DION "The Road I'm On" A Retrospective

Dion's mid-'60s Columbia period was a strange and rather mysterious one. After notching up some solid hits that were more or less in his early '60s rock style ("Ruby Baby," "Donna the Prima Donna"), he dove into blues, folk, and folk-rock with varying degrees of success. Although the results were usually pretty interesting, commercially he seemed to have disappeared (a situation not helped by either his heroin problems or the failure of some of the material to get released). This is a good, if imperfect, two-CD overview of the Columbia years, moving from the expected early hits to quite a few tasty surprises, including covers of Woody Guthrie, Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon, "Work Song" (penned by Nat Adderley and Oscar Brown), Tom Paxton, and Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." There are also a number of pretty fair self-penned originals in a folk-rock, slightly Dylanish style, unsurprising considering that Dion was recording with one-time Dylan producer Tom Wilson in late '65. It doesn't make a 100% convincing argument that Dion would have matured into a top-rank blues-folk-rocker if not for his drug problems, but it has integrity, and the material is usually well-sung, whether pop or not. About half a dozen of the tracks were previously unreleased; there are also a couple of new recordings from 1996. This does not, by the way, make the 1991 Bronx Blues: The Columbia Recordings CD (much of it drawn from the same era) redundant. Almost half of the tracks from that disc don't appear, the most serious omission being the cover of Dylan's "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You," which was probably Dion's best mid-'60s recording of all.
(Richie Unterberger, Allmusic)Dion DiMucci spent the first years of his career with the Laurie label where, with The Belmonts from 1958 to 1960, he put nine of the most memorable tunes of that era into the Billboard Pop Top/Hot 100, two of which crossed over to the R&B charts. In 1960 he went solo and added another four to the Pop list, including three R&B cross-overs, before hooking up in 1961 with a group sounding very similar to The Belmonts - The Del Satins.
Together, beginning with Runaround Sue, they scored another ten for Laurie [two of which came after they moved over to Columbia in 1963], and added four more for their new label, with the best of those being the old Drifters' hit, Ruby Baby [# 2 Hot 100/# 6 R&B], Donna The Prima Donna [# 6 Hot 100/# 17 R&B] and Drip Drop [also # 6 Hot 100], the latter two billing him as Dion Di Mucci.
The only Columbia hits done without the Del Satins were Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw, an old Hank Williams recording from 1952 that he took to # 13 Adult Contemporary (AC)/# 31 Hot 100, and Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode, which reached # 71 Hot 100 in 1964 and was his last hit for that label. In 1968 he was back with Laurie and added three more hits there, one more in 1970 for Warner, and his last in 1989 with Dave Edmonds and Patty Smyth for Arista.
Unfortunately, Be Careful of Stones That You Throw is not included here, and this, coupled with the fact that just one of his Columbia hit B-sides is included, is where the volume misses the mark. The one included is Chicago Blues, which backed Johnny B. Goode, and is presented here in stereo for the first time.
Missing B-sides are: He'll Only Hurt You [b/o Ruby Baby]; The Loneliest Man In The World [b/o This Little Girl]; I Can't Believe (That You Don't Love Me Anymore) b/o Be Careful Of Stones; You're Mine [b/o Donna The Prima Donna]; No One's Waiting For Me [b/o Drip Drop].
Two pages of introductory notes by Mitchell Cohen are followed by five more pages by David Hinckley, and there is a partial discography of the contents [no chart details]. The sound quality is excellent, and while I normally would have deducted 2 stars for the missing hit and B-sides, what they do include is worthy of an extra star. Especially tracks 1, 4, and 7 on Disc 2. (Record Runner)trax disc 1:

01 Can't We Be Sweethearts 02 Ruby Baby 03 Will Love Ever Come My Way 04 This Little Girl Of Mine 05 A Sunday Kind of Love 06 Gonna Make It Alone 07 This Little Girl 08 Fever 09 Donna the Prima Donna 10 Drip Drop 11 Baby Please Don't Go [#][Unedited Version] 12 900 Miles 13 Work Song [#] 14 Chicago Blues 15 The Road I'm on (Gloria) 16 Ruby Baby [#][Alternate, Early Version] 17 Donna the Prima Donna [#][Italian Version]

trax disc 2:

01 Too Much Monkey Business 02 (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man 03 Katie Mae 04 You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover 05 Johnny B. Goode 06 Spoonful 07 Kickin' Child 08 Drop Down Baby 09 It's All over Now, Baby Blue 10 Knowing I Won't Go Back There 11 My Love 12 Tomorrow Won't Bring the Rain 13 Time in My Heart for You 14 All I Want to Do Is Live My Life 15 I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound 16 Two Ton Feather 17 Born to Cry 18 You Move Me

...Thanks to Ronh1 and Jc Ork for this one - I went out and bought it for a couple dollars after the share here - served by Gyro1966...