Sunday, June 09, 2002 10:14:03 PM
Rock 'n' Roll Artists A-Z...Jan and Dean
http://www.jananddean.com/
Jan Berry and I both attended University High school in West Los Angeles, California. We met while playing for the University High school Football Team, "The Warriors". Jan played tight end and I played wide receiver on offense and free safety on defense. Did you ever read that before? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . didn't think so. Our coach, Milton "Uncle Milty" Anisman when asked about what it was like to have Jan and Dean on his football team, he said "who? . . . gee I don't remember having a girl on any of my teams".
After practice, Jan and some other teammates and I would harmonize a few of the hit platters of the day while taking a shower. No George Michaels was not on our football team. Most of the songs on the radio in the late fifties were Doo Wop songs, they all were almost Acappella with many different vocal parts. Once the song was chosen, each of the guys were assigned a vocal part and the jam was underway. Some of our favorite songs to sing were "Get a Job", "Tell Me Why", "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay", "Whispering Bells", "Hushabye", "Little Star", "I Wonder Why", " Why Do Fools Fall in Love", "Book of Love", "One Summer Night" and " Earth Angel ".
One day we heard about a school talent show to be held in the school auditorium. We thought it was now time to take this whole singing group thing a lot more seriously. We started meeting at Jan's parent's Bel Air home after school. They had converted a garage into a music room complete with a piano and two Ampex reel to reel tape recorders. Jan had found a way to create a delay echo effect by using the two tape recorders at the same time. We worked on our favorite three songs, " Get a Job ", " Rock and Roll is Here to Stay " and " Short Shorts ". Once we, who were now officially known as "The Barons" singing group, had learned the songs as well as we could possibly learn them, we added in Jan's neighbor Bruce Johnston on piano and my neighbor Sandy Nelson on drums. The Barons singing group was now for real, so look out Coasters and The Drifters, look out Dion & the Belmonts, look out Danny and the Juniors, The Barons will now be ruling the charts.
The Barons big day performing at the talent show came and went, and all the chicks said it was soooooo cooool but just like that, the talent show was history, so what now. Jan still wanted to keep practicing even more songs after school but some of the guys wanted to know what for. The talent show would not happen again until next year and the Barons were getting ready to graduate, go their separate ways, what good would it do to learn a couple of new Do Wop songs. Plus some of the guys had bought new old cars that needed a lot of attention, you know like new chrome, new paint jobs, new interiors, cooler hub caps, fuzzy dice, and even in some cases, new "full race" engines. These car crazy dudes were not gonna have time to go to Jan's house to practice some Do Wop songs for no reason. And some of the other guys had new girlfriends, they wanted to spend more time with their cool chicks down at the malt shop after school.
The Barons singing group was now down to a duo, Jan Berry and me. One night while Jan and I were struggling to write our own song to record, one of the old Barons group members , Arnie Ginsberg showed up. Arnie had a idea for a song titled " Jenny Lee ". Arnie had been inspired by a local stripper named Jenny Lee, that's how he got the title. The boys worked on the song for weeks. There was going to be a big Barons party at Jan's house so Jan thought it would be really cool to debut the song "Jenny Lee" at that party and better yet he wanted to debut this song off of a demonstration record. This would mean he needed to take a finished tape to a recording studio to have a disc cut.
The song would no longer be on tape, it would be on a disc that would look just like a real record, everyone would be so impressed, especially the chicks. Jan needed to get the song "Jenny Lee " finished. He called all the guys but only Arnie was available and nobody else was. I was packing to get ready to leave for six months of active duty in the Army reserve and the other guys all had things to do. Jan and Arnie finished the song that night. The next day Jan took the tape to a recording studio in Hollywood.
At the recording studio Jan handed his tape to a recording engineer who then loaded it onto a professional tape machine. Then he got a blank disc and put it on a disc cutting lathe. Next he played the tape a couple of times to get the right disc cutting levels. Then it was time to cut the disc. He started the tape and the disc cutting lathe. In the middle of all of this a older guy, who has heard the song through the recording studio door, comes into the studio to find out what was this primitive but interesting song all about. Jan explains that it is a home recording done by he and a school buddy and that the only plans he has for this song is for it to be played at the Barons party next weekend. The man introduces himself as Joe Lubin, record producer for Arwin Records. He tells Jan that if he allows him to take the vocal tape and add instruments to it and put it out on the Arwin Record label, that he will make Jan and his school buddy bigger than The Everly Brothers.
I get a call from Jan later that evening and he tells me the exciting news. Jan says he wants to introduce Mr. Lubin to me and the rest of the group. I explained to Jan that I was leaving the next day for Fort Ord where I will be stationed for the next six months. Jan is fit to be tied, he explains to me that The Barons will be bigger than The Everly Brothers, he tells me to call up the Army and tell them about the impending record deal, and to be sure to mention the bigger than The Everly Brothers thing, and they will no doubtly cut you loose. I told him, yeah sure, I'll get right on it.
Two months later while cleaning my M-1 after a day at the firing range, Jim Yamaguchi, a high school buddy of mine, runs up to me all excited and holds up his portable radio and says listen, " Jenny Lee " is on the radio! I'm stunned!. . . At the end of the record the disc jockey announces that he just played the new number one record "Jenny Lee" by Jan and . . . . . . Arnie. I couldn't believe it, Jan was right, " Jenny Lee " was a hit and they were indeed bigger than The Everly Brothers.
Jan and Arnie are on American Bandstand, flirting with all the Bandstand Babes and I am crawling through the putrid smelling mud at the infiltration course. " Jenny Lee " peaks at number 8 on the national charts summer 1958. I try to accepts the fact that I blew it, the opportunity had passed me by, so I went to the base Dairy Queen and drowned my sorrows in a vanilla malt.
I finally completed active duty and returned home. One day I get invited to play some sand lot football with many of my Baron buddies on a late fall afternoon in 1958. Jan also shows up to play. After the game Jan asks me if I want to come up to his house to work on some music. I accept the offer but I did inquire about Arnie. Jan says Arnie is no longer interested in the music business. I am very surprised, what was there not to like about making billions of dollars, performing on American Bandstand, rubbing elbows with Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Sam Cooke, flirting with Annette Funichello, buying a new sports car right off the showroom floor, having dinner at Dick Clarks house, having chicks scream at you, what's there not to like. I wanted to get started before Jan or Arnie changed their minds.
