Gentlemen put on a sharkskin suit, and rub some Royal Crown on your head. Laides, put on bullet-bras and rat your hair up high. I give you the king of Eye-Talian soul, the pride of Arthur Avenue, Dion DiMucci→[More:]. The man behind fevered declarations of lust like 'Little Diane,' strutting statements of purpose like 'The Wanderer', and classic baby-you-done-me-wrong like 'Runaround Sue,' and street corner symphonies like 'Teenager In Love' (later covered nicely by Bob Marley). Nobody swaggered like the Italian kid from the Bronx. The epitome of greaser rock.

After his initial hits, he went through an odd coffehouse-folkie phase fueled by his heroin habit, but emerged in the 1980's with some gems, like a nifty cover of Tom Waits' 'Heart Of Saturday Night,' which sounds like the swaggering kid of the hits twenty years older and wiser.

(yes, Richard Prices first novelis both named for and dedicated to (among others) Dion, and here's a link to Rolling Stone profile Price did of Dion back in the day)