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 enlarge | Author: Bob Greene
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.48
You Save: $12.47 (50%)
New (36) Used (14) from $11.91
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 85568
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0312375298
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92092
EAN: 9780312375294
ASIN: 0312375298
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
interesting look at rock n roll on the road June 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Do you remember "Jan and Dean"? Do you remember those "surf songs" that were/are so much fun to dance to and sing along with? Do your kids remember these songs? This book, so easy to read, gives us one man's remembrance of what it was like to tour and sing/play with the various and ever-changing group inspired by the original Jan and Dean. What a wild and wonderful ride they all had...
This was a fascinating read for me and I was amazed about so many details of "life on the tour" that Bob Greene remembered. For all I know, he may still be on tour...
You might also like reading one of Bob's other recent books, And You Know You Should Be Glad. He has a gift for being able to write about how it felt growing up in a (fairly) small town in the 50's/60's and has a way about explaining feelings that he had as a teenager and those feelings of his friends. Things were sure different then and young people today might enjoy seeing how one particular guy saw things. When I have read his books, I have said to myself, "yeah, I know what you mean," but have not been able to put it into words. He talks about the importance of sustaining friendships and not all of us have been able to keep such long relationships. His recounting of those times also kept me laughing, it was not all seriousness. In fact, I think the humour is what kept the whole thing going in both of these books.
Sincerely,
Diane Commendatore
loudotcomm@comcast.net
Bob Greene just gets better and better! June 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bob Greene has yet another winner with 'When We Get to Surf City'! Mr. Greene has such a wonderful writing style. You honestly think you are there on tour with those guys as you read it. I highly recommend this book to anyone. You don't need to be in a band, you don't need to be of the surfer song era, you don't need to be a musician OR a guy, to enjoy 'Surf City'. You will laugh and smile and be moved to tears...and what a journey it will be!!! 5 STARS!
If you've ever played in a band - or if you've ever heard a band play - this book is essential reading. June 7, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bob Greene's 'When We Get To Surf City' is for everyone who loves warm summer weather, hot dogs, pretty girls and great music - not necessarily in that order. Over more than a dozen years, Greene wound up with what for many would be a dream job - playing great music with some of the idols of his youth. This is the story of those years on the road with the legendary Jan and Dean.
Opening up this book is like slathering on the sunscreen and sitting in a beach chair listening to the sounds of the ocean. The reader gets a first-hand look at a rather sad fact of life - namely, that untalented headliners (I could name a ton) hit a stage and rake in piles of cash, when people like Jan and Dean - who, like the Beach Boys and countless other groups, provide the template for the music that other artists blatently steal - wind up flying coach, staying in Motel 6s and considering themselves lucky to have a meal provided them before a show. Much like corporate radio's complete disregard for the Oldies format, it's sad to see what groups that once sold out halls across the country doing their time, usually outside in hot summer weather, just to make ends meet. Nobody in these groups travels by private Lear Jet and scarfs caviar. That, in a word, is obscene.
But, lest I digress further, this in no way diminishes the joy Greene expresses throughout the book. As a professional musician myself, I can completely understand how the fatigue of travel and sometimes difficult circumstances all go right out the window the minute the lights come up and the crowd reacts. That makes it all worth it. Greene's book is a completely absorbing, yet easy, breezy read. I kept having to remind myself that the events in the book happened over a period of years; it seems like the book takes place over one long, glorious, never-ending summer - and that's probably exactly what it felt like.
Throughout the book, Greene never really has a bad word to say about anybody - although the band crosses paths with other Oldies artists on occasion, some of whom are less than professional. There's always one in a crowd. From gig to gig to gig, the reader feels like nothing so much as a ghost roadie, and the whole book serves as a testament to a life and a sound that is disappearing way too fast.
A Read that is Pitch Perfect May 31, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I admit up front that I am a great admirer of Bob Greene's writing. I have enjoyed his prose for many years, starting with his columns for the Chicago Sun-Times and staying with him when he switched to the Chicago Tribune. I have not read all of his books, but I have read most of them. I guess what I like most about his writing is his ability to reach out and touch you, usually somewhere in the area of your heart. He has a way of capturing in words those sweet moments in life that we all experience and want to hold on to and he does it with such clarity and style that it leaves a bit of a sweet ache afterwards. I have always thought that the Beatles music would be the perfect sound track for my life. That is why I adored Bob's last book "And You Know You Should Be Glad" so much. But good music has been and always will be the sound track of all our lives and Bob's chronicle of his years touring with Jan and Dean is pitch perfect. There is something about the innocence and soft lyricism of the beach music scene that so perfectly captures that era and this is a sweet walk down memory lane.
It's A Wonderful Life! May 30, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I wholeheartedly agree with the earlier 5-star reviews and, especially, Amazon's product review --- I wouldn't change a word of it. Bob Greene's marvelous account of his fifteen years (1992-2004) of summer tours as a member of Jan & Dean's backup band filled me with joy. Greene is a national treasure, and, in this book, he reacquaints the reader with some of the truly amazing music that was being created by dozens and dozens of bands and individual musicians across America throughout the 1960s --- a magic time, when, every week, all across the country, a brilliantly written and performed pop tune exploded, fresh and unique, like a brand-new pocket universe, out of millions of teenagers' transistor radios.
If you're reading this review, you most likely know some of the history of Jan & Dean. From July 1963, when "Surf City" hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, until Jan Berry's auto accident in 1966, Jan & Dean released a steady stream of delightful singles that could easily hold their own against the best of the competition provided by the two leading geniuses of American popular music during that time: Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. Of the fourteen Jan & Dean songs that made the Hot 100 during this time period, nine were co-written by Jan Berry and five of those were collaborations with Brian Wilson. All of this changed when Jan Berry had a near-fatal auto accident in April 1966 that left him physically handicapped, with permanent speech and memory difficulties.
Despite Jan's health problems, Jan & Dean resumed performing and touring in 1978 and continued to do so until Jan's death in 2004. Bob Greene gives a rose-colored (only in the best sense of the term), but unvarnished and clear-eyed account of these tours starting in 1992. The details he provides are fascinating: Jan & Dean's supremely talented and devoted backup musicians, encounters with a wide sampling of other rock 'n' roll stars from the 1960s, Jan's superhuman 8-year effort to record and release a final album ("Second Wave," released in 1997), Dean's desire to get Jan & Dean into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but only because Jan Berry had earned and deserved it ... I could go on and on and on.
Anyone who loves popular music from the 1960s will love this book. Greene has given us a wonderfully detailed and fascinating description of a remarkable group of musicians and friends. And, yes ... Dean Torrence should have a writing credit on "Surf City!"
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