Customer Reviews

The Complete Dion & the Belmonts

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While its true that Dion and the Belmonts were the first, most influential and probably the best white doo wop group (I don't count the Four Seasons as a strict doo wop group) their catalogue of great songs is actually quite small. And this well-intentioned and informative 2 CD set digs a little deeper into the great group's catalogue than most fans will want to go.

Two factors conspire against a great 2 CD set exclusively focused on Dion's work with the Belmonts. The first is that the group recorded a comparatively small number of songs together. (BTW, while this set is complete in that it contains everything Dion and the Belmonts recorded in their original incarnation, it omits the 1966 and 1972 Reunion albums.) During their original four years together the group only put out two albums and some scattered singles. The other factor that hurts a set like this is the fact that the group's record label was constantly trying to push the group to record material that was outside of their collective strengths. Too many Dion and the Belmonts' records are either uninspired renditions of pop standards or teen treacle.

Still even in these areas the group would pull through from time to time. "Where or When", "In the Still of the Night" and a few others are masterful interpretations of standards. And thanks to the group's smooth harmonies, Dion's country twinged lead and Doc Pomus' subtly philosophical lyric "A Teenager in Love" showed just how much talent can do with teen treacle. Even on a song like "Every Little Thing I Do" where Dion's lead is nasal and poor the group picks him up with thrilling harmonies (arranged by Freddie Milano) and a stunning falsetto by Angelo D'Aleo.

All in all there are maybe a dozen stone cold classics on this album. The best of course is "I Wonder Why" with the group trading and trailing amazingly intricate harmonies. Whenever somebody says 50s music is simple I bring up this track. Sadly there are few other tunes like that on the set. Still tracks like "(I Can't go on) Rosalie","That's My Desire", "Teenager in Love" all show a unique and potent approach to harmony. "I Got the Blues" is also a standout, a swaggering portent of Dion's great solo work. Many of the alternates are also terrific showing the group feeling their way to their final interpretations. "I Wonder Why" is especially exciting since Carlo Mastrangelo tries all sorts of different approaches to his scatting bass and Dion muffs the lyric.

Yet the quality is the exception here. Many of the tracks do not even rise to the level of competence: Flat out terrible. The Dion and the Tamerlanes tracks are good examples, so is "September Song" where the 20-year old Dion clearly has no understanding of the lyric. And these guys just were not meant to record "When You Wish Upon a Star". The second disc is almost exclusively standards.

The real audience for this set is the collector, hardcore fan (like myself) and the historian who will appreciate the illustration that even the poor tracks provide. It's a great package. The late Bob Hyde's liner notes are honest, passionate and informative. The sound is superb with many tracks in stereo for the first time. Though, honestly I prefer "I Wonder Why" in mono. The increased prominence of the piano detracts from the harmonies. There are some other buts about the packaging as well. There could have been more photos in the booklet (and a larger picture of Presenting Dion and the Belmonts should have been in here instead of a tiny one). The alternates except "I Wonder Why" have all been previously released. As mentioned before the two reunion albums are not included. And the last four songs including "We Belong Together" are the Belmonts without Dion. This is not specified on the backcover. These songs are great but they are not Dion and the Belmonts.

For casual fans, I would recommend picking up a single disc compilation or better the first classic album "Presenting Dion and the Belmonts" if you can find it. It's nearly top to bottom excellent and contains all of the group's top 25 singles and "That's My Desire". It's a pricy import and buying this will give you more music at about the same price but that album's a bettering listening experience. The consumer must make his or her own choice.

Not all songs on this 2 CD compilation are keepers. None the less, Collectors Choice Music did an excellent job of using the highest level master/session tapes available. There are some interesting alternate takes and studio chatter. The alternate stereo take of "Teenager In Love" is more like a practice session with studio chatter. The released version of "Teenager In Love" is the cleanest stereo copy of this song I've ever heard. It could have been recorded yesterday. Especially noteworthy are some of the early stereo recordings. "Tag Along" was recorded in July, 1957 and appears in stereo for the first time on this CD. If you know much about early stereo, you know this is very rare. This is the only other 1957 pop stereo song I've heard other than a few Elvis songs that are currently available on a CD called "Stereo 57". Also appearing in stereo for the first time is "I Wonder Why", copied from the original session tapes. YES, we care that someone took the time to master this from the best available tapes/sources. This is NOT the usual "Best Of" compilation where they took the nearest 10th generation mono tapes and slapped together a bunch of songs.

The CD pamphlet is about 14 pages. It includes two full pages about the sound quality and information on the master/session tapes used for the compilation. Very interesting. YES, we are interested in this kind of info. Thanks for including it. The CD pamphlet doesn't say who wrote the info on sound quality but you guys at Collectors Choice should give him a raise.

True stereo tracks are as follows:

Disk 1 - tracks 4,6,7,10,11,17,18,19,20,21,23

Disk 2 - tracks 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,10,11,14,16,19,21,22

Dion and The Belmonts were the most influenital white doo wop group. And probably the best too.
Here you can follow the career of Dion and The Belmonts from the very start, before they were formed. The Chosen Few and Out in Colorado are Dion's solo project before that, just like Santa Margerita and Teenage Clementine are the Blemonts without Dion.
Then it happened,...We Went Away is a composition of Dion DiMucci and Carlo Mastrangelo (another Belmont). And it is a nice doo wop ballad. I Wonder Why is a nice fast doo wop and the first single that was a hit. Probably the best Dion And The Belmonts song ever. On this compilation you can find all the hits (like Pomus-Shuman composition A Teenager In Love, another doo wop famous composer Ernie Maresca's No One Knows, Where Or When,...) and songs from the album Wish Upon A Star where they covered standards (like Cole Porter's In The Still Of The Night - not The Five Satins song, Bing Crosby's Swinging On A Star, Fly Me To The Moon,...)
In 1960 when Dion went solo, The Belmonts continued. Such A Long Way, We Belong Together and My Foolish Heart are from that period.