Months later Arnie still had not returned, but Jan and Dean were stalled. We were not able to find or write a decent song to work on. Jan suggested that we should call a couple of very talented guys that he met when he and Arnie had worked with Sam Cooke. Jan called these guys and they jumped at the chance to work with Jan and his new partner. Later that very same evening, Jan introduces me to Herb Alpert and Lou Adler. Lou's first impression of Jan and me was that neither of us were wearing shoes.
Herb and Lou said that they had some songs that they felt were just right for Jan & Dean. One of these songs was titled "Baby Talk". The four of them worked on " Baby Talk " for about a month at Jan's house. To record, Jan and I would sit at the piano and sing into one microphone while Jan played the piano. We would record sometimes ten or more versions of the same song. Jan would then pick out his favorite parts of each version and then he would painstakingly splice all these pieces together until he had a master version. Herb would write the arrangement for the rest of the instruments and then he would hand pick the musicians to play the background music track. Once in the professional recording studio, the studio musicians would put on earphones and the studio engineer would play the Jan and Dean vocal track to them through the earphones and the musicians would play along with it. The original vocal track and the new instrumental track would be blended together onto a new tape. This procedure was very unique because it was totally opposite than the way rock and roll records have, for the most part, always been made. Normally the instrumental track is recorded first. Once the musicians are done, they pack up and leave. Then its the vocalists turn. The vocalist will sing along with the recorded instrumental track and will spend as much time as it takes to complete the song. Sometimes this process takes days, maybe even weeks. A few years latter, Jan and I would record this way.
"Baby Talk" was released on the Dore record label in early summer 1959.
Jan & Dean performed "Baby Talk" on American Bandstand twice in July of 1959. It usually just took one appearance on American Bandstand to make a record a big hit and "Baby Talk" was no exception, it exploded on the national charts reaching number 10 almost overnight.
We released seven more singles and recorded our very first album, cleverly titled " Jan & Dean ", on Dore Records over the next three years.
After leaving Dore Records, Jan & Dean signed a two record deal with Gene Autry's record company, Challenge Records. It was aptly named. Our first record on our new label was a remake of the old standard "Heart and Soul". This record hit number one on KFWB "Color Radio" in Los Angeles July 8, 1961 and peaked at number 25 on the Billboard charts later that summer. We quickly recorded one more song to fulfill our contract, we knew we needed to move on.
Jan & Dean next signed with a relatively new independent record company called Liberty Records. Many of the record executives that worked at Liberty Records were a new breed of young men who were raised on Rock & Roll, we were a perfect fit on the Liberty Records roster. It took four records for the new team, company and artist and management, to finally hit our stride, but once we did, it was a awesome ride.
The fifth record on Liberty Records was another remake of a standard titled " Linda ". This song had been popular in the fifties and contrary to the rumor, it was not written about Linda Mc Cartney although there was a connection. The adult Linda that the song was written about had no interest in posing for a picture to be used for the cover of the sheet music, so a lawyer that was involved with the song suggested that his young daughter who's name was also Linda, Linda Eastman, should pose for the picture to be used on the sheet music. Her picture was the one that ended up being used on the final product. Linda Eastman went on to become Linda Mc Cartney, Paul's beautiful wife.
The single," Linda " was released in January 1963 and peaked on the Billboard charts at number 28. Because we now had our first big hit on Liberty Records, we were given company approval to do a album. About the same time Jan and I were booked to do a concert in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach High School, not far from the beach town of Hawthorne. Since Jan & Dean didn't have a live band (we used studio musicians to make all of our records), the promoter of the show had to hire a back-up band to play for us. For this one particular show, the promoter hired a local group who had just had their own hit record titled "Surfin' Safari", they called themselves The Beach Boys.
Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys met for the first time in a school room that was temporarily their dressing room. The Beach Boys had learned Jan & Dean's biggest hits but that wasn't enough music to fill out a whole show. So we picked out some rock standards to do together to fill up the one hour we were scheduled to play. The Beach Boys then went on stage to do their own opening set. The crowd went crazy, they loved their hometown boys! Then it was time for Jan & Dean. The Beach Boys played very well but better yet they sang great. Jan and I now found ourselves in a situation that we had tried to create back in 1957 with our original group The Barons. We were on stage singing with a totally bitchen vocal group, it was a awesome feeling to sing with these very talented vocalists. The set came off great, except for one thing, it wasn't long enough. The promoter wanted his hours worth and the boys were about 10 minutes short. The promoter told everybody to get back on stage and fill out the hour, we hadn't earned our 500 bucks yet.
One big problem, we hadn't rehearsed any more songs for the Jan & Dean set, we had done all the songs we knew. Mike Love suggested that they could do a couple of our biggest hits over again. Now that was the politically correct suggestion coming from the new kids on the block, but Mike was about to find out Jan and I were not your typical teen idol rock stars. Jan and I thought it would be a lot more fun to do The Beach Boys two biggest hits again, after all it had been 40 or 50 minutes since The Beach Boys had sung their own songs. The Beach Boys were surprised at this idea but took it as a compliment from the old guys. The two groups launched into "Surfin' " and "Surfin' Safari" , and the audience flipped out, the guys on stage flipped out, and a life long friendship started on that high school stage, one warm California spring evening way back in 1963.
A couple of days later Jan Berry called Brian Wilson. He reaffirmed to Brian about how magical the musical event on stage had been and that he had talked it over with Lou and me and we had decided to try our hand at making surf music if that was OK with him. Our idea was to incorporate "Surfin" and "Surfin' Safari" into our up coming "Linda" album, and we were thinking of re-titling the album, "Jan & Dean take Linda Surfing". Brian loved the idea, after all, he was the song writer and publisher of the two surf songs. He would just end up making that much more money, because his versions of those surf songs had already run their coarse, what a great deal for a young songwriter, not just the money issue but more importantly, more exposure! He not only gave Jan & Dean his blessing, but he offered to help us in the studio to record the two surf songs too as well.
