Dion DiMucci

“I was playing with Chuck Berry, who sounded like an English teacher. Did you ever listen to his records? He pronounces every word.”

“People didn't know I played guitar on all the hit records I had. I've never been in an acoustic guitar magazine and I'd put myself up against anybody.”

“I come from this macho Italian neighborhood. When I was thirteen, during those real vulnerable, impressionable years, and a boy starts becoming a man, to make that transition, and you start making decisions, and you start developing virtue and principles - I never made the transition.”

“When I didn't do 'Runaround Sue' on the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' for example, I didn't listen to my inner voice. I should have.”

“My definition of the blues is the naked cry of the human heart longing to be in union with God.”

“We all fled from religion. Living la vida loca, whatever. The '60s, you know. But it always stayed in my heart. As I got older, I started coming back to religion.”

“That is amazing that a guy like St. Jerome who lived in the fourth century could bring people together. Sometimes you think people are dead and forgotten. But they can actually bring you together in the best way.”

“I feel really relevant and creative, and I don't think I would've made an album if I didn't feel relevant. I wouldn't have said a word.”

“If you make excuses, you're going to believe in a lie. And I don't believe in that lie that you can't make it, that somebody is trying to hold you back.”

“I don't believe in being a victim. I think with information and motivation, you can do anything.”

“Early on, I tried to sing, but sustaining a note was something I wasn't comfortable with. So I tried to get off of the note as soon as I could.”

“My first tour, for six weeks straight, was with Bobby Darin, in 1958. It was just fun hanging out with him. He was older than I was; he was a college guy. It was kind of a mutual-admiration society, I guess. He taught me how to pay taxes.”

“I've got these die-hard fans on Facebook, and you'd swear they haven't heard anything I've done since 1962, 1963.”

“I couldn't sing like Mick Jagger, not that I wanted to.”

“I got a little advice for everybody: marry the girl who's going to get you to heaven.”

“It was a lot of fun in the back of that bus with Ritchie Valens, Buddy and The Big Bopper sharing each other's songs.”

“People were watching the TV set, and they said three rock-and-rollers died - Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, including the pilot. I walked out of the hotel. I got on the bus alone. Their clothes were hanging on the racks, their guitars on the seats.”

“I moved my family down to Miami to stay with my father-in-law, Jack, for a while. Best move I ever made.”

“I heard Robert Johnson way before I heard about Eric Clapton.”

“Hank Williams seemed, like, so total to me, so committed to the lyric. He would actually rip the ends of the words off at the, you know - the end of the sentence. It sounded like he'd bite into the word and rip it off.”