Dion DiMucci about the release of his 'lost' 1965 album "Kickin' Child"- exclusive interview*

Baffling; Spoonful is AMAZING! Heck, I even like Seventh Son in terms of a recording of-a-piece with this material and could see it "on an album".

 

Kickin Child/ Spoonful as a non-lp single alongside the Wilson album would work. Theyre like Strawberry Fields/ Penny Lane to Pepper. Or maybe an EP with Seventh Son and Baby Blue. Theres always too much for a 12-13 track album. Its an embarrassment of riches.

 

We really need a Complete Columbia Recordings box set.

 

The "it was an album all along" narrative is indeed a bridge too far. There was most definitely not a ready-to-go, Smile-like master tape sitting on a Columbia shelf, but I agree with The Zodiac that the 12 songs that came out of the Wilson sessions were probably initially intended for an album. All that Columbia did was pull a couple of 45s out of those sessions. They didn't give Dion his album because the 45s didn't go anywhere. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and the Mersey produced 45s that bookend the Wilson sessions sonically obviously fall in the same folk-rock category. It's a shame that Columbia did not realize that they had classic folk-rock LP in hand that could have competed with the best Byrds albums and the classic Dylan trilogy. This Norton album finally rights this wrong.


Calling "Spoonful" a potential candidate for inclusion on the album like The Zodiac suggests exposes another catastrophic missed opportunity for Columbia. "Spoonful" to me falls in line with the many Chicago blues songs that Dion was covering in 1964 and early-65 before going folk-rock. At that precise point in time the USA was being overrun by Brits like the Yardbirds, Animals and Stones who were doing exactly that. Somehow the suits at Columbia failed to recognize that they had a homegrown equivalent filling up their vaults with Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry covers. Again, only a couple of 45s were released, but no album that would have gone toe-to-toe with the limeys resulted. In the vocal dept. Dion with have swept the floor with all of them for except maybe Eric Burdon. The execs at Columbia were frustrated that Dion didn't do the Bobby Darin thing they were banking on and just didn't realize the pure gold they had in hand. Another wrong that should be righted.

 

^well-said. I finally listened to the previously unreleased "Too Much Monkey Business" on the b-side of that Norton 45... man, it is a SMOKIN' take!

 

Expanding on Rocknut's previous post, here are some session dates/release dates for the material contained on “Kickin’ Child”. All credit to Andrew Sandoval for research and Steve Islip for hosting the information on his ‘Dion Information Exchange’ webpage back in the day. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by sharing the information here, I'm just trying to help out.

March 24, 1965 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod:Robert Mersey

Kickin' Child (first version) (released on Bronx Blues comp)
Too Much Monkey Business [version two] (released on Norton ‘Kickin’ Child” 45 b-side)

April 6, 1965 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod:Robert Mersey

Spoonful
Kickin' Child [single version]

May 10, 1965 Single Release #43293
Spoonful/Kickin' Child

June 17, 1965 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod:Robert Mersey

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
The Seventh Son (released on "Wonder Where I'm Bound" LP 1969)
All I Want To Do Is Live My Life [version one] (unreleased)

September 20, 1965 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod:Tom Wilson
Dion & The Wanderers

Knowing I Won't Go Back There
My Love
Tomorrow Won't Bring The Rain
Time In My Heart For You
Two Ton Feather [version one]
Baby I'm In The Mood For You
You Move Me Babe [single version]
Now
Bright Lights, Big City (unreleased)

October 4, 1965 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod:Tom Wilson
Dion & The Wanderers

All I Want To Do Is Live My Life [version two]
I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound
Wake Up Baby
Farewell
Blues (unreleased - guessing it's just a studio jam based on the title)

October 1965 Single Release #43423
Tomorrow Won't Bring The Rain/You Move Me Babe

February 7, 1966 Single Release #43483
Time In My Heart For You/Wake Up Baby

March 2, 1966 Columbia Studio A, NYC prod: Robert Mersey
Dion & The Wanderers

Two Ton Feather [single version]
So Much Younger

June 13, 1966 Single Release #43692
Two Ton Feather/So Much Younger


So I guess we have to wonder…. If that October ’65 single made a ripple would Columbia have released an album from the Tom Wilson sessions? They definitely had one there. Would Dion have gotten the recognition he deserved? Or would the LP be ignored like the singles were? Would it be sitting on the shelves Christmas '65 right alongside "Rubber Soul"?

And what if Columbia never bothered with all the Dion vault compilations years later. Can you imagine a wonderful song like “Now” collecting dust in the vaults and never getting heard? What sort of madness is this?

I’m glad things have been made right (righter at least) and that Dion is still here with us to see it. I hope and pray there have been some new converts to the magic of Dion thanks to this release. It’s still the best archival release of May 2017, in my book. At least all the people who just bought Sgt Pepper for the 100th time (now with more bass!) have to see Dion’s face every time they pull it down from the shelf. Someday they might even take the time to understand why he’s there.

 

Thanks Zodiac! That clears up a few details.

-I wonder how different the earlier, Mersey version "All I Want To Do Is Live My Life" will be.

