Rhino Handmade releasing Jan & Dean "lost album" - Carnival of Sound*

I'm lovin it. I have only ever heard Fan Tan up to now. Be careful like BeatleStair said I almost broke the cd until I realized no mater how hard you press the middle button in the center of the CD, it does nothing to release it. You have to twist the cd or wiggle gently.

 

Mine arrived yesterday! Very excited to have the other half of the puzzle to go with my Save For A Rainy Day on Sundazed.

 

This is my first Jan & Dean album. I've been listening to it all week and really think there's a lot of beautiful stuff on here!

Listening to the pre-accident vs post-accident songs, I'm really hearing an improvement in the post-accident songs. With that in mind, is this this the best Jan & Dean album? Or is there a highly recommended non-compilation follow-up to this one--or is a compilation enough to say I have all that's worthwhile?

 

I didn't realize this was limited to 1500 copies... glad I picked it up when I did.

 

Of the post-accident albums, Carnival Of Sound is indeed the best. I also really like Port To Paradise but it was only released as a cassette, J&D Records PTP-111, 1986. It's another mostly Jan solo gem, but Jan actually sings on it.

Save For A Rainy Day is another marvelous album but it's really a Dean Torrence solo album and very different.

I love the pre-accident stuff too.

 

What a nice job! Looks and sounds great. Looks like Rhino Handmade is "our" future. Before we all get carried away with trashing their customer service, we must face up to the fact, we are very lucky to be getting physical product done the right way. Yes my recent Monkees purchase was three long awaited deliveries, Jan and Dean took ten to twelve days, but HEY HEY...they were worth the wait and expense.

 

?????!!!!

I didn't realize that either. Glad I placed an order.

Dale

 

What an amazing set this is!!! (the LP/CD set)

Listening to the vinyl last night...this is my first exposure to the music and it was a very entertaining first listen...as sequenced here it's a quirky, awkwardly beautiful little album. Reminds me of the best bubblegum music I turn to often, except this also has an air of sophistication about it. I'll need more listens to comment more but so far it's really groovy. It's like a sunny companion to Save For A Rainy Day. Of course there are more tunes to explore on the CD so this will be my next stop.

 

Not only should we consider ourselves lucky to get it done the right way, but we should feel lucky it was done at all. "Carnival Of Sound" is not only deep record collector territory, it's deep Jan & Dean collector territory -- that is, on very few music fan's radar. The Collector's Choice mono singles two-fer and this are real, unexpected treats. I get the feeling we should be very thankful.

If you were someone who was interested in the "Carnival of Sound" era material in past years, your choices were extraordinarily thin. You could search far and wide for original WB vinyl -- damn rare in any condition it would have cost you. A very hard to find (and a very crappy sounding) boot CD was in circulation about 8 years ago or so. That was it. So to have a Rhino Handmade release of the material is a rare delight.

Rhino deserves praise for doing this.

Dale

 

I placed my order for the regular cd last night! Can't wait to hear this stuff for the first time. I really dig Davy singing "Laurel and Hardy" on the Monkees BB&M box set, so getting this cd was a given. That, and the chance to hear the genius of Jan Berry at work during the toughest period in his life.

Do the 1,500 limited edition copies reflect the cd/lp combo, cd or both?

 

I hope that they send it to me. It took until March 1st to receive The Monkees set.

 

Wonder what would have happened had Carnival of Sound been released in the day -- in 1967/1968? I guess it would have depended on the promotion, but...

Some recaps:

*Jan & Dean's last big label releases, from the second half of 1965 through pre- and post-accident 1966 went no where and really were a complete mess. Jan Berry had taken to trying his hand at ballads and a bit of folk rock, some of which is nice but tanked as far as chart action and sales went.

The comedy experiments with the Filet of Soul and Batman material went totally awry and were ruined by Liberty. Popsicle was a left-field surprise hit but had been recorded in 1963, prompting a number of poorly thought out Liberty re-releases in 1966, including the absolutely astounding, totally inappropriate for 1966 release of "Fiddle Around" (from 1962), complete with music industry ads.

