I'm going to take a break from my series of posts I have been doing on Tuesday covering artists who have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to bring you something a little different today. It never fails that occasionally when I am getting ready to do my #threetunetuesday post founded by @ablaze that something pops on my radar and I just can't help but write about it. That's definitely the case this week.
Over the past decade or so, I have really been impressed by the way TV shows have decided to integrate music into their episodes. Growing up, I can't remember music playing such a big part of most TV shows except maybe Kids Incorporated or something like that.
Probably one of the first shows I can really remember highlighting the music was Ally McBeal, these days however, it seems like pretty much every show is paying intricate attention to the songs they pick. In fact, streaming services like Amazon Prime even have a feature when you pause a program that it tells you who all the key actors in the scene are and what song is being played in that moment by what artist. It's pretty cool.
So my wife and I were sitting around this past weekend watching season 4 of The Bear on Hulu and a song came on one of the episodes. I quickly paused to see if it would show me the name and artist, but I realized we were watching Hulu, not Amazon Prime. Then I decided to just do a Google search for The Bear Season 4 Episode "whatever" song. Thankfully, there is a large community online who makes it a point to catalog the songs that appear in pretty much every episode of everything. Good for me, but I can't help but think some folks might need to get a life.
My last resort was to just do a Google search for the lyrics I could make out, but luckily it didn't go that far.
Anyway, when I finally found the song I was looking for, I was absolutely floored by who the artist was.
I've always been a fan of newer artists who have that old sound to them. People like Stephen Sanchez, Andersen East, Leon Bridges, etc. That new old soul sound really gets me excited. I expected that to be the case in this instance, but I couldn't be further from the present.
Instead, I discovered this song, that sounded like it could have come from one of today's artists, was actually just about as old as me and created by someone who has continued to reinvent themselves over the years.
"Only You Know" was the song that was on the episode of The Bear, and like I said, I was floored to find out it wasn't sung by some new artist hoping to ride that old sound. No, instead it was created by none other than the amazing Dion. Maybe it's just me, but go listen to the song "Until I Found You" by Stephen Sanchez and tell me you don't hear the similarities. Probably not so much in the production, or the overall sound, but to me the styles are very similar. So, in case you haven't figured it out, my #threetunetuesday post this weekend is dedicated to the iconic Dion DiMucci.
It would be even cooler if Dion wrote the song himself, but the fact that it was written by Gerry Goffin and Phil Spector still makes it pretty cool. I mean Spector was one of the biggest names in music back in the day. He honestly deserves his own post here.
Make no mistake, Dion was a songwriter and one of his earliest hits and the music that I associated with him most was songs like "Runaround Sue". Even in his later music Dion had a strong affinity for the doo-wop style that you see in songs like "Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer". If you have never heard of Dion, don't feel bad, I often used to get him mixed up with the Scottish folk artist Donovan. I know, looking at it now, it's pretty clear that they aren't anywhere near each other musically, but they both have single names that start with a "D". That's my story anyway. Actually, Donovan is another one of those artists who deserve his own post.
Believe it or not, Dion created his first album back in 1959 with a group called The Belmonts, his first solo album in 1961, and is still creating music today. While his early stuff was doo-wop, the music in the middle of his career was more like the second song above. In fact, artists from Bruce Springsteen to Lou Reed, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and Paul Simon. I even hear a little bit of Jackson Browne in some of his songs as well, so it wouldn't shock me if Browne would be included in that list.
He had a period from the late 70's to about 1986 where he crossed over to mostly Christian music, but then in 1987 he returned to secular music and has mostly leaned towards the blues style from what I have heard. I took a deep dive into him the other day after hearing that song on The Bear and realizing that I had to stop sleeping on Dion.
If you aren't familiar with Dion, or you only remember him from his doo-wop days, I highly encourage you to dig back into thim. Most specifically the album Born To Be With You. It has the first song I shared with you on it as well as several other really good ones including the title track.
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