Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons have all contributed to Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dion DiMucci's upcoming album, titled Dion And Friends.
The new album serves as a follow-up to 2016's critically acclaimed, New York Is My Home. The collection, which was produced by Conan bandleader Jimmy Vivino, featured a duet with Paul Simon on the album's title track. No release date has been set for Dion And Friends.
Dion took to social media, posting a clip of Brian Setzer laying down a guitar track for the album, and writing:
My NEW album 'Dion and Friends' is coming together as my favorite ever. We're gonna Rock the World this year. So Cool!!!
So far the lineup includes Jeff Beck, ZZ Top Billy F Gibbons, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, Joe Bonamassa, John Hammond, Joe Louis Walker. . . Here is Brian Setzer Rockin' out on one of my songs. I think you’re going to love what they’ve laid down. I’m still waiting to get the goods from Taj Mahal, Van Morrison, and Shemekia Copeland but I’m told they’re on the way. Kenny Wayne Shepherd I'm hoping to hear form this week.
Dion is a native New Yorker and has been spending more time in the “Big Apple” after migrating down south to Florida over 50 years ago: “I've been in Florida a long time. And I don't know if my accent got worse or what, but you'd think you'd lose some of it. But I come back here — I just got an apartment here. I told (my wife) Susan, I said, 'I go to New York, I feel like I'm part of the mortar.' I went to Florida for a reason; the drugs, the alcohol, I was on a fast track that I would've died. So I kinda ran out of New York and I kinda found salvation down in Florida.”