Customer Reviews

Teen Suite Best of 1958-1962

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Jan & Dean may be known best for their surf and hot rod songs like "Surf City" and "Deadman's Curve," but they recorded tons of Doo-Wop flavored songs prior to the surf music craze. This great collection contains many of those pre-surf songs, including their hits, other released singles, rare B-sides, and an unreleased track! All the songs are cool songs! They have good melodies, good beats, harmony, unique "echo-soaked" vocals, and lots of "bomp bomp bomps" and "Dip Diddy Dips!" Of course, the classic Jan & Dean humor is evident in many of these songs as well. Furthermore, considering that the songs were recorded about 40 years ago, the sound quality is quite good! I highly recommend this to anyone who is a Jan & Dean fan, or simply likes good classic Doo Wop music.

This collection is essential for all Jan & Dean fans as it contains their early work including the Jan & Arnie tracks. The recordings are all mono and come from master tapes if they existed as of 1995, otherwise disc dubs have been done. The tracks that came from clean disc dubs are Bonnie Lou; I Love Linda; The Beat That Can't Be Beat; Clementine (single version which since this was dubbed from discs as mentioned it comes from a 45); Tomorrow's Teardrops (a solo Jan recording); Wanted, One Girl, She's Still Talking baby Talk. The unreleased track entitled "Whole Lotta Lovin'" was dubbed from an acetate so there are noise and dropouts we have to live with. For top 40 hits collectors, this is worth it just to have Jennie Lee, Baby Talk and Heart and Soul on a single disc to compliment the now out of print CD entitled "Surf City: The Best of Jan & Dean" from 1990, which is the definitive surf era collection for top 40 hits collectors. For completists, this compilation is still essential for the rare singles from the early years that didn't chart very highly and the acetate recording and to add more early recordings to what they already have. In other words, no matter how big a Jan & Dean fan you are whether you are a hits seeker or a completist, this is a must purchase.

This is a collection of Jan & Dean's pre-Liberty Records recordings. It also includes the Jan & Arnie recordings Jan made before he hooked up with Dean. These songs sound different than the surf & drag Beach Boys influenced recordings Jan & Dean made later. The songs on this CD are closer to doo wop than anything else. The only songs here that were legitimate hits are "Jennie Lee", "Baby Talk" and "Heart and Soul". But there are a lot of other fun songs here besides those. The CD includes an unlisted 22nd track. It features a group of very rare recordings, including: Jan & Arnie writing "Gotta Getta Date" (making up the lyrics on the spot), and Jan fooling around with the echo effect on his home recording unit while he introduces Jan & Arnie's demo versions of "There in the Night" and "Jennie Lee". This is the definitive collection of Jan & Dean's early years.

The perfect music to get you in that summer mood. Great music to listen to when heading out to the beach or just crusin'around on a summer night. If you are a Jan and Dean fan or even just a Doo Wop fan then you must add this CD to your collection ...you'll love it!

Jan and Dean did Doo Wop before their surf career took off. Personally I like this better than any Jan & Dean album. You get the rare Jan & Arnie tracks on this as well as a bonus unlisted track which is "There in the Night" and "Jenny Lee" combined.