Dick and Dee Dee Official Web Site
The Lost Album: Love From Big Sur
The story of Love From Big Sur begins in 1974, when Dee Dee, half of the beloved early 1960s pop duo Dick and Dee Dee was rehearsing a band in Los Angeles, plotting her return to music. It was there she met Kane, a man who had just realized a dream of his own: a home built off the grid in the wild, breathtaking landscape of Big Sur. He was passing through L.A. when their paths crossed. They fell in love almost immediately. Dee Dee packed up her life and her piano and followed him north along the California coast.
They married on New Year's Day, 1975.
Settled into their mountain top world above the Pacific, the two began writing songs = love songs for each other, and love songs for the land that held them. Big Sur has a way of doing that to people. After three years of living and creating together, Kane and Dee Dee decided their music deserved to be heard. In 1977, they reached out to Don Ralke, the gifted arranger who had worked with Dee Dee earlier in her career, and asked for his help shaping the project.
Ralke assembled an extraordinary cast of Los Angeles studio musicians - players who would later be celebrated as The Wrecking Crew, the legendary ensemble behind some of the most iconic recordings in American pop history. They flew up to Monterey and, in a single remarkable day at Super Sound Studios, laid down the foundational tracks. Ralke then brought in Martin Slavin, a distinguished British jazz composer and arranger, who added lush orchestral sweetening -strings, French horn, and more - at the storied Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. It was meticulous, unhurried work. The album took two full years to complete.
When Dee Dee began reaching out to her record industry contacts, she found a music business that had moved on without them. The late 1970s belonged to disco, and Love From Big Sur -tender, orchestral, deeply personal was out of step with the moment. Undeterred, Kane and Dee Dee released it anyway, selling copies locally, on their own terms. Then life moved on. They eventually left Big Sur and returned to Los Angeles, and the album quietly slipped into obscurity.
It would stay there for nearly half a century.
In 2025, Kane began writing his autobiography, and Love From Big Sur kept surfacing in the story - too important to leave out, too meaningful to summarize in a paragraph. He decided the album needed to be part of the book. That decision launched an unexpected quest.
The search for a surviving copy hit its first, crushing wall almost immediately. In January 2025, the catastrophic Palisades fire swept through their neighborhood, reducing their home to ash and rubble. Among everything lost were their remaining copies of the album. Kane sent word out to every family member and friend he could think of, hoping someone, somewhere, had held onto a record.
For weeks, nothing.
Then, just after Christmas, a message arrived from Kane's nephew in Florida. He had a copy. He'd kept it all these years. He would send it right away.
It arrived in early January 2026, in pristine condition - as though it had been waiting patiently for this moment.
Their daughter-in-law, a music professional, and her generous colleague connected to help get the audio converted and meticulously cleaned up for audio release. What emerged was something extraordinary: a beautifully remastered recording that sounds as vivid and alive as the love that created it.
Love From Big Sur - written in a mountain top home above the Pacific, recorded by some of the finest musicians of a generation, and lost to time for 47 years - is now available on all major streaming services. It was worth the wait.
