Dion's Never-Then Released Album Would Have Changed The World . . .

DION & THE WANDERERS

Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965

NORTON RECORDS (2017)

95/100

History righted: The Wanderer’s mothballed masterpiece, at last

The deck was certainly stacked against early rock-n-rollers as the chaos of the ‘60s emerged. If Mitch Miller was running your record label, though, it was worse; one’s chances of morphing from Dean Martin’s “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You” to, say, Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” were nonexistent. Yet that’s the path Dion DiMucci was traveling at Columbia—almost secretly, it turns out. Joining with Dylan confidants Tom Wilson (producer) and Al Kooper (who played organ on “Like a Rolling Stone”), Dion’s unknown recordings are a lavish tour-de-force of folk-into-rock and blues-into-pop, an astounding and immediate answer to Bringing It All Back Home. “Farewell,” a then-unreleased Dylan song, is indicative. Amid a swirling, chiming, baroque arrangement, Dion personalizes Dylan’s motif, pouring untold yearning into every verse. Shivers of independence, deep introspection, and poetic resolve run through it all, including a watery, reverb-laden “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” rivaling any version laid to tape, and Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,” a stately, harmony-driven gem. Dion’s own compositions are equally remarkable. “So Much Younger” builds off Dylan’s “My Back Pages” in stark detail; “Now,” exploding with urgency, is the shoulda-been smash. Atop crashing drums, searing harmonies, and Kooper’s ghostly keyboard, Dion’s voice swells and swerves with an existential message—live in the moment. Luke Torn