2/6/07: The Very Strange Story Of Dean Reed (2007)Did anybody notice how long
yesterday’s posting was? You’d think we were going for our doctorate in Televised Douchebaggery. We’re taking it a lot easier today, as you can look up the story of Dean Reed in plenty of places.
Wikipedia’s entry is sympathetic, but was fairly factual the last time we looked—and that’s pretty good for the improbable story of an American creep who ran off to Russia to be a state-sanctioned rock ’n roll propagandist.
Sadly, some people still admire Reed (aka “The Red Elvis”). Check out
this website. At the very least, it’s worth exploring for the impressive display of artwork from Reed’s vinyl albums and singles. Those Russkies could fake our ’70s pretty damn good.
As for us, Reed was the only
60 Minutes interview that we’ve ever found memorable. It was genuinely disturbing to see Reed sitting in his luxurious home and explaining to Mike Wallace why the Americans made it necessary for Russia to invade Afghanistan. Reed—who’d been a Russian pawn since 1966—would mark that 20th anniversary by committing suicide the next year. Or maybe the KGB killed him. That would be even funnier. There’s probably some hippie in San Francisco who’s convinced the CIA was behind it.
Reed’s getting a lot of attention nowadays. The biography
Comrade Rockstar—first published 15 years ago—has just been given an American printing after being optioned for the movies by Tom Hanks. You can get an old documentary about Reed on DVD, and there’s a new one premiering this month. YouTube has
some nice clips, too.
But for our own purposes, we’re celebrating today’s release of T
he Very Strange Story Of Dean Reed on the Bear Family label. These good Germans have put out lots of great reissues from the ’50s and ’60s. Now they compile the best of Reed’s carefree capitalist days. The 18 tracks (with a few songs repeated) may pretty much cover all of Reed’s work for the Capitol label. It’s a likable mix of contrived rock ’n pop that shows someone was working hard to find Reed his own niche in America.
Sadly, his tunes only took off in South America, which would lead to Reed’s treasonous adventures. So this is a nice way to both remember the Reed who might have been, and to dance on his grave. Now if only
Billy Zane and Gary Busey would have the decency to off themselves.
The Bear Family label, incidentally, is strangely confident that Steven Spielberg is set to direct the film version of Reed’s life. That hippie in San Francisco might be made very happy.
Make it your own: Here’s
that bio. It’s pretty good, and not nearly as unhinged as other books about Reed. Don’t forget to
rock to Dean Reed as well—from the same label that brought us the
High Noon soundtrack and
Jerry Reed’s fine vision for Baghdad.
