Rhino / Wea
1972
Reunion: Live At Madison Square Garden 1972 (Live)
About This Album
There's a huge amount to recommend this record (originally titled Dion & the Belmonts Live 1972), in its original form or on CD. It it a warmly nostalgic yet well played and very well sung concert recording, made at a one-time-only reunion on June 2, 1972 at Madison Square Garden. For a lot of fans of R&B vocals, and especially those from New York, this was roughly the equivalent of the Beatles getting back together -- you get a hint of the crowd reaction from the explosive and very real applause that greets "Runaround Sue" and rises every so often during its seven minutes. It also happened with the microphones placed right and the tape machines rolling, the result being possibly the best record to come out of the whole early-'70s rock & roll revival (and the best sounding record ever to come out of Madison Square Garden). The years hadn't been easy on Dion, what with the drug problems he'd overcome, but he and the Belmonts (Angelo D'Aleo, Carlo Mastrangelo, Fred Milano) had weathered the '60s well enough, and all were still in superb voice -- good enough that one rehearsal put them in a groove to perform versions of "I Wonder Why," "A Teenager in Love," "The Wanderer," "Ruby Baby," "Where or When," and "Runaround Sue" that were a match for (and sometimes even better than) the classic originals.
Track List (try tracks 2,5 and 9)

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