I fell in love with Jan & Dean in the early 1980's, a time when games consoles started to invade our lives and electronic gadgets were available everywhere, taunting us teenagers with something new every week.
However, I was lucky, because I fell in love with music, I'd inherited my mothers record collection and just before I'd seen the TV Movie "Dead Man's Curve", I'd fallen in love with a band called The Beach Boys.
"Dead Man's Curve" though really got me hooked to the Surfin' sound, however as this was the time before the internet and a time of limited importing abilities, my option's were limited to collecting Beach Boys albums, as these were the only music readily available at the time. On listening to "Catch A Wave" by The Beach Boys I knew it was also the same tune for a smaller hit by Jan & Dean called "Sidewalk Surfin'".
Occasionally there were record fayre's which allowed you to scurry around the various stalls looking for those rare records you always wanted. It was at one of these places that I found the version of "Sidewalk Surfin'" in the picture sleeve as shown above. Thankfully, the 45 inch vinyl contained the original version of the song, and not a re-recorded version (of which Jan & Dean's music seemed to be flooded with at the time).
I played the single daily, possibly hourly for months on end, I, along with a couple of friends also skateboarded everywhere we went, and quite often sang this song or played it on our cassette players.
For me, it's the one song that brings back memories of summer in the early 1980's, a time so different to now, but somehow special. Of course, I went on to collect a huge amount of Jan & Dean material, wrote articles, shared my collection and much more.
The first time I spoke to Dean in 2005 I forgot to mention my love for this song, but knowing his answers to so many other questions I've asked him over the years, he'd probably say... "You know... It's just another cover version with different words". As honest as ever.
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