I grew up with my parents screaming and yelling at each other for the rent in Bronx, New York City at the time. It was $36. So my mind hadn't stretched out to that place where I could spend a whole month's rent on a 45-minute plane flight to Fargo, N.D.

Dion DiMucci

Categorized in : Parents City Time Mind

Sometimes I think I know everything, but I also underestimate what God really is.

Dion DiMucci

underestimate sometimes thinking

What are you gonna fill your life up with when you don't have that ultimate satisfaction or peace in your life? You try to fill it up with wealth, pleasure, honor, power, sex, drugs and Rock and Roll to try to feel good.

Dion DiMucci

rock-and-roll rocks sex

I have a full life off the road. I was never in it just for the money or the career. That's why I'm comfortable with myself. I know who I am out of the spotlight.

Dion DiMucci

spotlight who-i-am careers

If you're performing for the right reasons, it's glorious.

Dion DiMucci

glorious performing reason

Back when I was in high school, I came out onstage with my guitar and had four guys playing behind me. We were just playing a dance, but I was standing in front of an audience rocking out. I'm still rocking out like when I was a kid. I haven't changed.

Dion DiMucci

guitar kids school

A lot of blues music seems like it's moving away from God, or the center, and Gospel music is moving towards it. It's embracing a higher reality. When you look a little closer, the way that I define it or explain it, is that the blues is the naked cry of the human heart, apart from God. People are searching for union with God. They're searching to be home. There's something in people that seeks this union with their creator. Why am I here? Where am I going? What's it all about? Who am I? All this kind of stuff.

Dion DiMucci

home heart moving

I think one of the greatest compliments I've ever received was when a young kid came backstage at Joe's Pub, when I had the "Bronx In Blue" album out. He said, "What Jimmy Reed did for you, you do for me."

Dion DiMucci

blue kids thinking

I was guaranteed a hundred thousand dollars a year for five years, which was big money in the early 60's. You think, acquiring that should cool you out, but for me it wasn't true.

Dion DiMucci

dollars years thinking

When you have too many beers, you become like a control freak on everything.

Dion DiMucci

control-freak freak beer

A lot of people have many misconceptions about religion. I know what I'm talking about for myself. My mind is very ordered, so to speak. I need to put things in order.

Dion DiMucci

talking order people

Life is full of awe and grace and truth, mystery and wonder. I live in that atmosphere.

Dion DiMucci

mystery grace truth life

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.

Dion DiMucci

sharing back bus fun

I tell you, gospel music is very uplifting. It's great. It's just a lot of fun to write, and it's wonderful for the heart, soul, mind, and spirit. It's just great.

Dion DiMucci

you music soul heart

I left Columbia in the mid-'60s. I had a guaranteed contract for, like, $100,000 a year. And I just let it go. And I wasn't a rich man. There were a lot of bad vibes around the whole thing.

Dion DiMucci

bad man vibes rich

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

Dion DiMucci

cry naked god heart

In New York, if you go into an Italian-American neighbourhood, the code of the streets is respect and reputation.

Dion DiMucci

new you reputation respect

I never got into this business to do interviews. It was always about the music.

Dion DiMucci

never always music business

With Del Shannon - and I've got to tell you this - there's nobody probably on the face of the earth that I identified more with musically. We used to sit and sing George Jones and Hank Williams tunes.

Dion DiMucci

face nobody you earth

I know they call it the British Invasion, but musically, I call it the British Infusion.

Dion DiMucci

musically call know british

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

Dion DiMucci

listen english you teacher