The Wanderer Comes Home

The Wittenburg Door Interview
Dion Dimucci

By Bob Gersztyn

Back in the 1950s, when rock & roll was being born, one of the people on the ground floor was Dion Dimucci. With hits like "A Teenager in Love" and "I Wonder Why," Dion & the Belmonts co-headlined the ill fated 1959 Winter tour that claimed the lives of the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. He lived through the day that the music died because he declined Buddy Holly's offer of a seat on board the plane.

Dion continued to produce hits throughout the 1960s, with "Runaround Sue," "The Wanderer," "Donna the Prima Donna," "Drip Drop," "Ruby Baby," and "Abraham, Martin and John." During the '70s, Dion continued to tour with his band, which included future E Street Band member, Little Steven VanZant. During the 1980s, he played with Bruce Springsteen, released a series of gospel albums, one of which was nominated for a Grammy in 1985. Finally, in 1989, he was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His new album, titled Bronx in Blue is a tribute to the artists who originally inspired him. More information about it can be found at www.bronxinblue.com.

Dion was involved in the Jesus movement of the 1970s and '80s, but he found his way back home to the Roman Catholic church by the 1990s. As a devout Catholic, he loves going to Mass and explaining how it is more scriptural than Protestant church services. He's still pals with many big time Protestant ministers, like Jack Hayford, Greg Laurie and Chuck Smith.

Wittenburg Door staff photographer Bob Gersztyn talked to Dion about the possibility of photographing his upcoming Blues Mass with Robert Johnson melodies being substituted for Gregorian chant ... well, lots of other things ... as you'll see in the interview below!

WITTENBURG DOOR: Since you've recorded and released both blues and gospel, what's the connection?

DION DeMUCCI: A lot of blues music seems like it's moving away from God, or the center, and Gospel music is moving towards it. It's embracing a higher reality. When you look a little closer, the way that I define it or explain it, is that the blues is the naked cry of the human heart, apart from God. People are searching for union with God. They're searching to be home. There's something in people that seeks this union with their creator. Why am I here? Where am I going? What's it all about? Who am I? All this kind of stuff.
     But the blues is a beautiful art form. It's incredible that you could express such a wide range of feelings. You could use it to sell hamburgers or cars, or to cry out in sorrow, or joy. You could express yourself totally within the Blues. So there's some kind of connection, but if you ask me exactly what it is, I think that it all comes out of the same place, so to speak. What do you think?

DOOR: Hey, gospel is just the music of Saturday night set to the lyrics of Sunday morning. Sometimes blues artists would begin the concert with a gospel song, which was explained to me one time by blues historian/manager/promoter Dick Waterman as giving one to the Lord. It was like the first fruits, or tithe, and through it the entire concert was dedicated to the Lord.

DeMUCCI: That's the human experience. I was talking to my priest the other day, and I said, "What do you think of this music?" And he said, "Well, you'd have to be comfortable singing it in front of the Lord." I said, "I'm uncomfortable playing it for you! What do you mean singing in front of the Lord!?"
     I approach it like an art form to capture it, with integrity. To be authentic in it, and not approach it with any agenda. Because we all get the blues. You don't have to be walking on the streets of Mississippi in the thirties to have the blues. Although that will help. We've all felt betrayed and abandoned. It's all part of the human experience.
     I always say that it's the naked cry of the human heart apart from God, because we lost that connection in the garden. People sometimes don't know it, but they're looking, and sometimes it comes out in sexual metaphors. I think that the higher reality of it is that everyone is looking to get there, get that connection. I love it.
     For some reason, when I first heard this kind of music, it did something to me. I wrote a song called, "Born to Cry," when I was about 16. When I look back on that song, in fact the group called "The Hives" do it. They end their concert with it on a couple of videos. They're a popular group now. What inspired me to write it was that I was in a synagogue, so I heard a guy cantoring. You know going, criiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie..... So I wrote this song called "Born To Cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy," doing like a cantor. The last verse goes, "I know someday, and maybe soon, the master will call, and I'll tell you something, I won't cry at all. Until it happens, friends I'll sail with the tide, and I know that I was born to cry."
     I'm a 16-year-old kid and I wasn't writing about cars or girls, I was talking about the world we're living in. What I was seeing. When I look back on it I go, "Wow, where was I?"

