THE LAST JAN & DEAN
Carnival of Sound was the work of Jan Berry with a little help from his friends Roger Christian, Glen Campbell and others. It was recorded from 1966 through 1968. Then in April 1966, Berry was seriously hurt in a car accident. He recovered one year later in 1967 to complete the album.
JAN & DEAN
Carnival Of Sound: First Acetate [no label, 1CD]
A Jan & Dean album without Jan & Dean?
Carnival Of Sound uses a bunch of different singers including former Jan Berry girlfriend Jill Gibson, Glen Campbell, Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin and the voice of Monkee Davy Jones among others. Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew including Hal Blaine on drums provided musicianship. Dean Torrence’s involvement was brief if at all. Berry arranged and produced Carnival Of Sound, his reply to Dean’s Save For A Rainy Day which remained unreleased till 1996 when Sundazed stepped into the picture.
That album had no Jan Berry and was made by Dean in 1967 to keep the Jan & Dean name alive but it too was denied an official release till 1996. Jan & Dean before the crash was Jan Berry’s baby. He was the one who called the shots, decided on arrangements and produced all the duo’s music. When Jan recovered, he wanted to carry on. Carnival Of Sound was his reply to psychedelic rock. At the time, blues rock and all the mutated forms of pop music were coming up, under the influence of mind-altering drugs.
While Carnival Of Sound has some interesting instrumentation and sonics, it sounds seriously dated. This has all the style and production of souped up surf music that Jimi Hendrix drowned at Monterey. Thematically, the three cover versions, In The Still Of The Night, Stay and the country pop Louisiana Man hold back the project. They sound like fillers. Jan Berry co-wrote the rest with Roger Christian.
What we have here is the first attempt to convince Warner Music to release a new Jan & Dean album. When this failed, Jan reassembled the album with an extra two songs - Only A Boy, an unhip song saluting the teenage soldier that was sung by Jan and the oddball Love & Hate. This latter song has a “Greek chorus” taking turns to shout “love” and “hate”. This second attempt also failed to convince Warner who left the tapes inside their vault till today.
Nonetheless, Carnival Of Sound is the story of perseverance, a work from Berry as he recovered from paralysis and a loss of speech, and it has survived among fans via trading circles and the internet. This is copied from the acetate and has the usual defects from such an old source. This is a mono recording. Those who have never heard this, your 40 year wait is over. - The Little Chicken
1. Fan Tan
2. Carnival Of Sound
3. Hawaii
4. Laurel & Hardy
5. I Know My Mind
6. Blowing My Mind
7. In The Still Of The Night [spoken interlude is by Monkee Davy Jones]
8. Stay
9. Louisiana Man
10. Mulholland
Taken from the first acetate submitted to Warner Music who rejected the album.
Click here to download the tracks.
Feel free to add your comments.
Real cool! Thank you SOOOO much for posting!
Please, please, please post more J & D!!!
I agree…please, please, please post more Jan & Dean!