YEAR
1989
INDUCTED BY
Lou Reed (The Velvet Underground)
CATEGORY
Performers
Bold. Suave. Swaggering. Dion helped usher in a new era.
With one foot in the Fifties and one in the future, Dion blended R&B with doo-wop and helped ring in the age of rock and roll.
Dion
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Michael Hill
Dion DiMucci was born in the Bronx in 1939 and was raised there in the borough’s own Little Italy. He showed a gift for singing at an early age, much to the delight of his parents, who encouraged him to perform.
His first love was Hank Williams, the artist who lured him into a Fordham Road record store, where he discovered more than just country western. As he recalls in The Wanderer, which he published last year, “I was picking up influences from all over the place, mixing in early R&B with doo-wop. Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and, of course, Elvis.
In other words, like every other teenager in America, I was discovering rock ‘n’ roll.”
