Post by gremashlo on Jul 22, 2009 8:17:21 GMT -5
Starting a feature of my own! My very own!
The first flipside is a stark contrast to the "A" side of "Abraham, Martin and John", which gave Dion his last major hit, and amounted to a comeback record. To be honest, I knew nothing of the song until Dave Marsh wrote of it in his "1001 Greatest Singles" opus. Here is the basic story, as first documented by Tim Tooher and Ross Bennett...
"Abraham, Martin And John" must have been a soothing balm during the political chaos and uncertainty of the time. Its yearning for better times and better men and its warm, embracing arrangement took it into the Top 5 in the States. But if anybody had flipped the single over, they would have heard an entirely different sound, one that offered no succour at all, but which instead embraced the chaos and uncertainty of the times.
By 1967 Dion had hit rock bottom. After three years banging out raw, heartfelt blues for an uninterested Columbia Records, the New York doo-wop doyen was skirting skid row, sharing needles with Frankie Lymon and going down fast. Lymon’s OD death in February ’68 saw Dion hightail it to Florida, find God, get clean, and cut the intense proto Led Zep howl of Daddy Rollin’ at a small recording studio near Dion’s house, with Caribbean musicians Dion met locally. Dion approached Laurie Records with Daddy Rollin’ and they agreed to release it provided he also record Abraham, Martin And John.
The sound of Dion’s blues and punkier pop excursions on Columbia is gone, his voice wearier, almost haunted. Recorded just after his withdrawal from heroin Daddy Rollin’ has none of the sense of release of the A-side, rather it’s claustrophobic, uncomfortable and dark, redolent of the unease and paranoia associated with the addict’s life. Respected critic Dave Marsh included Daddy Rollin’ at #452 in his list of the 1001 greatest singles ever recorded. Not bad for a B-side. Marsh described the record thus, “Haunted electric guitars clang and clash against one another, drums pound in from another room, uniting in a wad of noise symbolizing nothing but spelling out pain and fear... It was the scariest music Dion ever made.” Listening to it now it’s not very far from the sound of the Velvet Underground, something also heard on Dion’s reunion album with the Belmonts from a year earlier.
Not much I can add, besides the fact that yo'll never think of the guy who sang "Lovers Who Wander" and "Donna (the Prima Donna)" the same again...
The first flipside is a stark contrast to the "A" side of "Abraham, Martin and John", which gave Dion his last major hit, and amounted to a comeback record. To be honest, I knew nothing of the song until Dave Marsh wrote of it in his "1001 Greatest Singles" opus. Here is the basic story, as first documented by Tim Tooher and Ross Bennett...
"Abraham, Martin And John" must have been a soothing balm during the political chaos and uncertainty of the time. Its yearning for better times and better men and its warm, embracing arrangement took it into the Top 5 in the States. But if anybody had flipped the single over, they would have heard an entirely different sound, one that offered no succour at all, but which instead embraced the chaos and uncertainty of the times.
By 1967 Dion had hit rock bottom. After three years banging out raw, heartfelt blues for an uninterested Columbia Records, the New York doo-wop doyen was skirting skid row, sharing needles with Frankie Lymon and going down fast. Lymon’s OD death in February ’68 saw Dion hightail it to Florida, find God, get clean, and cut the intense proto Led Zep howl of Daddy Rollin’ at a small recording studio near Dion’s house, with Caribbean musicians Dion met locally. Dion approached Laurie Records with Daddy Rollin’ and they agreed to release it provided he also record Abraham, Martin And John.
The sound of Dion’s blues and punkier pop excursions on Columbia is gone, his voice wearier, almost haunted. Recorded just after his withdrawal from heroin Daddy Rollin’ has none of the sense of release of the A-side, rather it’s claustrophobic, uncomfortable and dark, redolent of the unease and paranoia associated with the addict’s life. Respected critic Dave Marsh included Daddy Rollin’ at #452 in his list of the 1001 greatest singles ever recorded. Not bad for a B-side. Marsh described the record thus, “Haunted electric guitars clang and clash against one another, drums pound in from another room, uniting in a wad of noise symbolizing nothing but spelling out pain and fear... It was the scariest music Dion ever made.” Listening to it now it’s not very far from the sound of the Velvet Underground, something also heard on Dion’s reunion album with the Belmonts from a year earlier.
Not much I can add, besides the fact that yo'll never think of the guy who sang "Lovers Who Wander" and "Donna (the Prima Donna)" the same again...