*The Beach Boys, with whom a lot of listeners might have associated with Jan & Dean, were absolutely floundering in 1967 and 1968, at least in the public eye. I read someplace that Bruce Johnston said in 1968 The Beach Boys could barely attract 200 concert goers to a high school gymnasium (in the US that is...Europe was a different story).

*Sunshine Pop was all over the AM radio charts and a direct descendant of surf-harmony vocal sounds, but had been co-opted into psych territory without any explicit reference to its antecedents (with the possible exception of The Turtles, who released "Surfer Dan" as a B-side in 1968). Also, The Beach Boys' "Do It Again" got into the top 40 I think in 1968. In the UK in 1968 and the US in 1969, the UK band Vanity Fare had a hit with a cover of The Sunrays I Live For The Sun combining very surfy vocals with some faux-hip pop/bohemian flute phrases.

Hmm...in that environment, I wonder what would have happened?

Dale

 

Well, not *totally* awry -- I mean, "Filet of Soul," yes, certainly very awry, but "Batman" didn't turn out too bad. The problem was -- there's absolutely no precedent for that kind of stuff in the public eye. Like maybe the Beatles' Christmas singles or something, but "Filet" and "Batman" are closer to what Zappa was doing in a certain sense than anything any of the other LA bands were attempting. It seems clear to me now that Brian Wilson was most certainly following the lead of J&D with his "comedy" talk around the time of "Smile." But the public was justifiably baffled -- though it seems a bit visionary now, in retrospect. The combo of comedy with pop -- Bonzo Dog Band? Zappa? There weren't a lot of people doing it, and J&D had a really bizarre, intriguing twist on it.

I feel like if things had been handled better, both "Save For A Rainy Day" and "Carnival" could at least have been revered cult classics -- I mean, they *are*, but even moreso. They deserve it, certainly.

 

I agree that the concepts were ahead of their time -- it's just that the execution, thanks for the suits at Liberty, ensured that the end result sounded pretty damn lame.

The comedy aspect of Filet of Soul, unheard until 5-6 years later in 1971 when part of it was released on the UA Jan & Dean Anthology Album, was almost totally neutered for the original Liberty release.

Ditto the Batman album, which had to be completely redone to excise any mention of "Batman" or "Robin" on the actual recorded material -- only the cover art was allowed to be kept intact. I suppose that wasn't actually Liberty's fault -- I think it was DC comics who objected to satirizing Batman. Ironic considering the TV show was satire...anyway.

Thing is, I was 12 when I first heard both those albums. I was already a huge Jan & Dean fan, but I had a real "WTF?" reaction to those two LPs. I didn't think they were very good and I felt kind of sad about them...Even Folk 'N Roll seemed an excellent, well produced record by comparison. Compared to the highs of 1963 and 1964, the sputtering out Jan & Dean's recorded output didn't seem fair, didn't seem warranted. I'm talking pre-accident. The accident slammed the lid down, at least on the public side.

But like you I can't help but think that would have been different had people gotten a chance to hear Save For A Rainy Day and Carnival Of Sound, or even Dean's productions of Summertime and California Lullaby (both great tunes, by the way).

The only thing I like about the Batman album, besides the title tune, are the instrumentals, which have a cool, kitchy John Barry Orchestra feel to them.

I like some of the covers on Filet of Soul -- using The Silkie's two-part harmony arrangement of You've Got To Hide Your Love Away fit Jan & Dean well...the revamped cover of Hang On Sloopy was cool IMO, the rest, hmm...not so much. Well, I like the instrumentation and background vocals on Norwegian Wood, the instrumentation on Michelle...but the whole thing sounds so slapped together. Again, it's just sad that Jan & Dean's fantastic run ended like that with the albums above as well as Popsicle and Golden Hits Volume 3. They really deserved better.

And I guess, all these years later, there are people like the good folk at Rhino who finally realize that.

Dale

 

I received my copy of "Carnival of Sound" yesterday and had a chance to listen through it all once last night.

I am blown away.

It's not often one hears a 'lost' recording decades after it was produced, and have it make you completely reevaluate an artist. The last time that happened for me was when RCA released Sam Cooke's "One Night Stand" 1963 live album in the mid '80s.

This album is excellent. Every track.

