Singer, songwriter, guitarist, multiplatinum recording artist
(1939– )
I lived a block away from the Bronx Zoo. By the time I was sixteen I think I saw every animal alive on the planet Earth. I was five feet away from lions and tigers and gorillas and monkeys and seals and snakes and giraffes and rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and llamas and just every animal imaginable. And in those days you could get really close to them. So what a fortunate person I was. I’d jump over the fence on Southern Boulevard and meet giraffes and hippopotamuses. I mean, it was wild. You could get a few feet away from an elephant. Where else can you do this?
I was also just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Botanical Garden, where we’d swim. We’d dive off bridges into the streams and climb trees and what seemed like mountains. You could be Tarzan for a day. I feel very fortunate that these things too were like a stone’s throw away from me.
But there’s a lot of angst and fear and anger when you don’t know how to do life. I wasn’t getting that kind of guidance from my parents. Maybe they didn’t get it from theirs. We’re all part of something bigger than ourselves. Whatever the reasons, none of us in my house knew how to deal with emotions, so I grew up with this fear of people. I don’t mean just economic insecurity. I don’t mean fear of people punching you in the face. I mean in an emotional sense, where you don’t know how to handle things. It’s kinda like—you become this kinda macho guy. You cover up all your feelings. You hide some deep psychological weaknesses. I had this feeling that I was supposed to be born knowing everything. Of course, that wasn’t the case, but you’d pretend that it was by acting that way.
I lived one block away from Tally’s Pool Room on Crotona Avenue and 183rd Street. Once, Willie Mosconi came and played with the neighborhood champion Joe Rock, and what a wonderful day that was. It was like a saint or royalty was coming through, all dressed up in a suit. It was unbelievable. We looked at him—we’re not worthy. He was like the Pope of Pool.
My father had a lot of wonderful qualities, but he never had a real job. He would paint and sculpt and he would take me to the museums in New York, but he didn’t work. I had uncles, though, who were wonderful electricians and policemen and they were hard workers, all of them. They were also tall. They looked like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant to me, but they weren’t in my neighborhood.
What was in my neighborhood, up on the corner at Joe’s bar, were these mafioso-type wannabes. I had a number one record and they told me, “Give us the record and we’ll put it in the jukebox and when the kids come out of school, they’ll pass the bar, they’ll hear the record and they’ll buy it.” It was number one! They said, “I want you to be with me.” I said, “I am with you.” “No, I want you to be with me.” I said, “I am with you.” And then we go a little more into it. I said, “I can’t kiss your ass. I’m not a ‘yes’ man, I’m a rock ’n roller. I can’t do that. I can’t be like these people who walk around kissing your ass.”
I had a passion for music early on. When I went to Junior High School 45—I think the new name is Thomas Giordano Middle School—there were two black women music teachers who encouraged me to sing these Hank Williams and Jimmy Reed songs. There was also a superintendent of a building that was on Crotona Ave around the corner. His name was Willie Green. He encouraged me too. He lived in tenement buildings and he played blues. And I loved this guy, Willie Green, and he would teach me these songs, and when I’d go back to J.H.S. 45 I’d get encouraged there as well. The Reverend Gary Davis, the great blind blues man, also lived in the Bronx. I used to go to his house. Teach me a chord. Teach me this. At that time, he would play in Harlem on the streets.
Mount Carmel Catholic Church was the heart of Little Italy where I lived. Monsignor Pernicone used to talk to me about virtue. “Dion, what muscles are for the physical body, virtues are spiritual muscles for the soul. So you have to build yourself internally.” The guys in the neighborhood, I thought I knew where they were at, but they didn’t know where I was at. Monsignor Pernicone would also teach me in these conversations we had. I was walking around with questions like, What is truth? And who has the authority to define it?
There was also this guy, Dan Murrow, who became one of the closest friends in my life. He was a Jewish guy from Boston. He was a social worker and my father didn’t like him. He said to him, “You’re getting paid for what you do?” So Dan Murrow gave up his job and he’d come into the neighborhood without getting paid and we’d sit and talk for hours. He was an extraordinary guy who loved people. There are not many on the face of the Earth like him. Because of his coming into the neighborhood, and infiltrating the gang and talking to me personally, asking questions about my purpose and direction, what he said and what he did meant a lot to me. I loved talking to this guy and we remained friends all of his life.
When I look back, I say, Why did I gravitate to these good people when others used to smack ’em in the head? They were threatened by them. I was too. Then I saw the reason why. Because if they’re right, then I’m a failure. That’s frightening. These were extraordinary people.
When I went to Italy and started connecting the dots, that’s when I started grabbing on to higher ground. I was very lucky because I had a hit record at an early age. I was twenty when Columbia Records sent me to Italy. I had a five-year contract with them for half a million dollars. Guaranteed. One hundred thousand dollars a year. They wanted to expand their distribution so they sent me to Italy. I went to Milan and that’s where I fell in love with Italians. And, you know, I’m Italian and I wasn’t crazy about Italians until I traveled. It was there I saw the beauty and the history and the architecture and the poetry and the music and the spirituality. You can’t look at Jews, for instance, hangin’ around Long Island, or Italians hangin’ around Jersey, and know those groups. You have to look farther than that. In Italy, I got to understand what the culture’s truly about. When I went to Milan, I saw my neighborhood. Milan looked like the Bronx, and the people walking down the street looked like they were from the Bronx. My God! I grew up with these guys in my front yard carving marble steps and stoops—and my grandmother would even come out and wash them with soap and water!
If you’re raised in a borough, you’re very much on the surface of things. Then you grow up and you can see that all of these traditions have a lot of depth. They’re not old-fashioned. There’s more to it than that, you know.
That first time I went to Italy, I was into all the artists. I looked at Michelangelo, at Raphael, their sculptures and their paintings, and the architecture there. From my perspective, each time I went, I went deeper and deeper. The second time I went, I was saying, These artists are glorifying God. Look at these artists. The Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter’s, and the architecture. The third time I went I realized why Rome was so important. It was the place where these two guys died. Peter and Paul, these two little Jewish guys, were martyred there. Paul’s head was taken off and Peter was hung on a cross. Upside down. That’s why Rome is so important. Not because the Vatican’s there. Not because of the architecture or the art or anything else. It’s because these two guys gave their lives for their beliefs.
I’m gonna tell you something I’m very proud of. I’m going to brag about myself. I got an honorary degree from Fordham University this past year. And you don’t know how that made me feel. I don’t even know how to explain it. I was sitting there up on this platform on graduation day listening to the commencement speeches and looking out on the lawn with these mothers and fathers and faculty surrounded by these beautiful buildings on this beautiful day.
I’m sitting there being honored and, you know, it felt like it came around full circle. I was born in Fordham Hospital. It connected so much for me. The past, the present, and the future. I was so honored. I grew up a block away from there, not able to even think about going to Fordham. I used to climb over the fence and get chased out of there. My wife said, “They’re giving it to you because of your life experience. The way you affect people now.” Getting that honorary degree was one of the greatest experiences of my life.