In 1959, Dion, with the Belmonts, sang “I Wonder Why”, a song with the off-to-the-races doo-wop intro of “Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun”. It’s as if the narrator is stumbling over his words when speaking to his lover, who he can’t look in the eyes, let alone articulate—the truth of the universe within those monosyllabic and mellifluous moans. Or not. When performing “Tower of Song” in London 49 years later, Leonard Cohen reveals that the “do dum, dum dum…”—sung by his backing vocalists—are the answers to the mysteries. We’ll take him at his word as, after all, he was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk. Thus, he understood a thing or two about staring into the void and finding answers. Did he ever reach enlightenment? Leave that to the dark night-of-the-soul Van Morrison.
Dion hits Collection SP
How Dion DiMucci Influenced Bruce Springsteen
Fifteen years before a 20-something Bruce Springsteen sweated out his original sin in clubs along the Jersey Shore, there was the rock and roller Dion.
By
Jack Walters
/ 22 August 2024
In 1959, Dion, with the Belmonts, sang “I Wonder Why”, a song with the off-to-the-races doo-wop intro of “Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun”. It’s as if the narrator is stumbling over his words when speaking to his lover, who he can’t look in the eyes, let alone articulate—the truth of the universe within those monosyllabic and mellifluous moans. Or not. When performing “Tower of Song” in London 49 years later, Leonard Cohen reveals that the “do dum, dum dum…”—sung by his backing vocalists—are the answers to the mysteries. We’ll take him at his word as, after all, he was ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk. Thus, he understood a thing or two about staring into the void and finding answers. Did he ever reach enlightenment? Leave that to the dark night-of-the-soul Van Morrison.
In January 1959, 19-year-old Dion, with the Belmonts, along with Ritchie Valens, JP Richardson (The Big Bopper), and support from Frankie Sardo, were part of Buddy Holly’s Winter Dance Party Tour. Yes, the fateful tour that claimed the lives of Holly, Valens, and Bopper when, on board an airplane flying from Clear Lake, Iowa, to Mason City Municipal Airport, they crashed in a frozen cornfield—two nights after a 17-year-old Bob Dylan locked eyes with Holly at the Duluth Armory, as if passing on the torch. “Buddy took us into this room, and he said, ‘Listen, there’s only four seats on the plane’,” Dion said to Jim Clash of Forbes in 2023. “The pilot would take one, and there was room for only three others. One of the headliners couldn’t go.”
