Customer Reviews

Anthology Album

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Jan & Dean's Anthology has some wonderful songs on it with most in stereo. Very clean sounding songs. Also, very inclusive for the average Jan & Dean fan. It does not have "You Really Know How To Hurt A Guy" on it (as Dean didn't want to include it) and a couple others but the vast majority of the "Hit" songs you are looking for are here. However, be aware that tracks 22 through 26 are "LIVE" VERSIONS. Not studio tracks. That is somewhat disappointing. Still, CHEER ON SURF DUDES...the studio tracks that are included are very KEWL SOUNDING!!

I am fortunate to be able to say I've enjoyed Jan & Dean since AM radio was the way to go and you played your records on a 'hi-fi'. In fact - my first version of this compilation was and is on vinyl LP records. Now that those have been played to death the CD format offers improved response and all the benefits of the less-easily damaged and more easily stored CDs. Technically, this format is excellent.

But it's the music you should get this one for. Jan & Dean were always ready to poke a little gentle fun at the fads, passions and occasional absurdities of life. Which is not to say they were clowns at all, more like amiable, quick-witted guys who knew a joke when they saw one - even if it took a little longer for the rest of us to catch on.

From the street-racing 'Little Old Lady From Pasadena' and the enthusiastic 'Drag City' to the humorous 'Sidewalk Surfin' they provided the background music to a generation emerged from the fifties and still unaware of the trials and problems awaiting them as the sixties would progress and then the decades pass by. America and the world have changed radically in the intervening years. Our innocence, at least my generation's innocence, is gone along with so much optimisim, self-assurance and maybe even a little hubris. But in the music of Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys and others a little of the flavor of those times is preserved. The sixties cannot only be defined by the war in Vietnam, the fight for social justice, hippies, psychedlia, etc; there were also frivolous enjoyments to be had, good times to share and a common hope and confidence.

So have a ball, enjoy this collection then go root around; could be there's a Rat Fink tee-shirt buried away in the old rag pile, an old surfboard up in the rafters, who knows? But mainly, just have fun.

Life and fame were very good to Jan and Dean, at least for a while, when they started out as a Garage Duo making the tours of local recording studios. They quickly took advantage of the happenstance of the rise of southern California surfer music to catch a wave to the top with an early hit, "Linda". Later came "Surf City", and a raft of together, such as "Honolulu Lulu", "The New Girl In School', and "Sidewalk Surfing" (which robbed the melody and chord progressions from Beach Boy pal Brian Wilson's "Catch A Wave). Later came such popular numbers as "Ride The Wild Surf", "You really Know How to Hurt A Guy", and of course, "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena".

In what is one of the most ironic twists involving their career, one of their biggest hits was with a song called "Dead Man's Curve", which chronicled a fateful race between a Jaguar XKE and a Corvette Sting Ray, which ends with the protagonist badly mangled in the crash. Just a year later Jan was himself badly injured in such a crash in his own Corvette, and suffered a number of permanent disabilities from it. Still, Jan and Dean performed for years later with rock and roll revival tours, and Jan still records, although in a very limited sense. This was wonderful music, and it still plays well. I listen to them often, and I'm sure you will too once you listen to this album of their collected hits. Enjoy

If you're looking for the best Jan & Dean songs, get this collection, because the quality of the recording is tops. If you don't know Jan & Dean too well, but want a reasonably complete library, including the absolute must-have items from the early 1960s, get this album because the selection is tops. I had never heard Honolulu Lulu so clear. I first ordered the "All-Time Greatest Hits" album, and don't do it. The version of Dead Man's Curve on THAT one is NOT the hit version: no screeching tires in the cacaphonous finale! The "Anthology" album has two versions of Dead Man's Curve, and the hit version is indeed the hit.

I bought the original Jan & Dean Anthology Album back in 1979,shortly after watching a made for tv movie called Dead Man's Curve.While the movie was historicly inaccurate it made me want to know more about a duet I knew only by one song "Little Old Lady from Pasadeana". I found this album, and wore it out;playing it,and reading the booklet that came with it. sadly the album was lost, and I had all but forgotten about it; till the untimely death of Jan Berry last month jogged my brain; to bring back warm memories of hours working on hot rod's with buddies, and listening to this great album. Jan allthough I never met you, I feel as if I lost a freind.Thanks to this wonderful album I will never forget you.

I loved this cd because it wasn't a remix, and many songs were there that most of the radio stations don't play very often such as Tennesee. I wish every fifties artist would understand that their fans remember the originals and we like them just as they are!!Worth every penny!

This c.d. is a classic display of music but out by the legendary masked surfers themselves. A documentation that starts in the 50's and ends up in 1966, with the final part of the c.d. with what was to be the beginning and parts of a J & D comedy routine.

I was given this LP as a tenth birthday present after seeing "Deadman's Curve" on CBS (a 1978 biopic which starred Richard Hatch as Jan and Bruce Davison as Dean-their performances, and Richard's in particular, are two of the best and most accurate portrayals I've ever seen in any film about a real-life figure-you should really see this movie!)

What I loved about the album was the pure joy that comes off the grooves-this CD has all the big hits, and some of the rarer stuff (I always loved "Vegetables" and it amazed my mom when I recognized Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys in a photo from that session which was in the LP booklet).

The only reason I cannot offer this disc an unqualified rave is that it skips over some of their early and late period work in favor of one side of a live LP they did ("Command Performance") which is probably the worst thing they ever recorded. The overdubs are weird (a calvary-charge horn during "Hang On Sloopy", baying wolves during several song intros), their humor is not quite up to par ("We have to do that one over again", Dean announces after the "Deadman's Curve" performance, "they hit 'erase' instead of 'record'". "Which is better on some of our stuff!" Jan laughs. Oddly enough, the track is the tape being fast-forwarded at high speed, after which we hear a bombing noise as it goes back into regular speed, for Jan's narration-"well, doc..." "yeah (cough,cough,cough)" "that's an awful bad cough you got there!.....And then I saw that Jag-u-ar slide into the curve!!!" (emoted with Shakespearean intensity)"Yeah?" "Yeah, they tend to do that!") so it's not as complete as a box set would be...but still, it is an invaluable introduction to the lives and work of the Laurel and Hardy of the surf crowd, Jan and Dean!

I bought the original Jan & Dean Anthology Double Album back in 1979,it is truly a wonderful album especially with the booklet included with the album ...a true collector's item if there ever was one...Jan and Dean I will never forget you.

Jan & Dean's Anthology has some wonderful songs on it with most in stereo. Very clean sounding songs. Also, very inclusive for the average Jan & Dean fan. It does not have "You Really Know How To Hurt A Guy" on it (as Dean didn't want to include it) and a couple others but the vast majority of the "Hit" songs you are looking for are here. However, be aware that tracks 22 through 26 are "LIVE" VERSIONS. Not studio tracks. That is somewhat disappointing. Still, CHEER ON SURF DUDES...the studio tracks that are included are very KEWL SOUNDING!!