****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Poor : COMPACT DISCS

“Dion’s Greatest Hits.” Columbia. If you’re a big fan of Dion DiMucci (one of the few memorable white singers to emerge during the early days of rock who wasn’t based in Memphis), you may be planning to wait for the excellent 60-minute retrospective that Arista released on Dion in 1984. The bad news is that that album may never be released on compact disc because Arista doesn’t own the CD rights, a company spokesman reports. This budget package offers some of Dion’s classic recordings, including “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer,” but it is short (just 25 minutes) and omits some of his most engaging Columbia hits (including “Drip-Drop”) and all of his post-1963 efforts. Dion deserves a more comprehensive salute. ** 1/2