random thoughts

[burton]

Hey ppl.

I was on youtube lastnight before work and searched Jan & Dean just to see what was available. Well i listened to "little old lady" several versions. One was the orginal album cut, then maybe the surf to drag remix, and last but not least the Deano remake from the 70's. The remake should come with a warning  'what you are about to hear is a bad remake". My opinion yes. Im not attacking dean, just his remake. Listen to the original, with the opening bar. It's pure genius. it can turn a frown upside down, it's special and powerful. I thought about it all night. Just wish the remake's never happened. If your wondering i had a good night at work too. Those damn remake's make me nauseous.  Just talkin out loud. What do you guys think?

[jdman]

I couldn't agree more Burton. I've always said that. Those remakes have done more to put Jan & Dean in the bubble gum catagory than anything else. They shouldn't have been released as "Jan & Dean".

[wintersdawn]

Is it true that you have to be careful of purchasing Jan & Dean compilation albums in case they contain these re-recordings?  It seems to ring a bell with me.

[Kentucky Surfer]

I find the 1977 remakes to be a little "Chirpy" with not enough voices in the lower vocal range.  It just underscores the fact that Jan did not participate in these re-recordings.  I think he sang on some of the "Silver Summer" remakes, though.

I always try to seek out the original recordings by any 50's and 60's artist.  There are many artists who re-recorded their hits during the 1970s.  So a word to the wise...

[Mark A. Moore]

Dean's re-recordings are still being marketed as "Jan & Dean":

http://theseconddisc.com/2012/06/01/surfs-up-jan-and-dean-celebrate-silver-summer-on-new-reissue/

A huge mistake that keeps doing its damage . . .

[jdman]

Yep, those are killer. But like ya'll said, a lot of artists do that. It's hard to find the original Little Richard stuff too. We have an oldies station down here in Louisiana that plays remakes all the time. I don't think they even realize it. I just don't understand why Dean and all the other artists do that. What was the purpose of doing that? The originals are always the best.

The Silver Summer album should have said new recordings by Jan & Dean and friends.

[Mark A. Moore]

Right ... the recordings are fine for what they are; but they should have never been marketed as "Jan & Dean." And it certainly should not STILL be happening, especially in packages that don't explain what they are.

Like I said, Dean has been a very poor custodian of J&D's pre-accident legacy . . . the period that really counts.

[owen]

Silver Summer does contain at least one absolutely excellent track though: track 17 which is Summer Rain. Its a much much better version than the one on SFARD, Dean's vocal is perfect, especially at the end, and the odd thing is that apparently the only reason it is there is that it was included at Mike Love's insistence.

[Mark A. Moore]

Silver Summer does contain at least one absolutely excellent track though: track 17 which is Summer Rain. Its a much much better version than the one on SFARD, Dean's vocal is perfect, especially at the end, and the odd thing is that apparently the only reason it is there is that it was included at Mike Love's insistence.

Right ... That's my favorite of the lot. When I was an in-studio guest on Dave Marsh's Sirius-XM radio show in New York City in 2009, I chose this track for the line-up.

It's the others that are the problem.

It all comes down to this ... Dean owns the masters for the remakes. So he markets them as "Jan & Dean." He doesn't own the masters or publishing for the original 1960s catalog (the versions that really count). And the production money and most of the songwriting money for the originals went (goes) to Jan.

So the waters have become very muddied ... with "stations" playing and touting Dean's remakes as "Jan & Dean" without knowing the difference -- without knowing they're not playing the original versions from the '60s.

The disappointing and troubling aspect of this situation is that Dean is very comfortable and happy with generating this confusion, because he doesn't have any control over the original masters produced by Jan Berry.

This, for example, is why you hear Dean's 1977 re-make of "Surf City" in the "Stealing Sinatra" movie.

It's another sad byproduct of their personal relationship . . . and their historical legacy suffers as a result of it.

[jdman]

 Most of the oldies stations I hear play Jan & Dean's originals. So that's good. Outside of the control and money, Dean's versions contain one thing the some of the key originals didn't- Dean!!. I would think that Dean's ego is a big part of it as well. I'm not judging at all. I completely understand his feelings about Surf City, Little Old Lady, and Sidewalk Surfin featuring someone else's falsetto. Dean is human. He wants people to hear his voice on a Jan & Dean song. Even though I do understand, it definitely hurts the legacy of Jan & Dean. The one thing that made Jan & Dean so great was the productions. Their voices were average. It was the arrangements and productions! The remakes completely take that out. All your left with is Dean's average voice and a weak production.

[owen]

With regard to J&D's historical legacy, it is a shame that Dean did not continue using the Legendary Masked Surfers name consistently for the remakes. Its a great name and using it would have avoided confusion.

He has used it from time to time in this way. If I remember correctly most or all of the tracks from Silver Summer have already been re-released on Varese Sarabonde (with the addition of a version of Vegetables) under the name The Legendary Masked Surfers present Jand and Dean's Golden Summer.

Of course, if he had used this name consistently for the last forty years, recording and releasing remakes of J&D and BB hits, we might now be complaining that radio stations and the general public seem to think that LMS were the original band that recorded Surf City and Dead Man's Curve, and nobody remembers it was J&D

[Bitman]

The phenomenon of artists re-recording their hits for the most part started and ended in the 70's.  This was a time when the 50's/60's stars had fallen off the map and the oldies circuit had yet to take off.  Spending a day in the studio doing cheap knockoffs of their songs was an easy way for the artists to make a much-needed buck since many of them had lost the money they made or were cheated out of it.  It was also cost effective for labels like K-Tel to pay the artists a few bucks for remakes than to pay the original labels licensing fees.  By the 80's, the former stars were again in demand as oldies performers and they didn't need to do the remakes anymore.  Sadly, those remakes are still floating around and you hear them on the radio because the 'kids' programming the stations weren't even born when these songs were hits and they don't know the difference!   

[Mark A. Moore]

The phenomenon of artists re-recording their hits for the most part started and ended in the 70's.  This was a time when the 50's/60's stars had fallen off the map and the oldies circuit had yet to take off.  Spending a day in the studio doing cheap knockoffs of their songs was an easy way for the artists to make a much-needed buck since many of them had lost the money they made or were cheated out of it.  It was also cost effective for labels like K-Tel to pay the artists a few bucks for remakes than to pay the original labels licensing fees.  By the 80's, the former stars were again in demand as oldies performers and they didn't need to do the remakes anymore.  Sadly, those remakes are still floating around and you hear them on the radio because the 'kids' programming the stations weren't even born when these songs were hits and they don't know the difference!

Sure, but Dean continues to actively market the re-recordings as "Jan & Dean" in 2012. So it's calculated . . . not a hold-over issue.