In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dion DiMucci was a kaleidoscope of all the great styles then prevalent in pop music. His Italian roots linked him to the crooners of the 40s and 50s, he could hold his own with the best of the Doo-Wop groups, he absorbed the rock ‘n’ roll of Chuck Berry and Elvis, Jerry Lieber called him ‘the best white blues singer he had ever heard’ and he was a teen idol. And throughout he walked with the swagger and bravado of the Bronx.
Between 1957 and 1963 he had, firstly with the Belmonts and then as a solo artist, 20 top 40 hits in the US. Classics such as ‘Runaround Sue’, ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘Teenager in Love’, followed one another up the Billboard charts. But then Dion’s heroin addiction took its toll and save for ‘Abraham, Martin and John’ in 1968, the hits dried up.
Dion would eventually win his battle with heroin and while his career failed to reignite, he still possessed enough kudos within the music fraternity to be one of only two musicians to be included on the cover of the Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’ (the other being Bob Dylan).
It was against this backdrop that he found himself back in a recording studio with Phil Spector in 1975. As Dion recounted "He called me. That was the beginning. When we met for the first time there was an immediate affinity between us, a sudden and rare feeling that we had known each other all our lives. Three days later I was standing in the studio, surrounded by the Spector wall of sound. The excitement was spontaneous, jolting. I was an integral part of some musical magic. And for those intense weeks nothing outside that studio anywhere else on God's earth meant anything."
What emerged was ‘Born To Be With You’, an album largely ignored when it first came out (partly due to the fact that Spector/Warners chose not to release it in the States but also because Phil Spector was by 1975 no longer as fashionable as he had been during his sixties heyday while Dion was seen as a spent force). Nevertheless together they conspired to record a great album, of which the title track is a mini masterpiece of cosmic country soul.
Spector assembled a gargantuan array of musicians (10 guitarists, two bassists, three drummers) made up largely of members, such as Hal Blaine (drums) and Barney Kessel (guitar), of his Wall of Sound Orchestra. The result was a towering mix of cascading sound which echoed the wild emotional glory of Spector’s finest productions.
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The title track (originally recorded by the Chordettes in 1956 and a spectoresque hit for Dave Edmonds two years prior to Dion’s version) is almost funereal in tone, yet raises the listener beyond the mournful to a place of exalted grandeur. Dion’s vocals are clear and precise and full of emotion. They are subject to the mix but somehow rise above it, juxtaposing both resignation and hope in a beautiful cocktail of truth. Nino Tempo’s saxophone soars in unison with the melody creating the perfect backdrop to Dion’s vocal, while the strings seem to lift everything into a different stratosphere. Its greatness lies perhaps in its contradictions, despair and optimism, simplicity and extravagance, intimacy and solitude.
The strange thing is that Dion was unhappy with the record, seeing it as a failure and feeling that it was Phil Spector’s record rather than his and despite being initially enthusiastic, he felt that they never found a place where they could meet musically. Yet ‘Born to be with you’ has been an inspiration to the likes of Pete Townsend, who places it amongst his favourite recordings of all time, while Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream cites it as a major influence on his career.
In 1975 Phil Spector had been given the choice as to which artist he might like to record and he chose the born again rehabilitated Dion and together they produced, in ‘Born to be with you’, a song which is epic, sorrowful, stunning, life affirming, strikingly beautiful and perhaps Phil Spector’s last moment of greatness. And it deserves to be remembered as such.
Dion DiMucci - Born to be with you
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