Dion's 'Abraham, Martin and John'
[This is a cross post from JFK Facts, where I am an occasional contributor. My post is the second in a new series there that considers songs influenced by the assassination of JFK. Check it out, and please consider subscribing.
Long before I learned to research and check facts, I was just a kid in New York City who loved to dance. My thanks to the team at JFK Facts for letting me write about the music and my home town. It’s personal.]
As a kid in Queens, I was not a “teenybopper” fan of the pioneering doo-wop group Dion and the Belmonts — Belmont being the avenue and the neighborhood known as the Little Italy of the Bronx. To be sure, Dion was a hitmaker with popular songs like “A Teenager in Love,” “Runaround Sue,” and the classic “The Wanderer,” along with covers of songs by black groups like the Drifters.
But in our Sunnyside apartment, we listened to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Odetta, other singers from the civil rights movement, acoustic Bob Dylan with his harmonica, and pianist-professor Tom Lehrer (“We Will All Go Together When We Go”) with his anti-nuclear message.
And then … the assassination of JFK, followed in February 1964 by the Beatles, taking over “The Ed Sullivan Show” and the airwaves with “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and going on a sold-out concert tour. (Yes, I know that “Love Me Do” was first heard on U.S. radio in early 1963, but not to acclaim. We had not yet seen the Beatles.)
The teenyboppers — now teenagers in love with John, Paul, George, and Ringo — screamed and cried our way into the British Invasion. And white girls now grooved with soul music, the Murray the K shows at the Brooklyn Fox, where he brought us —along with Dion — singers and groups like Ben E. King, Little Stevie Wonder, the Drifters, Marvin Gaye, the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, the Supremes, the Contours, the Temptations, the Ronettes, and — for us girls from Queens — the Shangri-Las!
But what happened to Dion?
In 1968, he recorded a doleful solo ballad, “Abraham, Martin and John,” offered to him by songwriter Richard Holler, who had written it in response to RFK’s assassination.
Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone
The gentle acoustic performance touched heartstrings in an America now wounded by war, assassinations, and protests. The song rose slowly to the No. 4 position on Billboard’s pop chart.
Dion sings the song solo in this 1969 video.
When I first heard the song, I had already dropped out of college after my freshman year. I worked as a clerk by day, and danced like a go-go girl at night, saving, saving to finally escape from Queens to protests, hippies and, of course, to go west to San Francisco.
The song: “Abraham, Martin and John” went on to be covered by some of the greatest artists of the 1960s — and some of the most maudlin.
As for Dion, the guy is still around. At 84 years of age, he goes by Dion DiMucci these days, but he’s still singing and strumming, an icon to even our iconic rockers.
On May 3, he posted a casual new version of his hit song on his Facebook channel, performed while sitting on a couch with Joe Menza, blues guitarist and owner of Best Guitars in New York City.
Watch it here: https://fb.watch/s1VGuU6_x6/.
Check out his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEUnfW0GArtSBLVYsUZaYA
Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDion
Fun fact: Dylan and Dion are the only American musicians seen on the iconic album cover of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”)
“Abraham, Martin and John”
Writer/s: Richard Holler
Publisher: Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone
Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone
Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Someday soon, it's gonna be
One day
Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin'
Up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John
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