Nice tribute from Scott Johnson at Powerlineblog.com:
Dion in his own words........
Some people think I grew up on Rock & Roll (not so). When I was a kid, there was no Rock & Roll. In the early Fifties late at night, I’d tune into some southern radio station that somehow reached the Bronx, listening to The Blues, Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years,” Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City.”
After school, I’d run home to catch the last half hour of the “Don Larkin Country Show” comin’ out of Newark, New Jersey. I was a Hank Williams junkie. For me, putting country and blues together, that’s what I call Rock & Roll.
Black music, filtered through an Italian neighborhood, comes out with an attitude. Rock & Roll. Yo! The music on this CD was the undercurrent of every song I did: “Runaround Sue,” “The Wanderer,” even the foot stomping on “Ruby Baby” I got from John Lee Hooker’s “Walkin’ Boogie.”