DOOR: That is very heavy for a 16-year-old.

DeMUCCI: Yeah, even back then you feel that pull, that urging to either fight it, or embrace it. To move towards it, or move away from it, but it shows you that there's a center. If you're moving away from it, or moving towards it, at least you know that there's a center. Both prove there is a God. So that's what I see in it, and some of the blues artists have a hard time singing this, so that sometimes they give it up and they start doing gospel music. Which I did—I had about five gospel albums out.

DOOR: I remember when you did. It was a major change.

DeMUCCI: Music tided me over, in a lot of cases, where was just like a prayer. It pulled me forward and upward. It soothed my soul.

DOOR: How has religion impacted your life?

DeMUCCI: It's totally changed me. Right before I made "Abraham, Martin and John," I started getting babies. We have three daughters. It actually started happening when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper went down in the plane. The next day I was thinking, who am I? Where am I? What's life about? Where am I going? Why am I here? That was what I was thinking about. It kind of crystallized some questions in my mind. You start looking and you kind of get lost with that, because, especially coming from New York. The mid-1960s were hard for me because I was taking a lot of drugs, and I wasn't thinking straight.
     But one day I got on my knees and I said a prayer, back in '68, and I haven't had a drug or drink since. It was like God touched me on the head. I got up, coming out of that church, and I went and spoke to somebody about this, and I said I have daughters, and what's going to keep us together? What's the glue. Back then I made the Church the center of my life, or Christ the center of my life. I actually wrote a song called, "Center Of My Life." For me, that became the center.

DOOR: What church was that?

DeMUCCI: It was Mt. Carmel Catholic Church, in the Bronx. For me, I came home, ever since that day, that's what's kept me going. In fact Susan and I just came from Mass, because today is the celebration of the Immaculate Conception, to celebrate Christ's mother. It's beautiful to be there, and feel like family, and you know that you're in a kingdom family, and that there's a higher reality. I'm home! Home is an important word.
     I was talking to my friend (writer) Dave Marsh, because they asked me to comment on three Bruce Springsteen songs. So I did kind of a trilogy thing, but one of the songs was "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart." I said "Wow, read this. You read it and the last verse talks about home." That's an important word on a lot of levels. To be at home, at peace. It will lead you into union with God. To a lot of people these days, from watching TV, that don't fly too good. In New York we like to be clever. I found out a long time ago that it's better to be clean than to be clever.

DOOR: Explain, please.

DeMUCCI: Clean inside. Clean soul.

DOOR: Do you mean like holy or sanctified?

DeMUCCI: Holy! What a word that is! Holy! (Laughs) Don't say that, you'll like freak everybody out, but that's a beautiful word. That's something beautiful to seek, I think.

DOOR: It's interesting how on your spiritual journey, how you were in the Protestant Church for a period, and then you went back to the Catholic Church.

DeMUCCI: I didn't know too much about scripture, or where it came from, or about the early fathers, or the apostolic fathers, or the history of the church, but I met a bunch of guys, and I used to go to these Bible studies, and it was wonderful, man, just to read this ancient wisdom that came down through the Church, for the last 2,000 years, four-thousand years. It's just beautiful, it's like a love letter to me, so I enjoyed all that, but as I started reading I started asking questions. Of myself, and where the Church was? I saw that you could get five different Protestant Churches that don't agree with each other. Like the Methodist Pastor can't preach in the Baptist Church, and the Lutheran....
     I don't want to sound like I'm dissing any denominations, because I'm not. What I learned in the Protestant denominations was scripture. I became very knowledgeable of scripture. So now I could sit down with any Protestant pastor, and I know my faith, and I wouldn't feel challenged, intimidated or threatened or anything. I just came back into the church because I felt like it was the fullness. I felt like there's a lot of American denominations that are a thin veneer of who Christ is, they don't go deep enough, and when I read history I ceased to be Protestant, because I started seeing 1,500 years of people who were martyred for their faith, and they never carried a Bible. I said how did they get saved? When I read what they believed, I saw the Catholic Church. I didn't see these other denominations. I saw that they had authority, there was a living voice of authority. I saw that the church had that authority. I saw baptism.
     And I saw the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, in the Lord's Supper, because these people were martyred for it, like Justin Martyr or Athesis, when he was a young man, because they chopped his head off, because they said, "Are you a cannibal?" He said "No, we're partaking of the eternal God. I'll explain it to you." He wrote it out, and they chopped his head off.

