As doo-wop giant Dion points out in the liner notes to Bronx in Blue, there was no rock & roll back when he was growing up in New York, and so it was the Southern sounds of the blues and country coming over the radio that set him off on his brilliant musical career. On Bronx, the former Belmonts frontman delivers deeply felt, stripped-down takes on some of his favorite songs from the likes of Robert Johnson ("Walkin' Blues," "Travelin' Riverside Blues" and "Crossroads"), Jimmy Reed ("Baby, What You Want Me to Do") and Howlin' Wolf ("How Many More Years"). Accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and a little percussion, Dion delivers stunning versions of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues" and Jimmie Rodgers' "You're the One." At age sixty-six, Dion has made a moving, graceful piece of work and proved that the Bronx actually is part of the country.

“Helen Wheels”

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"