About a week later, Jan, Brian, Mike, Carl, Dennis, David and I all got together at Western Recording Studios in Hollywood, California and we recorded the two surf songs and it felt like magic once again! After the recording session was over, Brian wanted to give Jan and me a preview of his next record. He belted out "Surfin' USA". We were floored, what a totally bitchen song! Jan immediately tried to talk Brian into giving the song to Jan & Dean but Brian wasn't about to give it away but he did say that he had a similar song that was only partially completed and that he would be more than happy to give that song to Jan & Dean. The title of that song was "Surf City". We loved that song too as well, so we gladly took it.
When we were ready to record the newly completed "Surf City" song, Jan called Brian and invited him to the recording studio. Once in the studio, Jan and Brian sang the lead vocal together (in studio vinacular this is called doubling). Then Brian and I sang some of the background parts plus the falsetto part that Brian had originally written. Brian then suggested that he and I sing the very same vocal part again (making four vocals) and see what that sounded like, so we did. The result was a very unique vocal sound. Because of the differences in the sound of our falsettos, Brian's falsetto was mainly midrange in tone but mine was mostly top end (treble) in tone, mixing the two different voices caused a strange but very interesting phasing harmonic. Everybody in the studio loved the final result!
Three months later "Surf City" became the first "surf song" to hit number one on the Billboard national charts and Jan and I were finally at the top level of our record making careers. We were now being featured in many mainstream publications like Life Magazine, Look Magazine, Time Magazine and even The Wall Street Journal. Jan and I were now also appearing on many mainstream TV shows too as well, we were big, really, really big!
Everyone was very happy about the successes of Jan & Dean, well except for The Beach Boys record company Capitol Records, they were irate but Murray Wilson, father of Brian, Dennis and Carl was even more irate. How could Brian give away a Number One record and especially to a competitor. Brian tried to explain to his dad that "Surf City" was a song that he was never going to complete, he had lost interest in it, it would have gone to waste. Brian also tried to make the point that he was a song writer and that song writers needed other people to sing their songs and that he was proud of the fact that another group had a Number One song that he wrote, and that this would give him, a young song writer, just that much more credibility, but his dad would hear none of it, he ordered Brian to stop working with Jan & Dean. He called Jan a record pirate.
Lou Adler, our manager, came up with the idea to write a song about a Hawaiian girl named Honolulu Lulu as a follow up to "Surf City". Glen Campbell played a very bitchen Hawaiian sounding lead guitar part on this record. Honolulu Lulu also did very well and ended up at number 10 on the Billboard national charts. This was the first time that Jan & Dean had had two top ten records in a row.
The next record was Jan & Dean's first attempt at making a "car song" record. The title of this song was "Drag City" . When it was time to record the vocals, Jan once again called Brian Wilson in hopes that Brian could ditch his dad. Brian successfully ditched his dad and joined Jan and me in the studio. Brian loved being in the studio making records, he didn't give a lick about the rest of the elements of the music business, and that included being on the road. He had quit touring with The Beach Boys so he could just concentrate on making great records. Jan and I were full time college students so we too were not on the road except on some weekends. We also enjoyed the process of making records.
Brian realized that Jan was a good teacher, and he was learning a lot about studio technology from Jan. Jan had already been in recording studios for six years and because of his high intellect he was able to grasp the technical concepts of the quickly evolving recording equipment we were using. Jan at the same time had also experimented with different studio musicians and he had finally settled on a very talented core group of players, that included two drummers, Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, who would play at the same time (extremely unique on rock & roll records) and a relatively unknown guitar player from Texas, named Glen Campbell. Jan pointed out to Brian that rather than to wait for The Beach Boys to get off the road to record, that Brian could use these studio guys instead and get his records made quicker, and that he would also save some wear and tear on the touring The Beach Boys. After all, The Beach Boy sound came from the vocals not necessarily from the instrumental background tracks. Brian immediately saw the advantages of using Jan's studio guys and the result was that his instrumental tracks from this point on sounded a lot more sophisticated. Carl Wilson would add some signature guitar parts and the tracks were done.
The single "Drag City" came out towards the end of the year of 1963, and it peaked at number 10 on the Billboard charts. This was Jan & Dean's third top ten record in a row.
Next, Jan & Dean recorded one of their best albums, "Drag City", our first pure concept album, all about cars. Jan's arrangements were extraordinary and his record production skills were now next to none. The songs ran the gamut, from the very basic to the very sophisticated. We also for the first time starting injecting humor into our records. One of these songs "Schlock Rod" is a song that was, with the help of a few beers, almost totally ad-libbed. It was originally supposed to be sung but we were to tired so we talked it, ala Alley Oop. We were also going to put some sound affects on the record but we got impatient waiting for someone to deliver the sound effects records, so we went into the studio and knocked over 50 or 60 metal chairs that had been set up for a orchestra later that evening. We had so much fun doing this record that we just kept doing it. The song ended up being almost six minutes long, which was unheard of in the early sixties. You think Bob Dylan had listened to this record?
Also included on the "Drag City" album was a song entitled "Deadman's Curve. This was called one of the most inventive rock & roll records of its time. There were 18 different vocal parts, plus the record also featured a large string section, a horn section that included French horns (not normally found on rock records), a harp and even castanets. On the other side, or flip side as it was called, was a song that was originally written by Brian Wilson and was originally titled "When Summer Comes Gonna Hustle You". Jan & Dean's record company had refused to put the record out in its original form. They were concerned about the suggestive line "gonna hustle you" . Boy, how things have changed. The song was rewritten and was now titled "New Girl in School".
This became our first two sided hit. "Deadman's Curve" hit number 8 and " The New Girl in School" hit number 27 on the national charts. Hey, but they were the same record you are probably asking yourself, how can that be possible, that one side was number 8 but the other side was number 27. It's just one of those mysteries of life. By the way, if we hadn't put such a strong song on the flip side of " Deadman's Curve",(usually the smart thing to do was to put a throw away on a flip side), " Deadman's Curve" could have been a Number One record.
Next out of the shoot was a song titled "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena". This was the idea of a old high school buddy and fellow Baron, Don Altfeld. Don's father, Horace Altfeld ran Jan & Dean's Fan Club. Jan and Don went through Pre Med at UCLA together and they were in Med School at the time when Don got the idea for the song. Don and Jan would sit in the back of a lecture room and work on the song. "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" peaked on the charts summer of 1964 at number 3. This was Jan & Dean's fifth top ten record in a row. Their seventh Gold Record.
