This morning’s musical selection is the 1964 Jan & Dean potboiler, “Dead Man’s Curve.”

This song, written by Jan Berry, disc jockey Roger Christian, Artie Kornfeld, and Brian Wilson, combines two popular musical genres of the early ’60s: car song and teen melodrama.

The lyrics describe a fictional drag race over an actual route in Southern California—from Sunset and Vine west to the 90-degree bend a block west of North Whittier Drive—and the gory smashup that resulted. The last thing I remember, Doc…

The 6.5 mile route is shown above, with the diamond marking the spot known as Dead Man’s curve. The starting point at Sunset and Vine is seen at upper right.

Unfortunately, life mirrored art when in 1966, Berry crashed his own Corvette into a parked truck on North Whittier, suffering head injuries that effectively ended his performing career. In musical histories the accident is often described as “ironic,” a term that for MCG falls short of the mark.

Several versions of “Dead Man’s Curve” were produced by Jan & Dean, one with violent car wreck sound effects added. There are some minor differences in the lyrics as well. The Corvette’s “frenched taillights” in the original production became “six taillights” in the hit single. (A Corvette Stingray with six taillights? Oh, yes.) Here’s the original as heard on the 1963 Jan & Dean album, Drag City.

http://youtu.be/S1Cuekbklkg