Written by Sam Marks
17/09/2023
While Elvis was receiving vast applause in the US and their allied countries throughout the 1970s, Dean Reed was garnering similar levels of fame and stardom from the Eastern Bloc. Quite fittingly known as “Red Elvis”, Dean Reed had successfully brought country and rock music to the states most country artists had written songs about in opposition. Reed was a massive success and considered to be the most famous westerner of all time in the Eastern Bloc. Throughout his life, he went through radical transformations that turned him from a failed Hollywood industry plant into the gateway for country music in Soviet-allied states.
Born September 22, 1938 in Denver, Colorado, Dean Reed was exposed to the open lands of the western United States. Reed developed a fondness for rock music in his childhood and played the guitar at bars throughout college to pay for part of his tuition. After studying meteorology at the University of Colorado, he moved to Hollywood at age nineteen to become a musician and actor. Along the way, he picked up a hitchhiker in Arizona who amazingly turned out to be an agent for Capitol Records. After hearing Reed play at a hotel, he offered to introduce him to the record company.
Reed signed a seven-year contract with Capitol Records and was marketed as a teenage-heartthrob. His album Our Summer Romance was decently popular in the Southwest United States, and he played for an audience of 6,000 at the University of Colorado. Despite the record company’s aspirations for him, Reed struggled to gain success in the US and his only billboard hit “The Search” came in at No. 96. However, his music was very popular in South America and in March 1962 Capitol sent him on a tour of Brazil, Chile, and Peru.
The South America tour saw Reed gain huge fame and commercial success. While there, he developed a left-wing political philosophy and spoke out against US intervention, nuclear armament, and poor social conditions. He gains connections to prominent political figures throughout South America while simultaneously performing free concerts in low-income neighborhoods. After learning Spanish, he settled in Argentina and acted in the TV program Sabados Continuados, filmed out of Buenos Aires.
In 1965, Reed sang at the World Peace Conference in Helsinki, Finland. There he attracted the attention of Soviet Youth Organization leader Nikolai Pastoukhov, who invited Reed to Moscow. Reed was specifically picked to provide USSR citizens an image of western culture without perpetuating them to western capitalistic beliefs. Reed began splitting his time between Europe and South America, setting residency for himself and his first wife Patricia in Italy. While in Europe, Reed expanded his career prospects by acting in spaghetti westerns.
Reed first toured the Soviet Union in 1966 playing ballads, folk, and rock songs to screaming audiences. He adopted socialist politics and described them as consistent with freedom from poverty and liberty from poor ageing health. Along with other foreign artists in Europe, he protested US involvement in the Vietnam War. He permanently moved to East Germany in 1973 to shoot western-style films such as Sing, Cowboy, Sing and continue his music career.
Despite Reed’s move to the Eastern Bloc, he still spoke highly for his love for America and retained U.S. citizenship for the rest of his life. The belt buckle and acoustic guitar he was known for travelled with him from America and he wore them with tremendous pride. However, in a 60 Minutes interview in 1986 about the Berlin Wall and Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Reed compared US President Ronald Reagan to Joseph Stalin, inciting fury in Americans, who sent death threats to his family.
Six-weeks after the interview was given, Reed was found dead at age 47 in Zeuthener near his home in East Berlin. The abruptness and timing of his death has launched ongoing theories from assassination by the CIA or KGB to suicide. A letter was found on the back of his screenplay for a film about the Wounded Knee Massacre that expressed regret about the failing relationship with his third wife Renate. Whatever the cause of his death may have been, Reed’s legacy lived on as the Eastern Bloc’s most notable superstar.
Bibliography
Alarcon, Rodrigo. “‘Gringo Rojo’: The Singular Life of Dean Reed Hits Theaters « Diario y Radio Universidad Chile.” Accessed September 9, 2023. https://radio.uchile.cl/2016/03/16/gringo-rojo-la-vida-singular-de-dean-reed-llega-a-las-salas/.
AMERICAN REBEL: The Dean Reed Story, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBZziSBxwwY.
“Dean Reed – The Red Elvis – The German Way & More,” March 10, 2013. https://www.german-way.com/notable-people/featured-bios/dean-reed/.
Harner, Ariana. “Values in Conflict: The Singing Marxist.” Colorado Heritage, Winter 1999. https://www.deanreed.de/presse/colo1999winter.html.
Masa, Olga. English: Dean Reed on Antena TV Cover, 1965. 1965. https://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA-614170079-revista-antena-n-1778-1965-graciela-borges–_JM.
Nadelson, Reggi. Comrade Rockstar. Arrow Books Ltd, 2004.
Featured image credit: Image by Complimenti used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license via Wikimedia Commons.
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