Tonight I Talk About Dean Reed

This review will be a little different. I'll talk about a documentary I watched on YouTube today. It's about the late singer Dean Reed, someone you probably haven't heard of but he had quite the life.

You can read about him in his Wikipedia article here, but in short, he was born in 1938 in Colorado and after high school he went to Hollywood to try and be a teen idol, which didn't quite work out... but one of his songs was highly popular in Argentina so he went to South America for a time and he fell into a love of leftist governments and he was wildly popular down there; he then moved to Eastern Germany and he became a huge star in Communist countries, especially the Soviet Union, where he was known as The Red Elvis as he stood out for being a rock star and sticking out amongst what the music is like in those other countries, where Communism prevented people from listening to popular Western acts like the real Elvis or The Beatles. 

He was a substitute and while music-wise he wasn't as great as them, at least he was more than competent in what he did (a lot of cover songs) and he was a showman. That was enough to make him a huge deal in Communist countries despite being an American. He did an interview for 60 Minutes in 1986 which ruffled some American's feathers due to a few controversial comments he made. Despite his politics he still loved the United States and paid the IRS each year. Not long after that he was found dead in a lake near his home and it appeared as if he drowned. Of course some people speculated otherwise due to how things were back then. After Communism fell, it was made public that he left a suicide note; basically, he was upset that things with his third wife were at a real bad point.

Even today he is hardly known; I first heard about him a few years ago while reading a book with a lot of trivia facts. Earlier in the year in a bookstore I found a book called Comrade Rockstar, which I haven't gotten into as I hear it's as much about the author researching about Reed as it is about Reed himself, which is... interesting. I figured before I start reading the book I should look for other sources to learn about his unique life story. I know there have been a few documentaries about him, but most were from foreign countries and I haven't found dubbed or subtitled versions of those yet; I just discovered a few days ago that someone uploaded 1985's American Rebel: The Dean Reed Story to YouTube and I had to check it out as hey, it was made in America and in English.

Overall, it was a very interesting documentary about his life, from his childhood to the then-present time and after the fact, it proved to have covered most of his life. You see him act (he appeared in a variety of films, including spaghetti westerns and something known as ROBIN HOOD, ARROWS, BEANS AND KARATE which is something I must watch if I can ever find it), hear his thoughts in interviews, have his family & friends give their opinions, and you see various performances and hear various songs. His old man was very entertaining to listen to as he's the old farmer conservative type. In the future I hope to learn even more about this performer and his fascinating life.

Here's the YouTube video, while it's still up. I'll be back Thursday night.