Dion Taps Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, & Paul Simon For New Album

Rock and Roll pioneer Dion DiMucci will release his latest album, Dion’s Blues With Friends, on June 5th. Joining the Bronx legend for the set are such heavyweights as Bruce Springsteen & Patti Scialfa, Paul Simon, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Brian Setzer, Steve Van Zandt, Joe Bonamassa, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons.

The album will be released via Bonamassa's new Keeping The Blues Alive Records imprint, which is an offshoot of Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, Bonamassa’s non-profit that aims to conserve the art of music and the rich culture and history of the blues. Out now is “Blues Comin’ On” — the album's lead single featuring Bonamassa.

Dion said in a statement for the new album: “The blues have been at the heart of my music since the early 1960's. 'The Wanderer' is a twelve-bar blues and I was covering Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed in my early years at Columbia — much to the dismay of my corporate masters.”

Dion told us that throughout the years his musician friends have been urging him to record blues-based material: “Bonnie Raitt, every time I saw her (she asked me) 'When are you gonna do that album?' I'd see Van Morrison (and he'd ask me) 'Are you gonna do that blues thing? Why don't you do more of that? More of those songs. . . what I hear you playing.' Y'know Paul Simon (says): 'People don't even know you play guitar.' Really?”

Dion says that there was a sense of bragging that he always found endearing in blues songs: “I liked the idea that you could boast in those blues songs, that you boast about yourself. Y'know, the character that you're singing about. Y'know, it's like, 'I'm a man,' or 'I'm the hoochie-coochie man' or 'I'm the wanderer.' It's fun singing that stuff.”