* Dion was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.