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Dion at the Sheen Center in New York\u2019s Greenwich Village, June 11, 2026. (Photo via Dion Productions)<\/p>\n
Dion DiMucci clearly felt the love from the hometown audience last Thursday (June 11, 2026). The sold-out concert, at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, was filled with well-wishers as the singer of such early rock \u2018n\u2019 roll classics as \u201cThe Wanderer\u201d and \u201cRunaround Sue\u201d regaled the crowd, which included plenty of music biz insiders. The solo acoustic performance, billed as \u201cWords and Music,\u201d was filled with many of his street-wise stories, as an Italian kid growing up in The Bronx in the \u201940s and \u201950s.<\/p>\n
This concert was filmed for a future project\u2014Dion referred to it as a documentary in the making\u2014and was part of his first tour in more than four years, which includes shows in June, followed by more dates in the Northeast in September.<\/p>\n
On this pre-summer night, over nearly two hours, Dion introduced roughly 20 songs with memories of what his young self was doing at the time. For instance, as a teenager in the mid-\u201950s, he was head over heels in love with a girl named Sue who had moved to the neighborhood with her family from Vermont\u2014\u201dWho moves to The Bronx?,\u201d he asked the audience rhetorically. After several hits as Dion and the Belmonts in the late \u201950s and early \u201960s, he went solo. In 1961, \u201cRunaround Sue,\u201d which he wrote with his collaborator, Ernie Maresca, reached #1. He and the former Susan Butterfield have been married since 1963.<\/p>\n
There were stories about his gang and a longtime drug habit (he\u2019s been sober since 1968), his enormous respect for his church\u2019s monsignor, the influence of country legend Hank Williams and the blues on his own music, and his encounters with fellow music legends, including touring with Buddy Holly. Though he had earned a spot on Holly\u2019s doomed chartered plane following the Feb. 3, 1959, Iowa concert, Dion famously gave up his seat to Ritchie Valens as he couldn\u2019t justify its $36 cost. He acknowledged that was the same amount his hard-working parents had paid each month for their apartment when he was a child.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most striking was his voice, as bold and confident as someone\u2014Dion, perhaps?\u201450 years younger. When the attendees greeted each other after the show, the first comment in every conversation was \u201cHow is he 86?\u201d [He was born on July 18, 1939.] He\u2019s a marvel. Not to be overlooked, however, is his guitar playing, which was evocative and soulful throughout the night.<\/p>\n
In addition to his hits, which also included his 1962 #2 cover of the Leiber and Stoller favorite \u201cRuby Baby,\u201d originally recorded by the Drifters, and the poignant late \u201960s tribute \u201cAbraham, Martin and John,\u201d Dion performed his anthemic \u201cKing of the New York Streets,\u201d blues numbers originally done by Robert Johnson, Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker, Fred Neil\u2019s folk classic \u201cThe Dolphins,\u201d and \u201cSerenade,\u201d his remake of Tom Waits\u2019 \u201cSan Diego Serenade,\u201d with which he closed the program.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a busy few years for the legend. Dion<\/a> has been prolific as a recording artist and author, having penned (with Adam Jablin) his biographical narrative The Rock and Roll Philosopher. The 2025 book and companion album<\/a>\u00a0are available in the U.S.\/worldwide here<\/a>, in Canada here<\/a> and in the U.K. here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those were preceded in 2024 by the album Girl Friends that found Dion joining forces with a range of female artists including Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, Carlene Carter, Sue Foley, Rory Block and others. That same year, Dion, along with Mavis Staples, Jackson Browne and John Mellencamp, received the American Music Honors Award at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at New Jersey\u2019s Monmouth University.<\/p>\n Dion returned to Monmouth earlier this month to participate in the Springsteen Center\u2019s grand opening event, Music America: The Songs That Shaped Us, a program celebrating America\u2019s 250th birthday that featured a variety of stars including Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Rosanne Cash, Jackson Browne, Mavis Staples, Kenny Chesney, Gary Clark Jr., Keb\u2019 Mo\u2019, Nils Lofgren, Public Enemy, Stevie Van Zandt and Jimmie Vaughan.<\/p>\n He will be backed by a full band for dates in Glenside, Penn., at the Keswick Theater on June 18 and at Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair on Long Island on June 20. Dion then returns to the road in September. Tickets for those shows are available here<\/a> and here<\/a>. His catalog is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dion at the Sheen Center in New York\u2019s Greenwich Village, June 11, 2026. (Photo via Dion Productions) Dion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[306720,306721,306722,88,216],"class_list":["post-711192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-dion-2026","tag-dion-2026-tour","tag-dion-sheen-center","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}