Search - Jan and Dean, Legendary Masked Surfers :: Golden Summer Days

Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve.

Johnny Heering | Bethel, CT United States | 03/06/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"In the mid-'70s, a TV movie called "Dead Man's Curve" was made about Jan & Dean. They thought they would be unable to get permission to use Jan & Dean's old songs in the movie, so Dean Torrence and his friends rerecorded Jan & Dean's songs, along with several Beach Boys songs. The TV movie eventually did end up using the original versions of Jan & Dean's hits. Anyway, this album features the rerecorded versions of the Jan & Dean and Beach Boys songs. They are far inferior to the original versions. While they try to come as close as possible to the sound of the old records, something is definitely missing. That missing ingredient is Jan Berry, the lead singer and mastermind behind the original recordings. He is totally absent from the proceedings, and that absence is definitely felt. Stick with the Jan & Dean originals from the 1960s."

Beware - Read The Fine Print

Johnny Heering | 09/10/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"My title - and the assignment of 1 star - is for the benefit of collector's of original charted singles. Like me. One day I was looking for Sidewalk Surfing, and when I saw that this CD had been put out by Varèse Sarabande, I read no further. Their reputation for excellence was well-established in my mind.



However, when I got it home and played it I realized at once something was not quite right from track to track. Then I read the liner notes about the making of the TV movie Deadman's Curve, and saw the fine print on the reverse of the CD: "The majority of the songs on this compact disc were recorded for usage in the film Deadman's Curve."



Of course, that TV movie came out in 1978, so what you're getting here is, in essence, a soundtrack. From that perspective it's a nice little collection and, on that basis, combined with the informative liner notes written by Kevin Elliott in 1996, I'd award it 4 stars.



What it did was teach me a lesson about reading fine print."