This collection surpasses any other out there in comprehensiveness and quality. But admittedly, if you're not an avid fan of DooWop and particularly Dion & company this is much too much for you. Buy a greatest hits comp and enjoy!

Were all of their songs as terrific as I Wonder Why" and "Teenager In Love? Certainly not! But from a historical perspective this offering gathers up recordings that many had no idea existed and are, at the very least, enjoyable. For example Dion's first solo recordings with the Tamerlanes (he actually never met them but recorded over a tape of their backing vocals) are quality-wise nothing to write home about. But they are certainly worthwhile if only from the standpoint of hearing a youthful Dion working with somewhat sub-standard material.

Of particular interest to me was the studio conversations captured during the recording sessions. One of the group having a "phlegm" problem and Dion commenting that one of the tunes sounded like a "cowboy song".

Great liner notes add to the mix.

...in the liner notes.

While much of the CD information is informative, it lacks in completion and fact checking.

For starters, a key early track for Dion was omitted, that being the original mix of his track with the Timberlanes, "Out In Colorado". On the original mix, the Timberlanes are heard on the opening notes by themselves for about 25 seconds. Also varying from the common mix was the usage of more echo. The matrix number on that ended in 3903 ("The Chosen Few" ended in 3904). Yes, both were offered on Mohawk 105, but it was the latter mix that made it to Jubilee in September, 1957.

Another misleading bit states that their final album on Laurie (LLP 2006), WISH UPON A STAR, was issued in May of 1961. Not so, as a Billboard review of that lp was done in June, 1960. It preceded the group's final release, "In The Still Of The Night"/ "A Funny Feeling", by a month.

Another bit of bothersome info is spelling. Instead of the Belmonts release, "Santa Margherita" (as it was on the Mohawk record, #106), they spell it as "Santa Margerita". Also, "Teenage Clementine" would be more correct as "Teen-age Clementine".

More...? How about the first record by Dion and the Belmonts... In actuality, it was "I Wonder Why". "We Went Away" was actually a solo vehicle for Dion with the Belmonts providing back-up. Then ""Tag Along" was mastered and became the flip side to Mohawk 107. Meanwhile, "Santa Margherita" and "Teen-age Clementine" were mastered for the Belmonts alone and issued first, on Mohawk 106. "Tag Along", "Santa Margherita" and "Teen-age Clementine" were consecutive masters, ending in 7862, 7863, and 7864 respectively. "We Went Away" was mastered BEFORE, master ending in 6498. "Tag Along" was re-mastered by Laurie Records, assigned P4KM 9529 and used as a flip side for another Dion song, "Lonely World". This was in August, 1963, well after Dion was already contracted to Columbia Records, and were likely issued by Laurie to cash in on Dion's success. Incidently, both sides credited only Dion, with no mention of the Belmonts on the "Tag Along" side. "Lonely World" was drawn from an earlier Laurie lp of Dion's, RUNAROUND SUE, LLP 2009, which was issued in November, 1961.

"We Went Away"/ "Tag Along" was issued on Mohawk 107 and credited them as "Dion" (on one line) "with the Belmonts" (in a smaller font below). While early sides with the Timberlanes were issued on Mohawk and Jubilee crediting "Dion and the Timberlanes", later Jubilee issues minimized the Timberlanes efforts by billing "Dion" (on one line) "with the Timberlanes" (in a smaller font below), likely to cash in on Dion's solo success with Laurie in 1961. The original 1957 Jubilee pressing was on the blue label, while the latter was on the black label that started in 1959.

The missing Carlo & Jimmy sides are another issue. Both sides were recorded no later than February, 1960, based upon their master numbers, though they were issued in July 1960 on Laurie 3063. This was well before the release of Dion's first solo release, "Lonely Teenager"/ "Little Miss Blue", which happened in October, 1960 on Laurie 3070. Though the group's break-up was announced in Billboard in October of 1960, plans for their disolvement were already in the works, especially if it is to be believed that Dion recorded his solo tracks in early September of 1960 (as shown in the CD's liner notes). Incidently, Carlo and Jimmy were Carlo Mastrangelo and Jimmy George. Jimmy George was a guitarist who played with Dion & the Belmonts. The sides, "Happy Tune" and "Rockin' Rocket", were instrumentals, with Carlo on drums and Jimmy on guitar. The duo also wrote both sides, so there is no question as to their connection to the group.

Enough of my ranting...
:-)

Suffice it to say that this is a great CD of some good Dion & the Belmonts music.--- are they all hits? --No---are some songs better than others ? --- Yes--- but there is not a bad song in the lot

Okay, so I climbed into this here time machine and lived my own "Bronx Tale"! This is great 'stuff' about a gang with a dream that took them from a corner pizzeria to a sound microphone in a recording studio!A true musical anthology, it has it all: great harmonies,memories, and, as Dion himself mighta' said, 'dats da' way we rehoised it'!Ya'gotta'love dem guys!

Great CD. I've wanted this for quite a while as it contains some rare recordings and talk in studio. Somehow I can usually find what I want at Amazon.
Thank you,
RP Reilly

Some of the best songs that Dion sang are not on this set, while it has multiple versions of other ones. I'd recommend checking the track listing for the various albums carefully to make sure it is what you want.

I lost the LP years ago and now I have the CD and it is as good as I remember. Good old classics done Dion's way.