© 2024 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
LIVE BLOG: Updates on Hurricane Milton

Dean Reed: The Man Who Rocked the Iron Curtain

&nbsp
 

In the '70s and '80s, Dean Reed's albums went gold in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America. He made movies and TV specials and played to packed audiences of adoring fans.

In 1986, as glasnost created cracks in the Berlin Wall, Reed drowned in East Berlin, a death that was variously ascribed to the East German secret police, the KGB and the CIA.

Reggie Nadelson is a writer and filmmaker who became obsessed with the life of this Colorado cowboy and traveled to Berlin and Moscow to find out more about him. She helped produce a BBC documentary about Reed, and wrote Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock n' Roll to the Soviet Union.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
You Count on Us, We Count on You: Donate to WUSF to support free, accessible journalism for yourself and the community.