World Famous Comics: When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams
When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams
By: Bob Greene Publisher: St. Martin's Press Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: St. Martin's Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: May 13, 2008 Release Date: May 13, 2008
In a dazzling and exhilarating display of narrative on-the-road reporting, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Bob Greene takes readers on an unforgettable American journey of music, memories, and universal longing.
Running away to join the circus is a dream we’re told to put away once we’re no longer young. But, as Bob Greene writes, “just when in our lives we give up on capturing the freedom and bright mornings of our world when it was new, sometimes something happens to keep the sun high in the sky a while longer. Sometimes we find something we weren’t even aware we were looking for."
For fifteen years beginning in the 1990s, Greene stepped into a universe that, out in the country every summer night, is hiding in plain sight: the touring world of the great early rock bands who gave America the car-radio and jukebox music it still loves best. Singing backup with the legendary Jan and Dean as they endlessly crisscross the nation, Greene takes us to football stadiums and minor-league ballparks, to no-name ice cream stands and midnight diners, to back roads and carnival midways as he tells a riveting story of great fame and lingering sorrow, of unexpected friendship and lasting dreams, of the things that keep us going in the face of all the things that threaten to stop us.
Striking chords of recognition and yearning, When We Get to Surf City glistens with cameos by the men and women with whom Greene traveled the United States on his deliriously unlikely journey, including Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beach Boys, the Monkees, the Kingsmen, James Brown, Lesley Gore, the Drifters, Little Eva, and the Coasters.
All of them—not just the people on the stage, but the people in the audiences, too—are seeking their private versions of the mythical destination Jan and Dean came up with all those years ago: Surf City as the perfect, cloudless place we all believe is out there, if only we can find it.
Hilarious and heartbreaking, moving and brilliant, this is the trip of a lifetime, a travelogue of the heart, accompanied by a thundering guitar chorus of Fender Stratocasters. It is a story destined to touch readers not just today, but for generations to come, as long as the music itself echoes.
Searching Since I grew up in Southern California I thought I knew where surf City was...at the beaches I used to hang out at where the music was always going and the summers were endless. However, after reading Bob's book, I now realize it is more a state of mind where everything feels right!
Bob Greene has captured the essence of that search for Surf City...those of us who listened to Jan & Dean and many others of that era growing up will love this book. Like Bob, we are all in seach of that mythical place called Surf City and the endless summer...Bob found it while on tour with Jan & Dean and I found it in his book!
More...and less Greene's newest is fun if you are from that era of music. I wish it had more about the encounters of other musicians, and less of his musings. Since he toured with Alice Cooper and wrote a book about that, it would have been fun to hear some kind of comparison of those experiences.
Rock and Roll will never die If you are a fan of 50s and 60s music you will love this book. If you are a fan of Jan and Dean you MUST HAVE THIS BOOK. It is beyond a doubt the best book I have ever read on the subject of rock and roll.But it is so much more than that-it is the story of undying friendship and the search for eternal youth.I found my own Surf City last year when I met Dean Torrence in an Oklahoma Casino where he and the Surf City All Stars were playing.That meeting made reading the book that much better,because it proved to me that Bob Greenes views were right on the mark, and that if you are lucky you too can find Surf City.Rock and Roll will never die.
When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams This is a great book. I especially enjoy reading about Gary Griffin....he's a real cutie. It's interesting to find out that life on the road isn't all glamor. A wonderful inside view of the people and songs that we all remember.
Bob Greene does it again! Bob Greene takes fans of 60's music through an insightful story from behind the scenes as he tells of his travels with Jan and Dean. His observations as one of the back up musicians reveal little known things about musicians and how concerts work. He also has many anecdotes about Jan and Dean after Jan's "recovery" from his terrible accident. Some of them are humorous and some rather sad. Reading this book led me to buy other books by Greene that I hadn't read so far in addition to buying another book about Jan and Dean. A good read.
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