There’s a reason why The Beatles put Dion on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. He’s a classic. Period. Starting as the lead singer of Dion and The Belmonts in 1957, continuing through his string of solo hits from 1960 to 1964, reinventing the blues with an arrogant sneer in 1965, he became a hippie hero with his folk phase in 1968 (the same year he turned the Jimi Hendrix classic “Purple Haze” into a trance-like mantra). Then he started the 1970s by penning the greatest addiction/recovery song of all-time (“Your Own Back Yard”). He rocked throughout the ’70s and ’80s as a badass New York City street king and bonafide rock and roll hero with a voice that could peel paint. He had an overt Christian-music phase like Bob Dylan, but soon mastered the art of Mississippi Delta blues guitar like no white boy from the Bronx has a right to do. Sure, there were fallow periods. He may be a legendary pioneer, but he’s also human. Point is, Dion is not only a role model, he’s larger than life. His new album, Blues With Friends, is one of the best albums of a disappointing 2020. His friends include Jeff Beck, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, John Hammond, Jr., Dylan (who wrote the liner notes), Sonny Landreth, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Bonamassa, Stevie Van Zandt and others, yet Dion is not overwhelmed by all this star power. They’re his songs. His voice is still elastic. And he answered the phone on the occasion of promoting it just the way you’d want Dion, “King of the New York Streets,” Francis DiMucci to answer the phone.
THE GRAND POOBAH!
SINCE THEIR INCARNATION in the early 1970s, the band Poobah have recorded over a dozen albums with various lineups, while openi ng for some of rock and roll’s biggest names.
THE MAKING OF PEARL
JANIS JOPLIN IN 1970: A NEW B AND AND THE MAKING OF HER CLASSIC ALBUM, PEARL.
There Must Have Been Something in the Water
If The Beatles never happened, if the British invasion never occurred, then music fans around the world would more than likely never have been exposed to some of the finest white blues singers that the U.K. produced between 1964 and 1970.
The SAGA Continues
SAGA WERE NOT THE ONLY band to make an album during the pandemic — far from it.
Ten Years After MORE THAN 50 YEARS LATER
DRUMMER RIC LEE TALKS TO GOLDMINE ABOUT A TEN YEARS AFTER DELUXE EDITION OF THE A STING IN THE TALE ALBUM AND HIS RECENTLY RELEASED MEMOIR, FROM HEADSTOCKS TO WOODSTOCK.
SUZI QUATRO IS BACK!
WITH A NEW ALBUM, THE DEVIL IN ME, THIS PIONEERING FEMALE ROCKER REMAINS AS DRIVEN AND DETERMINED AS EVER
RE-SHAKE & RE-MAKE
WITH THE RERELEASE OF THEIR DEBUT ALBUM, SHAKE YOUR MONEY MAKER, THE BLACK CROWES FLY HIGH BY REFLECTING ON THEIR ROOTS.
LOVE FOR PEARL
2021 will be a big year for fans of Janis Joplin. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is curating a special exhibit devoted to her that is scheduled to open in May.
Q&A WITH JANIS' SIBLINGS, LAURA AND MICHAEL JOPLIN
Q&A WITH JANIS’ SIBLINGS, LAURA AND MICHAEL JOPLIN
CHERISHING CITY TO CITY A timeless classic by GERRY RAFFERTY
It’s early 1978 and the new single by Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, “Baker Street,” is blasting out on the airwaves on my small transistor radio.
