Review: Dion - Presenting Dion & The Belmonts (1959)

Tracks: 1) I Wonder Why; 2) Where Or When; 3) You Better Not Do That; 4) Just You; 5) I Got The Blues; 6) Don’t Pity Me; 7) A Teenager In Love; 8) Wonderful Girl; 9) A Funny Feeling; 10) I’ve Cried Before; 11) That’s My Desire; 12) No One Knows.

REVIEW

It should take you exactly 15 seconds – more precisely, the 15 opening seconds of ‘I Wonder Why’ – to define your general attitude to Dion & The Belmonts. If you feel «amazed» or, at the very least, charmed by the way the rhythmically perfect, whipper-snappishly confident dun-dun-dun-du-dun-dun baritone of the opening is complemented by the high-pitched vocal ladder of the three auxiliary singers, then you’re all set for a romantic nostalgic trip into the First Age of Boy Bands, when haircuts were shorter, outfits were longer, lyrics were dumber, and vocal arrangements were smarter. If, on the contrary, this sound makes you either wanna barf, or roll over with laughter, it is unlikely that anything else from the classic hit-making days of Dion DiMucci will make you take this guy as anything other than nostalgic fodder for Grandpa and Grandma.

It does go without saying, I suppose, that without Dion & The Belmonts, there would have been no Beach Boys — or, more accurately, that this here is the no-longer-missing link between the sweet vocal wonders of old school crooners, barbershop quartets, and doo-wop squads, on one hand, and the soon-to-appear vocal-oriented American pop bands of the rock’n’roll generation, everybody from the Beach Boys to the Mamas & Papas and beyond. Dion DiMucci did not invent any new styles of music, but he was among the first and best white boys from the late 1950s / early 1960s to realize how to squeeze those old values — sentimentality, romance, chirpiness, and, above all, technical bravado — inside a contemporary musical wrapping. For sure, there were plenty of young white rock’n’rollers to whom good old-fashioned crooning was actually a second nature, all the way from Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran (whose internal wild beasts had a surprisingly tender side to them) to Elvis himself. But most of them, one way or another, still valued energy, spontaneity, and a certain degree of rawness over immaculate perfectionism — the one thing true rock’n’roll was never about.

Dion DiMucci did like rock’n’roll, but unlike all those guys, Dion DiMucci didn’t much care about its aggressive, rebellious, DIY side that took such a lenient stance towards occasionally flubbed vocal notes or out-of-tune instruments. It is hardly accidental that his family (as well as most of the families in his particular Bronx neighborhood from which he culled the rest of the Belmonts) was of Italian origins — the music Dion would go on to perform would rarely be connected to Italian pop as such, but it is certainly influenced by the classic Italian attitude: open-hearted, in-yer-face emotional, and chiseled to the utmost technical perfection. I don’t know if anybody ever called Dion «the Puccini of teen-pop», but it would seem like a fairly accurate moniker to me in any case.

As a respectful admirer, but not really a heartfelt lover of Puccini (I’m more of a Wagnerian when it comes to opera), I think that I extend more or less the same feelings to Dion and his boys. They did not write their own songs — the earliest ones came from their producers on the Mohawk and Laurie labels, then from contemporary songwriters like Ernie Maresca — and the songs they did perform hardly ever broke any serious musical ground, by and large being variations on existing doo-wop, country, and rock’n’roll formulae (although props must be given to Dion’s readiness to experiment with such multiple genres, rather than decisively locking himself into just one pattern). The instrumental backings on those records all but define cold-hearted professionalism, usually impeccable from a tonal perspective but rarely surprising or inspiring from an emotional angle. The only thing that makes them truly special are the vocals — and here, it all depends on whether you’re willing to lend your support to a Dion-ruled universe.

At least back in 1958, it was a fresh, moderately exciting universe. You can clearly feel the difference if you start the journey with Dion’s very first single (not included on this record, since it was still recorded for Mohawk, Dion’s first label) where he does not even have the Belmonts yet — rather, he is paired by his record label bosses with a bunch of people he’d never met as «the Timberlanes». There’s a syncopated romantic doo-wop ballad, ‘The Chosen Few’, on one of the sides, and a sort of vaudeville-Western number, ‘Out In Colorado’, on the other — everything smothered in cheap Vegasy brass and wrapped in a quasi-big-band «epic» feel which all but eliminates Dion’s main advantage, that of sounding like the quintessential «teenager in love».

Then, a few months later, Dion recruits his young Italian buddies Carlo, Fred, and Angelo as the Belmonts, and with their very first single, in October 1957, the classic Belmonts sound is born. Crystal-clear doo-wop guitar that dominates the instrumental background and keeps it so quiet as to never ever overshadow the vocals; perfect separation between lead vocal and the harmonies; and no attempts whatsoever on Dion’s part to sound any older than he is (18 at the time). That’s ‘We Went Away’, a song that went unnoticed upon release but already has all the trademarks; and the B-side, ‘Tag Along’, for sheer contrast is a fast-paced pop-rock number that could be good enough for Ricky Nelson, except that Dion, with his explosive Italian heart, always jumps out at you from the speakers, whereas shy little Ricky always keeps to corners.