-So there are two more unreleased Tom Wilson session cuts. "Bright Lights, Big City" is perhaps an odd duck among the great titles that they recorded that day. "Blues" may indeed be a wash.

-The amount of reverb and echo on the solo guitar on the "Seventh Son" version released on the Wonder Where I'm Bound LP always amazes me. I was wondering if it was a different take than the much cleaner version on the Bronx Blues, Road I'm On and Don't Start Me Talking CDs. My feeling is that a lot of post production must have been performed when the Columbia cash-in LP was readied a few years later. I can't imagine that Falbo generated that psychedelic maelstrom in 1965.

 

I was poring over the session info and spotted one little typo. According to several of the CD releases the Spoonfull/Kickin' Child session took place on April 5, not April 6.

I'm wondering if Sandoval was working off the same kind of Columbia studio logs that Michael Krogsgaard used for his super comprehensive Dylan Columbia sessions site. Check out Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (part 1)

This site is amazing for a Dylan trainspotter and includes CO Card numbers, number of takes with designations whether the take was completed or a false start and where which take was first released. Check out the December 8, 1964, session info on the Krogsgaard site. This shines a light on the acoustic Dylan tapes that Wilson and Dion tried to overdub/graft an electric band, as mentioned in the liner notes of Kickin' Child. If I'm not mistaken only "House Of The Risin' Sun" ever made it out into the open. I would be interesting to hear the other three experiments.

 

I finally received my copy today. Man it sounds amazing!
Some songs sound quite different from the Wonder Where I'm Bound 1968 LP. Now and Wake Up Baby in particular almost sound like a different mix.

 

It indeed sounds amazing and better than ever before. I was wondering if the mixes on those tracks were different as well. Altogether it sounds fairly similar, but there is some much more clarity in these versions. You can heard the harmony vocals so much better and the drums are bouncing off Studio A's walls. Would all be just in the mastering?

 

I'm so grateful that this album was released. It has captured my imagination, heart and soul like no other music in recent memory. I'm listening to this (for about the 30th time) on the patio watching the sunset right now. Until this album came out, I only knew Dion for his biggest hits with The Belmonts, for Abraham Martin And John, and for his recent collaboration with Paul Simon on New York Is My Home. For the life of me, I don't know why I never dug deeper into Dion's music until now, especially considering that I've loved Abraham Martin and John since the first time I heard it in the '70s. I guess that "Lost 1965 album produced by Tom Wilson" was the hook I needed. This has opened one incredible door for me.

Over the past three weeks, I've purchased ALL of Dion's albums and any compilations needed to hear every note of his music. I'm still waiting for a lot of the discs to show up, but I cannot believe that I'd been in the dark to the mind-blowing talent of Dion! It makes me feel so much joy to connect this deeply with an artist at my age. This will be the summer of Dion at my house -- I've got a lot of lost time to make up for!

John Martyn was the last artist to blow me away when I finally plunged into his discography a few years back. I did my best to turn people on to his music. I'll be playing Dion for anyone and everyone I can this year.

I wish I would've bought Abraham Martin And John on 45 when I was in high school -- "Daddy Rollin (In Your Arms)" blew me away, but if I would've heard that at 15... wow. Better late than never!

 

Simply amazing record. I can't stop listening. I've always been a fan, owning all his hits compilations including "The Complete Dion & The Belmonts","Bronx Blues", "The Road I'm On" and "70s: From Acoustic To The Wall Of Sound", and a few albums like "Dion" from '68 and "Wonder Where I'm Bound" which I've always loved, but wow. I really need to explore more stuff from his entire career I've missed. So underrated beyond his classic hits, but just so damn good!

 

My copy finally arrived. I've played it twice already tonight.
Damn.
Damn.
Damn!!!!!!

 

Definitely. Hopefully Richard Weize Archives or his former label Bear Family Records can someday issue a much-needed comprehensive box set.

 

The 20 Best Reissues of 2017 So Far—Dion, The Beatles, Ice Cube and More

#1? DION.

THATS RIGHT. **** THE BEATLES.

 

Well, duh.

 

Dion was on WFMU yesterday talking about the album. (Interview is about halfway through the show following a set of his music)

WFMU: Todd-o-phonic Todd: Playlist from July 8, 2017

 

Happy 78th Birthday to The King of the New York Streets!

 

I dunno, I'd argue Columbia gave him a wider reign than most labels with that kind of standing would have. They let him cut AND release a lot of his blues and folk-rock experiments. To be fair, the blues stuff had no chance of being hits. They signed him because they wanted another Bobby Darin - a teen-idol turned adult-friendly act. He tried it, it wasn't for him - you didn't see him performing another standard after the second Columbia album - they didn't force him. He did his own thing, his singles bombed, he moved on - but Columbia didn't push him to release a standard - or even another "Donna The Prima Donna" - rather than "Tomorrow Won't Bring The Rain" in '65.

 

The Columbia execs in 1965 were clueless about rock'n'roll, that is for sure. Remember, it took an intervention from Miles Davis (!) to get them to sign the Byrds!

 

Despite the high quality of the material - he wasn't selling singles, he wasn't gonna sell albums. His name was out of favor, and "the album" still wasn't a thing in 1965 unless you had a hit single to back it up (with some extraordinary exceptions).