For years I've been reading about what a genius producer Jan Berry was, but never understood the acclaim. I mean, I like J&D a lot, but their 1963-65 music always sounded to me like it was a few steps behind Brian Wilson's, but not sung nearly as well, and with some corny humor thrown in for bad measure.

How fascinating to hear an album that sounds very much like a J&D album, yet one that was run through a psychedelic filter! And it doesn't sound contrived either - the post-accident recordings in particular reveal a man who's soul has grown much older. Listening to revealing, introspective tracks like "I Know My Mind" while looking at the booklet's rare circa 1968 photos of a scruffy, slightly overweight Jan Berry was very moving. His appearance gained about 10 years in just a few very difficult months.

One interesting point that was overlooked in the excellent liner notes is that Jan Berry seemed to have changed his POV on the Viet Nam War by the late '60s. In 1965 he recorded a decidedly right-leaning reply to "Universal Soldier," which made Dean Torrence so uncomfortable that "Universal Coward" was released as a Jan Berry solo single:

He’s young, he’s old, he’s in between
And he's so very much confused
He’ll scrounge around and protest all day long
He joins the pickets at Berkeley, and he burns up his draft card
And he's twisted into thinking that fighting is all wrong

He's the universal coward, and he runs from anything
From a giant, to a human, from an elf
He runs from Uncle Sam, and he runs from Vietnam
But most of all he's running from himself

Yet in 1967 he recorded and issued a single called "Only a Boy," about a young soldier's sad death in Viet Nam! And the single was backed by another revelatory song, "Love and Hate."

Prior to this CD release I had been under the impression that Jan Berry was more or less a basket case in the years following his accident. While the included Jan Berry post-accident guide vocal demo of "Girl You're Blowing My Mind" is painful to listen to, this excellent CD proves conclusively that Jan Berry was still very much capable of composing and producing excellent music. The fact that this music exists at all is a true testament to Jan Berry's inner strength and determination, and also a demonstration of the respect and love he earned from the musicians and studio personnel he worked with.

But more than anything, it is just very good music.

 

Incidentally, does the song "Tijuana" contain the word "a**" (ie: butt) in the lyrics? I played it back several times but couldn't quite make out the verse.

 

Good point. It may have wound up with a small cult of listeners bragging about their little-known masterpiece for years [and prematurely dismissed by the hipsters since J&D would be considered square] and then Rhino Handmade comes along and lets people re-evaluate the long lost album many years after its release.... hmmm.... not so different than what actually happened.

It makes me wonder just how many "excellent" lost albums are left in the can.

 

"Only a Boy" only reinforces Jan's hawkish point of view on Vietnam.

Jan & Dean did cover P.F. Sloan's classic anti-war "Eve Of Destruction" on the Folk 'n Roll album though.

 

You're right - I gave the song a closer listen this morning, and actually Jan's pro-war attitude remained unchanged in 1968.

 

As trippy as this album is, it was still out of step with what was considered "cool" in 1967-68, and would have almost certainly tanked. It is only with the hindsight of 40+ years can it be re-evaluated as a great pop album.

 

I agree. Some really great trippy stuff was released in 67-68 which didn't chart very well:

The Beach Boys - Smiley Smile and Wild Honey
The Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Love - Forever Changes

If The Beatles had released Carnival Of Sound it might have been a sensation.

 

Hi there, Leo!

 

It is enormously awesome to see this type of reaction. This album has languished in the vaults for far, far too long, and thanks to the tireless work of Mark Moore, it's finally out there. That's gotta be gratifying for *him* certainly -- but it benefits the larger musical community as a whole for this to finally be out there. It's great, great stuff.

dgsinner -- go back and listen to "Batman" again, the comedy bits. I just listened last night. Besides some rather, uh, uncomfortable "ethnic humor" that kind of dates the thing (Vit-A-Min's pidgin English -- not cool now, we've moved on to making fun of Asian Indians, and I say that very very sarcastically, believe me!) it's actually really quite funny. Sweet and charming. GENTLE humor, as they used to call it on "Friends." Dean especially has quite a gifted comic delivery. The bit where the police commissioner has his police -- who are children! -- gathered and asks them who he should call, and they all say "THE BEACH BOYS!" -- a riot.

"Folk and Roll" has, apart from the right-wing sentiments, aged pretty well.