A Teenager in Love (1959)

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• Dion And The Belmonts - A Teenager In Love (MP3)

By: Dion And The Belmonts, led by Dion DiMucci (born July 18, 1939 in the Bronx, New York.)

The Belmonts were named after Dion's Bronx neighborhood of Belmont.

In 1959, the same year "A Teenager In Love" was released, Dion and the Belmonts were the fourth headliner on "The Winter Dance Party" tour, with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

Dion was approached to join their fateful flight, but he thought the price of $36 was too much. Growing up, he had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay a month's rent for a short plane ride.

After the success of "A Teenager In Love", Dion began a solo career in the early 1960s and continued to have hits (with songs like "Runaround Sue", "The Wanderer", and "Ruby Baby") until 1964 when changing public tastes and heroin addiction caused his career to decline.

After getting off drugs in the late 1960s, he switched to protest songs. In 1968 he recorded his best known song as a soloist, "Abraham, Martin & John", a response to the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.

In 1989, Dion was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In between his occasional current forays into music, Dion pursues prison ministry. He reaches out to those going through drug addiction recovery.

Chart position: #5 (US), #28.

The song held three positions in the British Top 20, the other two versions being by Marty Wilde and Craig Douglas.

The Top Ten Songs: May 18, 1959.

1. "Kansas City" (Wilbert Harrison)
2. "Sorry, I Ran All The Way Home" (Impalas)
3. "The Happy Organ" (Dave Baby Cortez)
4. "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)" (Edward Byrnes with Connie Stevens)
5. "A Teenager In Love" (Dion and the Belmonts)
6. "Dream Lover" (Bobby Darin)
7. "The Battle Of New Orleans" (Johnny Horton)
8. "Quiet Village" (Martin Denny)
9. "Turn Me Loose" (Fabian)
10. "Pink Shoe Laces" (Dodie Stevens)

Written by: Doc Pomus (born January 27, 1925, died of cancer March 14, 1991) and Mort Shuman (born November 12, 1936, died November 2, 1991.)

Pomus and Shuman were one of the most important songwriting duos of the late 1950s and early 1960s, second only to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, with more than 500 songs written between 1958 and 1965.

They also wrote/co-wrote such hit songs as "Youngblood", "Turn Me Loose", "Hushabye", "This Magic Moment", "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Sweets for My Sweet", "Can't Get Used to Losing You", "Surrender", "Little Sister", "Suspicion", "(Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame", "Viva Las Vegas", "Little Children", and "She's Not You".

Download MP3s from Amazon.com:

• Dion And The Belmonts - A Teenager In Love (MP3)

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