Jan and I were approached by Columbia Pictures to write and record the title song for a movie they were producing called " Ride the Wild Surf". The producers wanted Jan and me to also be in the film. We wanted to write and record the title song but being in a corny, lame surf movie just didn't appeal to us. Our surfing buddies were already pissed off at us for exploiting surfing, and doing this bogus excuse of a surf film would get us beat up or drowned. It was rumored that Mickey "Da Cat" Dora had a contract hit out on Jan and me. This wasn't the kind of hit Jan and I were hoping to get. We did get out of being in the film (that's a whole another story) but our record of "Ride the Wild Surf" reached number 16 on the Billboard Charts.
We got our hit but what about Mickey "Da Cat" Dora. Well, he disappeared from Malibu's famed "Pit" one day and we hear that Interpol is still looking for him. Hey Mickey, if you read this, please forgive us, we only did it for the money, we really needed those new Vettes, and we promise that we never went surfing again except for a couple of times, so can we make up? Please E Mail us your reply. And oh yeah, that thing with your girlfriend, it didn't really mean anything, at least to us it didn't and besides that Mickey, well, she really wasn't right for you anyway.
By late 1964 Jan and I were hopelessly hooked on skateboards. We loved our skateboards so much we sat down to write a song about them, but we couldn't come up with a melody that knocked us out. So when we needed help who did we call, Brian Wilson of course. Brian suggested that a old song that he wrote many years back would make a perfect skateboarding song. The original title was "Catch a Wave". The song had appeared on one of their first albums but never came out as a single. Brian helped us rewrite and record the song which became " Sidewalk Surfin' ". We wanted to put a sound effect of a skateboard in the beginning of the record but nobody had recorded a skateboard yet. I was elected to skate my skateboard on the sidewalk out in front of the recording studio. Our engineer, Bones Howe ran a microphone with a very long chord out to the sidewalk. He turned on the tape recorder, and signaled me to start my run. I did a couple of perfect passes but crashed on the last one. Everybody loved the crash, so that was the take they used for the record.
For a activity that very few people knew about, the record did fairly well, it peaked out at number 25 on the Billboard charts.
Jan & Dean were the number six selling singles artists of 1964, just behind Elvis #5, The Beach Boys #4, The Four Seasons #3, The Dave Clark Five #2, and The Beatles #1. Pretty cool company wouldn't you say.
Over the next year and three months, Jan and I had eight more chart records.
This gave us a grand total of 28 chart records, 7 of them top ten.
On April 12, 1966 it all changed. William Jan Berry at the age of 25, at the top of his game, crashed his new Stingray into the back of a parked truck on a side street in Beverly Hills.
The Paramedics that arrived on the scene thought he was dead. They checked his vital signs and found he was still alive but just barely. They cut him out of the car and rushed him to the near by UCLA Hospital where he underwent numerous major brain surgeries. He was in a deep coma for weeks, the doctors were not very optimistic at all about the outcome.
THE AWESOME SEVEN YEAR RUN WAS IN THE SNAP OF THE FINGERS OVER.
Or was it. Like the fighter he is, Jan Berry beat the odds. He emerged out of the coma unable to walk or talk but he pushed himself hard and with the help of his parents, friends and the many talented doctors and therapists, he has made a remarkable recovery. He is still partially paralyzed on his right side, and he still has trouble with putting some words and thoughts together, but he is able to sing relatively well. The part of the brain where music comes from was not that badly damaged.
It has been a very long process and it did take 7 years before Jan & Dean could even attempt to sing again on stage, and another 5 years before they were ready to try a official comeback.
In 1977, eleven years after Jans accident, CBS Television made a television "Movie of the Week" based on the story of Jan & Dean, titled " Deadman's Curve". Many Jan & Dean friends were cast in the movie. These friends of ours included Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys. The movie, which did very well in the ratings, generated so much publicity for Jan and me that we started to at least consider trying to perform music again. Our old friends The Beach Boys were instrumental in talking us into finally taking the plunge. It was hard to resist the offer to travel on the plush Beach Boy charter jet, play sold out stadiums and sports arenas, be featured in People Magazine, eat free food, drink free beer, be driven to and from the jet by limos and get paid for doing it.
Jan and I had a totally bitchen time on tour with our old South Bay friends. The Surfin' Deja Vu 1978 Summer Tour brought back some very, very special fond old memories and at the same time we created a bunch of new ones. We thank our old buddies The Beach Boys for being truly great and loyal friends.
Because of The Beach Boys kind offer of letting us share their stage with them, we were able to see first hand that we still had a lot of old fans out there that still cared about us and better yet we had somehow (most probably the TV movie) picked up a bunch of new younger fans along the way. Because of these very special summer of 1978 experiences, Jan and I decided to go for it one more time, the "Gotta Take That One Last Ride Summer Tour" became a reality.
And go for it we did, we have put in another twenty years. Jan & Dean got to play The Rose Bowl (four times), Three River Stadium (three times), Mile High Stadium, Murphy Stadium, many sports arenas, hundreds of state and county fairs, lots of theme parks, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Summerfest, Hot August Nights, The Band Shell (Daytona & Honolulu), The Crazy Horse, The Golden Bear, The Palomino Club, birthday parties, corporate parties, wedding parties, political parties, frat parties,street dances, mall openings. We even played in the Peoples Republic of China, where I got to be the first to skateboard on the "Great Wall of China".
We have had a blast and we feel so totally blessed to still be performing our old time rock and roll music for all these many years.