With the switch to Bob and Gene Schwartz’s newly-founded Laurie Records label comes ‘I Wonder Why’, starting off Dion’s short-lived, but well-remembered rule as one of the kings of the early teen idol era. The perfect combination of catchiness, hard-working professionalism, old-school doo-wop values and new-school rock’n’roll bounciness, for me it works like a museum piece worthy of admiration, an impressive achievement of human creativity without the slightest trace of God-granted genius, so to speak; but then again, maybe you really have to live on Belmont Avenue in order to have a different perspective on this kind of thing. The best I can say on this matter is that the song is significantly less cringeworthy than, say, the likes of Sha Na Na and other such «revivalists» who were bent on recreating the spirit of a deceased era in a completely different environment. For the tempora and mores of 1959, ‘I Wonder Why’ was just perfect.

Somewhat more human-sounding is the band’s second single, ‘No One Knows’, on which the Belmonts take a small step back, relegated to strictly backing vocals, and Dion sings in a slightly gloomier and more melancholic mode; there is also a cute little minimalistic piano riff engaged in an active dialog with the singer rather than just providing a steady foundation, which might be the single most memorable «purely musical» moment on the entire record. However, its follow-up, the completely ballad-oriented A-and-B-side combination of ‘Don’t Pity Me’ and ‘Just You’, is a step back from «human values», both songs being seriously more maudlin than ‘No One Knows’ and also spoiled by completely unnecessary brass backing — each time these saxes come in, it’s like somebody stepped into the wrong studio for a few seconds.

Then, of course, in comes ‘A Teenager In Love’, one of Dion’s best-remembered hits whose title itself perfectly captures the essence of the Dion vibe. With just a few chord changes, it could easily pass for one of those classic Hank Williams laments, except that the overall vibe here is decidedly urban rather than country. The chorus, of course, is its main selling point: the lines "Each night I ask the stars up above / Why must I be a teenager in love?" probably spoke volumes to the average American kid back in 1959, almost explicitly stating that painfully obvious problem of the onset of one’s sexual urges prior to emotional maturity and financial stability. It doesn’t hurt, either, that the song was commissioned from the songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, who had only just begun to achieve notoriety. You can definitely feel that pop-era Elvis vibe in the "I cried a tear... for nobody but you..." middle section, which would later be reworked into the «manly tears» feel of ‘His Latest Flame’ and some other songs the Pomus-Shuman team wrote for the King.

The Belmonts’ first LP, in addition to all those singles, threw on some album-only tracks as well, which help form a better perspective on Dion’s genre-hopping. Thus, ‘You Better Not Do That’ is a playful country hop, not unlike something like Hank Williams’ ‘Pan-American’, but musically reworked as a teen-pop number; and ‘I Got The Blues’ hardly constitutes any serious competition to the Chicago masters, yet it is still a relatively original take on the genre, exploiting its comedic potential above all else. A little later, this endeavor would be taken to its pinnacle with ‘The Wanderer’, which would complete the transformation of somber Chicago blues into uplifting teen-pop; ‘I Got The Blues’ is not quite there yet, but it’s still more fun — if nowhere near as «authentic» — than the average Jimmy Reed number. On the down side, ‘That’s My Desire’ has always been an awful song no matter who sang it, and the Belmonts’ falsetto harmonies can only worsen the deal, as the final effort is so corny, you could probably slip it unnoticed into the middle of Zappa’s Cruising With Ruben & The Jets or something of that level of parody.

In the end, I am still surprised at myself for giving the album such a high rating — but it does have an impressive level of variety and originality, cannot be accused of a lack of emotion, is perfectly listenable and catchy, and could, with certain reservations, be called «adequate» in that Dion and his pals never really try to bite off more than they can chew. In a song-by-song album battle with, say, the Beach Boys’ debut of Surfin’ Safari it would have won hands down (admittedly, it wouldn’t be a fair competition, since the Belmonts’ album is mostly a compilation of their hit singles, whereas the Beach Boys’ debut was a handful of filler thrown around one hit single, and far from their best at that). And yet, from a certain point of view, I still think there’s more «life» and «fun» on Surfin’ Safari than on any of the Belmonts’ records. The odd difference is that the Beach Boys reached their own brand of perfection through experimenting with various brands of imperfections over a period of several years; Dion & The Belmonts, on the other hand, did away with imperfections as soon as possible, which makes this collection as utterly sterile as it is formally immaculate.

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