Dion - Return of the Wanderer (CD)

All Music Guide

The 1970s weren't overly kind to Dion. After his reunion with the Belmonts early in the decade, he returned to his "real" career as a singer/songwriter without a huge amount of success. Then, in 1978, came Return of the Wanderer, produced by Terry Cashman and Tommy West for their Lifesong label. The singing, the songs, and the sound were as contemporary to 1978 as the single "The Wanderer" had been to 1961, and his group, the Streetheart Band, between Rusty Steele's lead guitar, Lee Foy's sax and harmonica, and Buzz London's drums, was an outfit that could have shared a stage with the E-Street Band without any embarrassment. The most personal songs dealt with different aspects of coming to terms with being 40 and a rock roller, and elements of Dion's past, personally and musically, but none of it was overly maudlin, even at its most confessional -- sandwiched in between the originals by Dion and songs written by Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, he also found room for a quietly intense version of "Do You Believe In Magic." In many ways, this album was his equivalent of the best of Sinatra's work of the late '50s and early '60s -- vulnerable and sophisticated -- yet it rocked. Return of the Wanderer got rave reviews, but it never charted and was generally overlooked, despite being Dion's best album; only in New York did it resonate in any serious way, not enough to drive up sales in 1978 but sufficiently to command prices of 20-30 in collector's shops by the early 1980s.

- Bruce Eder, All Music Guide