Many folks here will LOVE this.

In 1962 his contract with Laurie expired and he signed with industry giant Columbia Records. He was the label’s first ever rock act, and for a while the hits continued. He became friends with John Hammond, the legendary Columbia producer who had discovered Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Dylan. The two never worked together in the studio, but Hammond had a profound effect on Dion. He played him a pre-release acetate of the Robert Johnson compilation King of the Delta Blues Singers, indisputably the most important acoustic folk blues album ever released. For Dion, already a fan of the blues – he had recorded Jimmy Reed’s ‘Baby What You Want Me To Do’ for Laurie – it was like a light had been turned on. He was also a fan of label mate Bob Dylan, who was just starting his recording career when Dion signed with Columbia. “Eventually I got tight with Dylan’s producer at Columbia, a talented young guy named Tom Wilson. Tom played some of the tracks Bob had been putting down in the studio and, as usual, it was awesome. Maybe I’d had my ear on the top of the charts too long, but it suddenly occurred to me that, with some players jamming behind some of those songs, he had a chance on Top Forty radio. Wilson thought it was worth a try, so he rounded up a bunch of guys and we put them on ‘Maggie’s Farm.’ “The song was already recorded, so we added [the band] just to show him. We had an idea that Dylan would like to hear more than his guitar. It wasn’t a demand, it was like a request, saying ‘listen to this, if you like it, maybe we could do more of it. If you don’t…chuck it.” Dylan loved it, and began using the band that Dion had put together on his sessions. He’s since credited Dion with helping him decide to go electric. Later, when I’d drop in to listen while he put his words into the razor-sharp work-outs cooked up by players like Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, I realized this guy had rock ‘n’ roll in his blood from the very beginning. It was all raw expression. Those sessions cooked. The sessions eventually turned into, Bringing It All Back Home. That’s not his only contribution to the folk rock genre. According to Byrds leader Roger McGuinn, in early 1964 Dion heard him experimenting with a folk and Beatles hybrid, and told him he was on to something. The first industry professional to offer encouragement, Dion was adamant that McGuinn pursue the new sound. A year later the Byrds would be the biggest band in the country, topping the charts twice with electric versions of Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘Turn, Turn, Turn,’ which was adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes. (See below for unreleased B-side bonus track, the Dion penned ‘So Much Younger’(Than Yesterday). Coincidence?!? Perhaps.

By the mid-sixties, the British invasion had hit hard, and most of his contemporaries from the fifties had disappeared from the charts. Dion was one of the few American acts that didn’t feel threatened. “The English picked up on the roots of what I was doing. I never thought that you could go to the Brooklyn Fox in Brooklyn and sing like Mick Jagger. It would have almost been like an insult to the black guys. Like, [sings in an exaggerated Mick Jagger affectation] ‘I love you baby.’ It would have been like ‘what the hell are you doing?” It would have been like blackface. But in the sixties, from England, it started coming over, and I said ‘Wow, these guys are really picking up on my love.’ I don’t think a lot of American [acts] picked up on it. They didn’t. A lot of them just stopped in the sixties.” For all of Dion’s interest in exploring new forms, the label choose to leave the majority of his folk and blues recordings in the can, pushing him instead towards what they referred to as ‘legitimate music.’ The blues revival was still a few years off, and they wanted a more traditional, all-round entertainer, ala Paul Anka or Bobby Vinton. The label brass just didn’t get it. “You’d come in with a guitar and they’d mess it up, all those guys…the only stuff that they gave me control on was the stuff that I was writing or I picked up on. I brought a song in and I said ‘You’re not touching this, I’m doing this.’ And those are the things that really worked. All this other peripheral stuff – it wasn’t really me, a lot of it. That’s why I left. They had no idea.”

The Columbia years was vital music, most of it unheard at the time. The label released a handful of singles, and no LPs after 1964. In the nineties, two excellent collections boasting unreleased material from this era were released on CD. The Columbia Recordings (1962-1965) and the double disc set The Road I’m On: A Retrospective. In 2011, another compilation, ‘Wonder Where I’m Bound’ was released. By 1966, Dion left Columbia and disappeared from the limelight. He was no longer on the scene, but he wasn’t forgotten. The Beatles’ 1967 opus Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band contained eighty six cardboard cut-outs of various celebrities on the album’s cover, each said to have impacted the Fab Four. Only two were popular musicians – Dion and Bob Dylan

Holy grail would be all the Wilson sides compiled on one cd. I’m convinced if these recordings were properly released back in the day, they would be considered a classic of the genre. Most are found on the aforementioned slapdash compilations. Even then, they’re peppered among other tracks from other periods.

It’s unfortunate that most people won't take note of Dion’s longevity and fine body of work until after he's gone, sadly.

Songs by Dion & The Wanderers (Produced by Tom Wilson)

01. Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound –2:52
02. Tomorrow Won't Bring The Rain -2:47
03. Now – 2:45
04. Baby I'm In The Mood For You – 2:38
05. Wake Up Baby – 3:16
06. Knowing I Won't Go Back There – 2:55
07. My Love – 2:07
08. Kickin’ Child – 3:01
09. Time In My Heart For You –2:44
10. Farewell – 3:29
11. So Much Younger – (vinyl-unreleased b-side) 2:49

RIYL : Dion, Mid 60’s Dylan, The Byrds, Everly Brothers
Key Tracks : Tomorrow Won’t Bring The Rain / Now

Sounds amazing.
Thanks!

Thanks, C.

Several months ago, I stumbled across a 1975 Dion/ Phil Spector thing titled "Born To Be With You." It apparently never saw release in the US due to squabbling between Dion's management and Spector about the finished product. Session players by the score, nothing happy-go-lucky about it, and, IMO, even Spector couldn't drag it to pieces. Genius.

Thanks 'toze.

I've never heard it. After a little snooping around, I found this. Weird.-

Dion knows that Born to Be with You is the favourite-ever album of the Who's Pete Townshend. But does he know that Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream loves it too? Is he aware that the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and Spiritualized - modern artists whose epic vision, part in the past, part in the future, part in space, has been called "other music" - are heavily influenced by it?

From my limited knowledge, the Dion/Spector album was only released in the U.K. I've always been curious about it.


And apropos of nothing really, my interest in Dion turned to salt when he went Christian.

I'll be back in USA this weekend, and around my music. I'll put it up and link to it here.

This is awesome. Thank you!

Born To Be With You (1975)

http://tinyurl.com/nnz7dbb

If that doesn't work, let me know.

It worked just fine. Much appreciated. Thanks Toze

thanks for this tentoze, really digging this album i certainly would have otherwise never heard of (or even thought i wanted to check out).

i can totally hear how this influenced Jason Pierce, among others. And apparently Jarvis Cocker in a big way:

My pleasure, sir.

Finally getting around to this. I like it!

This all sounds fascinating. I need to dig in.

Use Mega. Thank you

~the MANagement