We wish to thank our band "The Belair Bandits". We couldn't have done it without them!
current band
Gary Griffin / keyboard-vocals (1983-present)
Randell Kirsch / guitar or bass-vocals (1984-present)
David Logeman / drums (1988-present)
Don Raymond / guitar-vocals (1998-present)
super subs
Mark Ward / guitar or bass-vocals (1980-present)
Chris Farmer / bass or guitar-vocals (1983-present)
Phillip Bardowell / bass or guitar-vocals (1987-present)
John Cowsill / drums-vocals (1983-present)
Sterling Smith / keyboard-vocals (1981-present)
past band members
Papa Doo Run Run:
Don Zirilli / keyboard-vocals (1978-1981)
Jim Rush / bass-vocals (1978-1980)
Crazy Jim Shippey / drums (1978-1980)
Jim Armstrong / guitar-vocals (1978-1981)
Jeff Foskette / guitar-vocals (1988)
more past members
Danny De Hart / drums (1981)
Terry Farmer / guitar (1990-1992)
celebrity band members or vocalists
Steve Moris
John Stamos
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter
Bob Greene
Corky Carroll
Mickey Jones
Marilyn Wilson
Diane Rovell
Joe Osborn
James Burton
Howard Kaylan
Mark Volman
Doug Kershaw
Singles Discography
http://www.jananddean.com/disco.html
Jenny Lee (Jan & Arnie)
1958
8
Gas Money (Jan & Arnie)
1958
21
I Love Linda (Jan & Arnie)
1958
Baby Talk
1959
10
There's a Girl
1960
97
Clementine
1960
65
White Tennis Sneakers
1960
We go Together
1960
53
Gee
1960
81
Judy's an Angel
1961
Don't Fly Away
1961
Heart and Soul
1961
25
Wanted, One Girl
1961
104
A Sunday Kind of Lov
1962
95
Tennessee
1962
69
My Favorite Dream
1962
Frosty the Snowman
1962
Linda
1963
28
Surf City
1963
1
Honolulu Lulu
1963
10
Drag City
1963
10
Deadmans Curve
1964
8
New Girl in School
1964
37
Little Old Lady from Pasadena
1964
3
Ride the Wild Surf
1964
16
Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga
1964
77
Sidewalk Surfin'
1964
25
From all over the World
1965
56
You Really Know How
1965
27
I Found a Girl
1965
30
Universal Coward (Jan Berry)
1965
Folk City
1965
109
Batman
1966
66
Popsicle
1966
21
A Surfers Dream
1966
93
School Days
1966
Yellow Balloon
1966
111
Vegetables
1967
Only a Boy
1968
I Know My Mind
1968
In the Still of the Night
1968
Vegetables/Jenny Lee
1972
Gonna Hustle You
1972
Mother Earth (Jan Berry)
1972
You Just Know It (Jan Berry)
1973
Tinsel Town (Jan Berry)
1974
Fun City (Jan Berry)
1975
Sing Sang A Song (Jan Berry)
1975
Sidewalk Surfin'
1976
107
Little Queenie (Jan Berry)
1977
Skateboard USA (Jan Berry)
1978
CD's and Albums
http://www.jananddean.com/disco.html
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Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
http://www.jananddean.com/
Jan Berry and I both attended University High school in West Los Angeles, California. We met while playing for the University High school Football Team, "The Warriors". Jan played tight end and I played wide receiver on offense and free safety on defense. Did you ever read that before? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . didn't think so. Our coach, Milton "Uncle Milty" Anisman when asked about what it was like to have Jan and Dean on his football team, he said "who? . . . gee I don't remember having a girl on any of my teams".
After practice, Jan and some other teammates and I would harmonize a few of the hit platters of the day while taking a shower. No George Michaels was not on our football team. Most of the songs on the radio in the late fifties were Doo Wop songs, they all were almost Acappella with many different vocal parts. Once the song was chosen, each of the guys were assigned a vocal part and the jam was underway. Some of our favorite songs to sing were "Get a Job", "Tell Me Why", "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay", "Whispering Bells", "Hushabye", "Little Star", "I Wonder Why", " Why Do Fools Fall in Love", "Book of Love", "One Summer Night" and " Earth Angel ".
One day we heard about a school talent show to be held in the school auditorium. We thought it was now time to take this whole singing group thing a lot more seriously. We started meeting at Jan's parent's Bel Air home after school. They had converted a garage into a music room complete with a piano and two Ampex reel to reel tape recorders. Jan had found a way to create a delay echo effect by using the two tape recorders at the same time. We worked on our favorite three songs, " Get a Job ", " Rock and Roll is Here to Stay " and " Short Shorts ". Once we, who were now officially known as "The Barons" singing group, had learned the songs as well as we could possibly learn them, we added in Jan's neighbor Bruce Johnston on piano and my neighbor Sandy Nelson on drums. The Barons singing group was now for real, so look out Coasters and The Drifters, look out Dion & the Belmonts, look out Danny and the Juniors, The Barons will now be ruling the charts.
The Barons big day performing at the talent show came and went, and all the chicks said it was soooooo cooool but just like that, the talent show was history, so what now. Jan still wanted to keep practicing even more songs after school but some of the guys wanted to know what for. The talent show would not happen again until next year and the Barons were getting ready to graduate, go their separate ways, what good would it do to learn a couple of new Do Wop songs. Plus some of the guys had bought new old cars that needed a lot of attention, you know like new chrome, new paint jobs, new interiors, cooler hub caps, fuzzy dice, and even in some cases, new "full race" engines. These car crazy dudes were not gonna have time to go to Jan's house to practice some Do Wop songs for no reason. And some of the other guys had new girlfriends, they wanted to spend more time with their cool chicks down at the malt shop after school.
The Barons singing group was now down to a duo, Jan Berry and me. One night while Jan and I were struggling to write our own song to record, one of the old Barons group members , Arnie Ginsberg showed up. Arnie had a idea for a song titled " Jenny Lee ". Arnie had been inspired by a local stripper named Jenny Lee, that's how he got the title. The boys worked on the song for weeks. There was going to be a big Barons party at Jan's house so Jan thought it would be really cool to debut the song "Jenny Lee" at that party and better yet he wanted to debut this song off of a demonstration record. This would mean he needed to take a finished tape to a recording studio to have a disc cut.
The song would no longer be on tape, it would be on a disc that would look just like a real record, everyone would be so impressed, especially the chicks. Jan needed to get the song "Jenny Lee " finished. He called all the guys but only Arnie was available and nobody else was. I was packing to get ready to leave for six months of active duty in the Army reserve and the other guys all had things to do. Jan and Arnie finished the song that night. The next day Jan took the tape to a recording studio in Hollywood.
At the recording studio Jan handed his tape to a recording engineer who then loaded it onto a professional tape machine. Then he got a blank disc and put it on a disc cutting lathe. Next he played the tape a couple of times to get the right disc cutting levels. Then it was time to cut the disc. He started the tape and the disc cutting lathe. In the middle of all of this a older guy, who has heard the song through the recording studio door, comes into the studio to find out what was this primitive but interesting song all about. Jan explains that it is a home recording done by he and a school buddy and that the only plans he has for this song is for it to be played at the Barons party next weekend. The man introduces himself as Joe Lubin, record producer for Arwin Records. He tells Jan that if he allows him to take the vocal tape and add instruments to it and put it out on the Arwin Record label, that he will make Jan and his school buddy bigger than The Everly Brothers.
