Despite having written some beautiful songs,
Dion's great creative strength has always been as an interpreter and, in that regard, especially as an adapter and assimilator of musical genres. Beginning with his early rock & roll sides, which had the polish of classical recordings, and into the early '60s, when he took a moderately successful pair of early
Drifters R&B numbers, "Ruby Baby" and "Drip Drop," and transformed them into white rock & roll without violating their spirit (and making million-sellers out of each in the bargain), he was always intermixing styles, approaches, and sounds into something of his own.