DOOR: Dude! Biblical criticism was serious in those days.
     I heard that you attended Jack Hayford's Church on the Way out in Van Nuys California?

DeMUCCI: Jack Hayford's a beautiful guy. I love listening to him. There's a guy who can bridge it for you. It's guys like that who were my foundation too. Remember Ogilvie, Swindoll, Chuck Smith and all those guys. I went to Israel with Chuck Smith and Greg Laurie back in the early 80's. He's a good friend. Also Richie Furay, who became a Calvary Chapel Pastor, is a good friend of mine, up in Boulder, Colorado.

DOOR: I remember when he started putting out Jesus Rock albums, after leaving Poco, the group he helped form after Buffalo Springfield.

DeMUCCI: I wouldn't be where I'm at today if it wasn't for Calvary Chapel. It was a real blessing the way that Chuck taught, and still does.
     You really stepped into it when you asked me what does it mean in my life. You can see how passionate I am about it. I just love the church, and I love the people in it. It's changed my whole world view. I'm sure that you would agree with this that it gives you a sense of peace, in spite of everything. Life is tough sometimes. It throws you lefts and rights, but at least somewhere down in you, you never have to doubt that you're connected. Do you know what I'm talking about?

DOOR: Yes.

DeMUCCI: A lot of artists, they die, never coming to the knowledge of the truth, or they die never appropriating, or understanding their own message. They're trying to preach truth and freedom, which rock & rollers pride themselves on. We're all about, hey, I got the truth, and we're all free. Turn up the amps.

DOOR: That sounds like U2 singing about having three chords and the truth.

DeMUCCI: He's pretty cool, Bono. He's got a good foundation. He's a believer.

DOOR: What are your views about the 1960s? Especially from a 21st century point of view.

DeMUCCI: With all the drugs and the sex revolution, and all that kind of stuff? I don't see that as freedom anymore, at all. It was so surface. In fact I was talking to my wife about it, because I've been married for 43 years. I've known Susan for like fifty years. But I was saying, you know, I never learned this in the Bronx. I never learned what John Paul taught about the theology of the body, because Christ came in the flesh, and the sacred beauty of life, and how to see a woman, and what covenant is, self donation. It's not a contract to be taken lightly.
     So the way I see it is that the music was fabulous. The expression. There were so many good things, but like I said, it was like an honest cry of desperation. I think deep down it was on the wrong premise. How do you see it?

DOOR: I think that all the drugs, ideas, art, music and politics finally culminated in a tremendous interest in religion that the Jesus movement was part of. It was a religious revolution that swept us both up.

DeMUCCI: We were all hungry, but you and I really came into the banquet. We didn't walk away with a pretzel and a soda.
     When I look back on that time period, I see searching and hunger, but I also see a lot of attempts to fill the void. Take Woodstock as an example. It was thoroughly documented, and the film is a record of the peak of all that energy. I like to watch the movie every so many years, because each time I see it, I look at it differently. I see something brand new, especially when I watch it with my kids. I begin to see how this transition period, where we become adults includes our searching for spiritual answers. So we have a record of this search, for the baby boomer generation, with all these people in the film searching. They were looking for answers.
     I have kind of a like a very joyous feeling down inside me, that I could participate in passing on, or pointing to the guys who blessed my life so much. Like Lightnin' Hopkins, and Hank Williams, and Jimmy Reed, who were the cause for me getting into this business, and loving music, and moving me and stirring me, and learning about life just listening to them. Just listening to their songs, like Hank Williams. As a 10-year-old listening to "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" or "The Funeral,"or "The Pictures from Life's Other Side."
     I feel very joyful that I could be part of passing that on in some small way in the chain, and saying these guys were great artists, and gifted, without judging, because I didn't know them. I never met a lot of them, I just listened to their records, you know? They were the masters, and the foundation for a lot of the music that we listened to, and they grabbed it right out of the air. I feel like I'm paying tribute, in a way.