Nearly five decades into his career, the music icon still thrills with bluesy new outing
On Tuesday, November 6, 2007, the legendary singer Dion DiMucci made his Verve Forecast debut with Son of Skip James. The album is a solid helping of the blues that may surprise longtime fans and excite anyone who enjoys an album filled well-crafted blues classics and originals. The album is available digitally.
Son of Skip James is the follow-up to Dion's Grammy®-nominated 2006 release Bronx In Blue, on which the artist, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, bared his musical soul on a set of his favorite blues standards. The self-produced Son of Skip James extends its predecessor's organic approach, with eloquently spare arrangements built around Dion's effortlessly soulful voice and sublime guitar work. Over the years, Dion was encouraged by friends such as Bonnie Raitt and Steve Van Zandt to celebrate the music he grew up enjoying and take these tunes into the recording studio.
Alongside the classic blues numbers that comprise the bulk of Son of Skip James, Dion delivers rollicking readings of Chuck Berry's "Nadine" and Bob Dylan's "Baby I'm In The Mood For You." The album features revelatory performances of such blues classics as Skip James' "Devil Got My Woman," Junior Wells' "Hoodoo Man Blues," and the Robert Johnson tunes "Preachin' Blues" and "If I Had Possession (Over Judgment Day)." Dion contributes a pair of original compositions: the title track, which pays tribute to one of his essential blues idols, and "The Thunderer," a moving meditation inspired by the life of St. Jerome.
Son of Skip James also includes the heavy, textured “Drop Down Mama,” the impassioned “I’m A Guitar King” – a showcase for Dion’s voice surrounded by limited accompaniment –and Dion’s rendition of Muddy Waters’ classic “Hoochie Coochie Man,”
It's been five decades since Dion DiMucci first emerged as one of early rock 'n' roll's greatest singers, launching landmark hits such as “I Wonder Why,” “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” But, growing up on the streets of the Bronx in the 1950s, his imagination was captured by the blues and country sounds that he heard on the radio.
"A lot of people think I grew up with rock 'n' roll, but I didn't. When I was growing up, there was no rock 'n' roll,” shares Dion. “I grew up on Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Hank Williams. I couldn't wait to get out of school so I could sit on the stoop with Willie Green, who was the superintendent of one of the tenement buildings in my neighborhood, and listen to his John Lee Hooker records."
Dion DiMucci – Son of Skip James [B0010173-02] available on CD November 6, 2007
For more information, contact: Sacks & Co Chris Mooney, chris.mooney@sacksco.com * 212 741 1000
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