I’m in a real rush to write this review as I’m working around the clock mimeographing fliers for a “Bring Back the U.S.S.R.” protest, so here goes: my fellow comrades, you probably do not want to purchase this album but you do want to own it, because it documents the singing career of Dean Reed, the heroic Colorado farm boy who improbably ended up as an idol of films and music behind the Iron Curtain, and by doing so won himself the title of The Red Elvis.
Reed’s story is a fascinating one; he tried without success to become a teen idol in the U.S. before emigrating to South America, where he found a modicum of success. And there he probably would have stayed until his radical politics led him to be deported from Argentina following the 1966 revolution in that country. At this juncture he did a very odd thing—namely moved to communist East Germany, where he became a matinee idol and singing sensation. His dedication to leftist social causes was very real, as demonstrated in Chile where he performed concerts in poor neighborhoods and prisons, and I don’t believe his move to East Germany was motivated by anything other than ideology (i.e., he wasn’t in it just for the money). Yet despite his new homeland, he continued to profess a love for the U.S.A. and never gave up his passport.
In East Germany he appeared in innumerable films and released many albums that mixed U.S. tunes with Schlager music, a kitschy style characterized by excessive and gooey sentimentality. Google Heino if you have any questions. Reed’s affinity for Schlager music is the reason I tell you to beware of purchasing his LPs. The stuff is treacle, without an American equivalent and popular only with Northern and Central Europeans of a certain age, and listening to it has been known to cause non-Germans of younger years to explode like faulty V2s.
That said, there are valid reasons to check out the 2007 compilation, The Red Elvis! The Very Strange Story of Dean Reed. First there’s the curiosity factor. And then there are those songs that, believe it or not, are pretty good. Or at least better than they have any right to be. “Our Summer Romance” is romantic treacle but comes with a good beat, and it reveals that Reed really could sing, although he could also wax maudlin at the drop of an East German army helmet. He also had one odd taste in covers, as his perky take on the masochistic “Female Hercules” written by Jumpin’ Bill Hercules demonstrates.
“The Search” is good early sixties schlock, as opposed to “Don’t Let Her Go,” which is unlistenable until it speeds up. “Hummingbird” is pretty much laid to waste by the backing vocalists, while “I Ain’t Got You” is pretty cool and Reed’s vocals are great. The background trappings and Reed’s oversinging also destroy “I Kissed a Queen,” but I can dig “A Pair of Scissors (take 18)” regardless of those same background singers, because Reed keeps the maudlin meter below the red line and the tune even includes a rockin’ guitar solo. “Donna Donna” is a-okay too, comrades, as is “Annabelle.”
“Pistolaro” is a spaghetti western of a tune, with cool bongos and Reed stretching the title out to like 16-syllables, and I like it due to its kitsch value. On “I’ll Be There” Reed sails into the deep, dark waters of the Schlager Sea, and I advise you to row, row, row away as fast as your ears will carry you. “I’ll Forget More Than You’ll Ever Know” is kinda cool thanks to its oddball drum shuffle, while “La Novia (You By My Side)”—which he records twice, once in English and once in (I think) Italian—is truly unbearable. This is Schlager at its Schlagerest, with Reed overemoting while some female singers wail behind him. “I’ll Be There” is more treacle you’d be wise to avoid, while “No Wonder” suffers from nothing more serious than being boring.
The Red Elvis! The Very Strange Story of Dean Reed isn’t the complete package you’ll require to really get down with the handsome Colorado rube who went Red. His rockin’ versions of “La Bamba” and “Be-Bop-a-Lula (which is oddly entitled “Bi Bop”) aren’t included, nor are any of his protest songs, which may not be all that from a musical standpoint but demonstrate that the guy’s heart was in the right place. “We’ll Say Yes” is a frisky and Spanish-flavored call to arms against oppression, while “That I Saw” is a kind of talking blues in which Reed speaks out against racial prejudice, hunger, and other subjects, while breaking occasionally into song. Turns out that all poor Dean wants is a land where people love instead of hate, and while I find it inexplicable that he thought East Germany was that place, I can also understand why he was convinced the U.S.A. wasn’t.
I like Dean Reed, even if he did defend the erection of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and even if he did work for the international division of the Stasi (the East German secret police) for several years, and it hurts me to report that he committed suicide in 1986. Since then, there has been conjecture (but no hard evidence) that he may have worked for the CIA or the KGB and perhaps murdered, but one thing is certain; he put his money where his mouth was and committed himself to a life in the Eastern Bloc, out of a real belief in the equality of all men.
Misguided about East German communism? Sure. It was grey and repressive and my East German ex-wife spent phys. ed. throwing dud hand grenades. But he wasn’t mistaken in thinking that the U.S. was a rogue state, and he made a permanent impression on at least one American institution, the University of Colorado, which sponsors the Dean Reed Peace Prize, an annual essay contest. Friends, comrades, and lovers of Schlager music, let us say a prayer for Dean Reed, not because he was right, but because he was an inspiration to many, and what more can you ask of a man?
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B-