I get a call from Jan later that evening and he tells me the exciting news. Jan says he wants to introduce Mr. Lubin to me and the rest of the group. I explained to Jan that I was leaving the next day for Fort Ord where I will be stationed for the next six months. Jan is fit to be tied, he explains to me that The Barons will be bigger than The Everly Brothers, he tells me to call up the Army and tell them about the impending record deal, and to be sure to mention the bigger than The Everly Brothers thing, and they will no doubtly cut you loose. I told him, yeah sure, I'll get right on it.
Two months later while cleaning my M-1 after a day at the firing range, Jim Yamaguchi, a high school buddy of mine, runs up to me all excited and holds up his portable radio and says listen, " Jenny Lee " is on the radio! I'm stunned!. . . At the end of the record the disc jockey announces that he just played the new number one record "Jenny Lee" by Jan and . . . . . . Arnie. I couldn't believe it, Jan was right, " Jenny Lee " was a hit and they were indeed bigger than The Everly Brothers.
Jan and Arnie are on American Bandstand, flirting with all the Bandstand Babes and I am crawling through the putrid smelling mud at the infiltration course. " Jenny Lee " peaks at number 8 on the national charts summer 1958. I try to accepts the fact that I blew it, the opportunity had passed me by, so I went to the base Dairy Queen and drowned my sorrows in a vanilla malt.
I finally completed active duty and returned home. One day I get invited to play some sand lot football with many of my Baron buddies on a late fall afternoon in 1958. Jan also shows up to play. After the game Jan asks me if I want to come up to his house to work on some music. I accept the offer but I did inquire about Arnie. Jan says Arnie is no longer interested in the music business. I am very surprised, what was there not to like about making billions of dollars, performing on American Bandstand, rubbing elbows with Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Sam Cooke, flirting with Annette Funichello, buying a new sports car right off the showroom floor, having dinner at Dick Clarks house, having chicks scream at you, what's there not to like. I wanted to get started before Jan or Arnie changed their minds.
Months later Arnie still had not returned, but Jan and Dean were stalled. We were not able to find or write a decent song to work on. Jan suggested that we should call a couple of very talented guys that he met when he and Arnie had worked with Sam Cooke. Jan called these guys and they jumped at the chance to work with Jan and his new partner. Later that very same evening, Jan introduces me to Herb Alpert and Lou Adler. Lou's first impression of Jan and me was that neither of us were wearing shoes.
Herb and Lou said that they had some songs that they felt were just right for Jan & Dean. One of these songs was titled "Baby Talk". The four of them worked on " Baby Talk " for about a month at Jan's house. To record, Jan and I would sit at the piano and sing into one microphone while Jan played the piano. We would record sometimes ten or more versions of the same song. Jan would then pick out his favorite parts of each version and then he would painstakingly splice all these pieces together until he had a master version. Herb would write the arrangement for the rest of the instruments and then he would hand pick the musicians to play the background music track. Once in the professional recording studio, the studio musicians would put on earphones and the studio engineer would play the Jan and Dean vocal track to them through the earphones and the musicians would play along with it. The original vocal track and the new instrumental track would be blended together onto a new tape. This procedure was very unique because it was totally opposite than the way rock and roll records have, for the most part, always been made. Normally the instrumental track is recorded first. Once the musicians are done, they pack up and leave. Then its the vocalists turn. The vocalist will sing along with the recorded instrumental track and will spend as much time as it takes to complete the song. Sometimes this process takes days, maybe even weeks. A few years latter, Jan and I would record this way.
"Baby Talk" was released on the Dore record label in early summer 1959.
Jan & Dean performed "Baby Talk" on American Bandstand twice in July of 1959. It usually just took one appearance on American Bandstand to make a record a big hit and "Baby Talk" was no exception, it exploded on the national charts reaching number 10 almost overnight.
We released seven more singles and recorded our very first album, cleverly titled " Jan & Dean ", on Dore Records over the next three years.
After leaving Dore Records, Jan & Dean signed a two record deal with Gene Autry's record company, Challenge Records. It was aptly named. Our first record on our new label was a remake of the old standard "Heart and Soul". This record hit number one on KFWB "Color Radio" in Los Angeles July 8, 1961 and peaked at number 25 on the Billboard charts later that summer. We quickly recorded one more song to fulfill our contract, we knew we needed to move on.
Jan & Dean next signed with a relatively new independent record company called Liberty Records. Many of the record executives that worked at Liberty Records were a new breed of young men who were raised on Rock & Roll, we were a perfect fit on the Liberty Records roster. It took four records for the new team, company and artist and management, to finally hit our stride, but once we did, it was a awesome ride.
The fifth record on Liberty Records was another remake of a standard titled " Linda ". This song had been popular in the fifties and contrary to the rumor, it was not written about Linda Mc Cartney although there was a connection. The adult Linda that the song was written about had no interest in posing for a picture to be used for the cover of the sheet music, so a lawyer that was involved with the song suggested that his young daughter who's name was also Linda, Linda Eastman, should pose for the picture to be used on the sheet music. Her picture was the one that ended up being used on the final product. Linda Eastman went on to become Linda Mc Cartney, Paul's beautiful wife.
The single," Linda " was released in January 1963 and peaked on the Billboard charts at number 28. Because we now had our first big hit on Liberty Records, we were given company approval to do a album. About the same time Jan and I were booked to do a concert in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach High School, not far from the beach town of Hawthorne. Since Jan & Dean didn't have a live band (we used studio musicians to make all of our records), the promoter of the show had to hire a back-up band to play for us. For this one particular show, the promoter hired a local group who had just had their own hit record titled "Surfin' Safari", they called themselves The Beach Boys.
Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys met for the first time in a school room that was temporarily their dressing room. The Beach Boys had learned Jan & Dean's biggest hits but that wasn't enough music to fill out a whole show. So we picked out some rock standards to do together to fill up the one hour we were scheduled to play. The Beach Boys then went on stage to do their own opening set. The crowd went crazy, they loved their hometown boys! Then it was time for Jan & Dean. The Beach Boys played very well but better yet they sang great. Jan and I now found ourselves in a situation that we had tried to create back in 1957 with our original group The Barons. We were on stage singing with a totally bitchen vocal group, it was a awesome feeling to sing with these very talented vocalists. The set came off great, except for one thing, it wasn't long enough. The promoter wanted his hours worth and the boys were about 10 minutes short. The promoter told everybody to get back on stage and fill out the hour, we hadn't earned our 500 bucks yet.
One big problem, we hadn't rehearsed any more songs for the Jan & Dean set, we had done all the songs we knew. Mike Love suggested that they could do a couple of our biggest hits over again. Now that was the politically correct suggestion coming from the new kids on the block, but Mike was about to find out Jan and I were not your typical teen idol rock stars. Jan and I thought it would be a lot more fun to do The Beach Boys two biggest hits again, after all it had been 40 or 50 minutes since The Beach Boys had sung their own songs. The Beach Boys were surprised at this idea but took it as a compliment from the old guys. The two groups launched into "Surfin' " and "Surfin' Safari" , and the audience flipped out, the guys on stage flipped out, and a life long friendship started on that high school stage, one warm California spring evening way back in 1963.
A couple of days later Jan Berry called Brian Wilson. He reaffirmed to Brian about how magical the musical event on stage had been and that he had talked it over with Lou and me and we had decided to try our hand at making surf music if that was OK with him. Our idea was to incorporate "Surfin" and "Surfin' Safari" into our up coming "Linda" album, and we were thinking of re-titling the album, "Jan & Dean take Linda Surfing". Brian loved the idea, after all, he was the song writer and publisher of the two surf songs. He would just end up making that much more money, because his versions of those surf songs had already run their coarse, what a great deal for a young songwriter, not just the money issue but more importantly, more exposure! He not only gave Jan & Dean his blessing, but he offered to help us in the studio to record the two surf songs too as well.
About a week later, Jan, Brian, Mike, Carl, Dennis, David and I all got together at Western Recording Studios in Hollywood, California and we recorded the two surf songs and it felt like magic once again! After the recording session was over, Brian wanted to give Jan and me a preview of his next record. He belted out "Surfin' USA". We were floored, what a totally bitchen song! Jan immediately tried to talk Brian into giving the song to Jan & Dean but Brian wasn't about to give it away but he did say that he had a similar song that was only partially completed and that he would be more than happy to give that song to Jan & Dean. The title of that song was "Surf City". We loved that song too as well, so we gladly took it.
When we were ready to record the newly completed "Surf City" song, Jan called Brian and invited him to the recording studio. Once in the studio, Jan and Brian sang the lead vocal together (in studio vinacular this is called doubling). Then Brian and I sang some of the background parts plus the falsetto part that Brian had originally written. Brian then suggested that he and I sing the very same vocal part again (making four vocals) and see what that sounded like, so we did. The result was a very unique vocal sound. Because of the differences in the sound of our falsettos, Brian's falsetto was mainly midrange in tone but mine was mostly top end (treble) in tone, mixing the two different voices caused a strange but very interesting phasing harmonic. Everybody in the studio loved the final result!
Three months later "Surf City" became the first "surf song" to hit number one on the Billboard national charts and Jan and I were finally at the top level of our record making careers. We were now being featured in many mainstream publications like Life Magazine, Look Magazine, Time Magazine and even The Wall Street Journal. Jan and I were now also appearing on many mainstream TV shows too as well, we were big, really, really big!
Everyone was very happy about the successes of Jan & Dean, well except for The Beach Boys record company Capitol Records, they were irate but Murray Wilson, father of Brian, Dennis and Carl was even more irate. How could Brian give away a Number One record and especially to a competitor. Brian tried to explain to his dad that "Surf City" was a song that he was never going to complete, he had lost interest in it, it would have gone to waste. Brian also tried to make the point that he was a song writer and that song writers needed other people to sing their songs and that he was proud of the fact that another group had a Number One song that he wrote, and that this would give him, a young song writer, just that much more credibility, but his dad would hear none of it, he ordered Brian to stop working with Jan & Dean. He called Jan a record pirate.
Lou Adler, our manager, came up with the idea to write a song about a Hawaiian girl named Honolulu Lulu as a follow up to "Surf City". Glen Campbell played a very bitchen Hawaiian sounding lead guitar part on this record. Honolulu Lulu also did very well and ended up at number 10 on the Billboard national charts. This was the first time that Jan & Dean had had two top ten records in a row.
The next record was Jan & Dean's first attempt at making a "car song" record. The title of this song was "Drag City" . When it was time to record the vocals, Jan once again called Brian Wilson in hopes that Brian could ditch his dad. Brian successfully ditched his dad and joined Jan and me in the studio. Brian loved being in the studio making records, he didn't give a lick about the rest of the elements of the music business, and that included being on the road. He had quit touring with The Beach Boys so he could just concentrate on making great records. Jan and I were full time college students so we too were not on the road except on some weekends. We also enjoyed the process of making records.
Brian realized that Jan was a good teacher, and he was learning a lot about studio technology from Jan. Jan had already been in recording studios for six years and because of his high intellect he was able to grasp the technical concepts of the quickly evolving recording equipment we were using. Jan at the same time had also experimented with different studio musicians and he had finally settled on a very talented core group of players, that included two drummers, Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, who would play at the same time (extremely unique on rock & roll records) and a relatively unknown guitar player from Texas, named Glen Campbell. Jan pointed out to Brian that rather than to wait for The Beach Boys to get off the road to record, that Brian could use these studio guys instead and get his records made quicker, and that he would also save some wear and tear on the touring The Beach Boys. After all, The Beach Boy sound came from the vocals not necessarily from the instrumental background tracks. Brian immediately saw the advantages of using Jan's studio guys and the result was that his instrumental tracks from this point on sounded a lot more sophisticated. Carl Wilson would add some signature guitar parts and the tracks were done.
The single "Drag City" came out towards the end of the year of 1963, and it peaked at number 10 on the Billboard charts. This was Jan & Dean's third top ten record in a row.
