Eternal Dion To Play Kings Theatre Saturday

Dion plays the Kings Theater on Saturday on the heels of his umpteenth album, which was released in February. He’s had more than a dozen Top 40 singles since he started performing with Dion and the Belmonts in 1958, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 1989.

At this point, you could forgive the guy if he was just resting on his laurels.

But “New York Is My Home,” Dion’s latest effort, sounds less like a victory lap than the determination of a singer and guitarist — whose successes span both decades and rock styles — to cross a few more items off his musical bucket list. The title single, a duet featuring Paul Simon, is one highlight, as are several songs marked by the contribution of Jimmy Vivino, best known as musical director for Conan O’Brien and leader of the Basic Cable Band.

There’s a coruscating guitar solo on “Aces Up My Sleeve,” and a brilliant bit of slide work on “Can’t Go Back to Memphis,” as Dion works his way through a variety of material with his irresistible voice serving as the thematic center.

Dion told Rolling Stone that the “New York Is My Home” single is “a way to have New Yorkers fall in love with their city all over again.” The rest of the album may be a way to have people fall in love with rock and roll all over again.

Dion has had more than 50 years of musical success, performing in a number of different styles, from doo wop to rock and roll to Christian music to country blues.

His earliest hits included “Teenager in Love,” featuring the doo wop sound of his vocal group the Belmonts. That group was on tour with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper in 1959 when Dion decided he couldn’t justify spending $36—the rent his parents paid monthly on his childhood apartment—for a seat on a chartered plane after a concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. The plane crashed, killing all on board, and only Dion’s last-minute choice to skip the flight saved his life.

Dion scored a series of solo singles in the early 60s, including the songs for which he’s most famous: “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” The arrival of the Beatles and the British Invasion temporarily sidelined the singer, but a change in focus brought him back to the charts in 1968 with “Abraham, Martin and John,” a response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, as well as the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the months before the record’s release.

Dion remained active, recording contemporary Christian albums for several years and then returning to more secular material in the 80s.

He was nominated for a Grammy award for the 2006 album Bronx in Blue, but had been working in the blues genre as far back as the early 60s, when he recorded a version of “Spoonful” with Al Kooper. (Eric Clapton’s rock supergroup Cream also did a famous version of that song which came to epitomize the electric blues.) Dion’s own blues albums have been reminders of how great the blues can sound on an acoustic guitar.

Dion will have that entire history to draw upon on Saturday night, as well as his exciting new record, when he takes the stage at the Kings Theatre. The evening also features special guest Ronnie Spector as the opening act, one of the few performers who can match Dion for longevity, variety, and accomplishment.