Stories from the Book – Dion DiMucci and Having a Little Faith

In another story from his free eBook Phoenix Rising, Dr David Poole recounts the remarkable story of one of the originals of rock ‘n roll, Dion DiMucci.  While the “Jersey Boys” were doing their thing, Dion was doing his as frontman of Dion and The Belmonts.  Half a century later and after conquering his demons, Dion keeps on keeping on.  Enjoy!

If at all possible, have a little faith.  If you can, let the little grow into a lot.  A faith founded in the superficial will not last.  The novelty of the superficial always wears off.  A faith founded only in ourselves will not last since there will always come a time when we let ourselves down.  Instead, build a faith in something bigger than yourself, and in values that will last forever.  It’s okay to build self-belief and confidence, but this should always be founded in those timeless truths that are far stronger and more unshakeable than our fragile selves can ever be.

 Because faith is such an important component of the healing process, we’ll consider one more story of how having faith became a critical ingredient in the healing of one man.

 Of all the styles of music that I love, the sound that does it for me more than any other apart from the music of Brian Wilson is the doo-wop sound of the early 1960s.  It’s most successful exponent and the man still identified more with that style than anyone else is Dion DiMucci.  With songs like I Wonder Why and crossover hits into the rock scene like Runaround Sue, The Wanderer, and Ruby Baby, Dion was an early inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Today, he continues to punch out new albums of fresh rock and blues songs as well as new versions of his classics and those of his contemporaries.  Five decades are his first hit, Dion continues to perform and make great music.  It’s a miracle.  The miracle is that Dion, like so many other shooting stars of the rock and roll scene, should be long dead.

 He was driven by the need to keep control, to feel loved and respected through the adulation of the masses.  It was all a put-on, but a put-on demanded that evolved from a very ordinary upbringing.  Raised in the Italian neighbourhoods of The Bronx, Dion DiMucci was the son of Pasquale DiMucci, an artistic dreamer who rarely held down a job.  Pasquale’s bohemian approach to life drew the ire of Dion’s mother, Frances, who would scream at her husband to settle down and assume a normal life.  Watching his dad humiliated in front of his uncles, Dion vowed that he would never face the same dishonour as his father.  Worse, he felt that he needed to fill the vacuum that his father left, a vacuum that his mother thought Dion could fix in her desperate need to maintain some semblance of control over her life.

So Dion strutted the streets of The Bronx, joining gangs and finding that he could hold people in the palm of his hand when he sang and played guitar.  At 15, he fell in love with a girl from Vermont, Susan, who he would marry in 1963.  Signed to a new record label, Dion formed a band with a few local mates.  They would become Dion and The Belmonts and begin charting in 1958 and would start touring with some of the biggest names in the business.  Playing the Winter Dance Party in February, 1959, Dion would huddle under a blanket with Buddy Holly as they tried to stay warm in a converted school bus whose heating had long since packed it in.  Sick and tired of the cold, Buddy offered Dion a seat on the plane he had chartered to get to the next gig in Fargo, North Dakota.  Always careful with his money, Dion decided against spending the $35 that Buddy was charging.  After all, it was the same as the rent that his parents paid each month for their apartment.  It was the night the music died, for Buddy, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper would crash to their death in the plane that Dion had forsaken.  For some reason, Dion had been spared.

With “Teenager in Love” the group’s next hit in 1959, Dion also found a new love to match Susan.  It was heroin, and he would soon become addicted.  It filled the vacuum that his parents had left for him.  A week trying to drying out in a hospital for celebrities made no difference.  Picking up on music’s rapid evolution, Dion left doo-wop and The Belmonts behind to try rock ‘n roll, yet was turned into a Bobby Darin-style crooner by his record company.  While some minor hits came, it wasn’t until he hit his stride with Runaround Sue and The Wanderer in 1961 that he became an international star.  1962 brought three more Top 10 singles.  The adulation and adoration became another drug.  It was sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.  He had the unholy trinity. 

But it still didn’t fill the empty space, a heart that continued to search for answers and for meaning.  Hitting rock bottom in a lonely hotel room in Uruguay during a tour of South America, the only voice he heard was that of his mother, demanding that he do even better and create still bigger hits.  Turning to the folk scene of Greenwich Village in 1963, Dion, like so many other early rockers, was drowned by the new sounds coming from The Beatles and their Merseyside counterparts.  By 1964, he was doing grass, amphetamines and alcohol to supplement his coke addiction.

With a new lucrative contract from Columbia, he started on the right foot with another hit, Ruby Baby, calling it the happiest two minutes he’d ever sung.  When his new label tried to turn him into a Sinatra-style nightclub act with a 25-piece orchestra, Dion rejected the whole thing, setting fire to the scripts and arrangements.  He began not to care, instead only worrying about where he would find his next hit.

Finding himself alone at the Swiss chateau along the Hudson River that he and Susan had purchased in 1965, Dion decided that there was no way out of the grave he’d dug for himself.  Intent on suicide, he found that the car he intended to drive off a bridge was gone.  In desperation, he called, “God help me.”  Feeling a presence that told him to let go of his anger and hurt, Dion allowed himself to fall into “Someone’s arms.”  Over the years that followed, he would move back and forth between his addictions and his newfound faith.  It wasn’t until he moved to Susan’s parents home in Miami in late 1967 in an attempt to get away from his demons that he finally overcame them.  He did so through a quietly spoken former alcoholic whose life mirrored a deep faith and peace in trusting fully in God, his father-in-law Jack.  On 1 April 1968, as he watched Jack cry tears of grief after losing his son to alcohol, he saw strength in Jack’s expression of weakness.  This time, Dion gave his life, fully and completely, to his Lord.  He would never do drugs or alcohol again.  He would repair his marriage to Susan and become a real father to his daughters.  And, symbolised by his final hit, “Abraham, Martin, and John,” the moving tribute to men whose principles he had come to respect but whose lives were ended by the bullet, Dion came full circle.

He would leave behind his hits for decades, instead recording several excellent albums of thoughtful gospel pop and rock, before returning to the music he loved with a renewed energy.  Now 70, the man who should have died with Buddy Holly, who almost took his own life, whose demons almost brought him down, remains the same man who fell to his knees in 1968.  Humbled, still married to Susan, and still pumping out the music he helped to create when rock was born, Dion remains a testament to the power of healing.

            I spent too many years trying to fix things – my career, my family, my destiny – and  when I couldn’t make it right, I got mad.  And when that happened, I started tearing things down, hurting others, but mostly looking for ways to hurt myself.  When I finally learned to accept the way things are, the good with the bad, it was one lesson that really stuck.  If that can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.   When it comes down to it, this is a story about learning how to accept.  About losing            everything and finding yourself.  Sometimes all we really need is a second chance.[i]            

Dr David Poole is available to speak about the inspirational stories from Phoenix Rising and about the need to create and recreate better dreams for our own lives, dreams that reflect the realities of life and of all of its ups and downs.