Next, Jan & Dean recorded one of their best albums, "Drag City", our first pure concept album, all about cars. Jan's arrangements were extraordinary and his record production skills were now next to none. The songs ran the gamut, from the very basic to the very sophisticated. We also for the first time starting injecting humor into our records. One of these songs "Schlock Rod" is a song that was, with the help of a few beers, almost totally ad-libbed. It was originally supposed to be sung but we were to tired so we talked it, ala Alley Oop. We were also going to put some sound affects on the record but we got impatient waiting for someone to deliver the sound effects records, so we went into the studio and knocked over 50 or 60 metal chairs that had been set up for a orchestra later that evening. We had so much fun doing this record that we just kept doing it. The song ended up being almost six minutes long, which was unheard of in the early sixties. You think Bob Dylan had listened to this record?
Also included on the "Drag City" album was a song entitled "Deadman's Curve. This was called one of the most inventive rock & roll records of its time. There were 18 different vocal parts, plus the record also featured a large string section, a horn section that included French horns (not normally found on rock records), a harp and even castanets. On the other side, or flip side as it was called, was a song that was originally written by Brian Wilson and was originally titled "When Summer Comes Gonna Hustle You". Jan & Dean's record company had refused to put the record out in its original form. They were concerned about the suggestive line "gonna hustle you" . Boy, how things have changed. The song was rewritten and was now titled "New Girl in School".
This became our first two sided hit. "Deadman's Curve" hit number 8 and " The New Girl in School" hit number 27 on the national charts. Hey, but they were the same record you are probably asking yourself, how can that be possible, that one side was number 8 but the other side was number 27. It's just one of those mysteries of life. By the way, if we hadn't put such a strong song on the flip side of " Deadman's Curve",(usually the smart thing to do was to put a throw away on a flip side), " Deadman's Curve" could have been a Number One record.
Next out of the shoot was a song titled "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena". This was the idea of a old high school buddy and fellow Baron, Don Altfeld. Don's father, Horace Altfeld ran Jan & Dean's Fan Club. Jan and Don went through Pre Med at UCLA together and they were in Med School at the time when Don got the idea for the song. Don and Jan would sit in the back of a lecture room and work on the song. "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" peaked on the charts summer of 1964 at number 3. This was Jan & Dean's fifth top ten record in a row. Their seventh Gold Record.
Jan and I were approached by Columbia Pictures to write and record the title song for a movie they were producing called " Ride the Wild Surf". The producers wanted Jan and me to also be in the film. We wanted to write and record the title song but being in a corny, lame surf movie just didn't appeal to us. Our surfing buddies were already pissed off at us for exploiting surfing, and doing this bogus excuse of a surf film would get us beat up or drowned. It was rumored that Mickey "Da Cat" Dora had a contract hit out on Jan and me. This wasn't the kind of hit Jan and I were hoping to get. We did get out of being in the film (that's a whole another story) but our record of "Ride the Wild Surf" reached number 16 on the Billboard Charts.
We got our hit but what about Mickey "Da Cat" Dora. Well, he disappeared from Malibu's famed "Pit" one day and we hear that Interpol is still looking for him. Hey Mickey, if you read this, please forgive us, we only did it for the money, we really needed those new Vettes, and we promise that we never went surfing again except for a couple of times, so can we make up? Please E Mail us your reply. And oh yeah, that thing with your girlfriend, it didn't really mean anything, at least to us it didn't and besides that Mickey, well, she really wasn't right for you anyway.
By late 1964 Jan and I were hopelessly hooked on skateboards. We loved our skateboards so much we sat down to write a song about them, but we couldn't come up with a melody that knocked us out. So when we needed help who did we call, Brian Wilson of course. Brian suggested that a old song that he wrote many years back would make a perfect skateboarding song. The original title was "Catch a Wave". The song had appeared on one of their first albums but never came out as a single. Brian helped us rewrite and record the song which became " Sidewalk Surfin' ". We wanted to put a sound effect of a skateboard in the beginning of the record but nobody had recorded a skateboard yet. I was elected to skate my skateboard on the sidewalk out in front of the recording studio. Our engineer, Bones Howe ran a microphone with a very long chord out to the sidewalk. He turned on the tape recorder, and signaled me to start my run. I did a couple of perfect passes but crashed on the last one. Everybody loved the crash, so that was the take they used for the record.
For a activity that very few people knew about, the record did fairly well, it peaked out at number 25 on the Billboard charts.
Jan & Dean were the number six selling singles artists of 1964, just behind Elvis #5, The Beach Boys #4, The Four Seasons #3, The Dave Clark Five #2, and The Beatles #1. Pretty cool company wouldn't you say.
Over the next year and three months, Jan and I had eight more chart records.
This gave us a grand total of 28 chart records, 7 of them top ten.
On April 12, 1966 it all changed. William Jan Berry at the age of 25, at the top of his game, crashed his new Stingray into the back of a parked truck on a side street in Beverly Hills.
The Paramedics that arrived on the scene thought he was dead. They checked his vital signs and found he was still alive but just barely. They cut him out of the car and rushed him to the near by UCLA Hospital where he underwent numerous major brain surgeries. He was in a deep coma for weeks, the doctors were not very optimistic at all about the outcome.
THE AWESOME SEVEN YEAR RUN WAS IN THE SNAP OF THE FINGERS OVER.
Or was it. Like the fighter he is, Jan Berry beat the odds. He emerged out of the coma unable to walk or talk but he pushed himself hard and with the help of his parents, friends and the many talented doctors and therapists, he has made a remarkable recovery. He is still partially paralyzed on his right side, and he still has trouble with putting some words and thoughts together, but he is able to sing relatively well. The part of the brain where music comes from was not that badly damaged.
It has been a very long process and it did take 7 years before Jan & Dean could even attempt to sing again on stage, and another 5 years before they were ready to try a official comeback.
In 1977, eleven years after Jans accident, CBS Television made a television "Movie of the Week" based on the story of Jan & Dean, titled " Deadman's Curve". Many Jan & Dean friends were cast in the movie. These friends of ours included Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys. The movie, which did very well in the ratings, generated so much publicity for Jan and me that we started to at least consider trying to perform music again. Our old friends The Beach Boys were instrumental in talking us into finally taking the plunge. It was hard to resist the offer to travel on the plush Beach Boy charter jet, play sold out stadiums and sports arenas, be featured in People Magazine, eat free food, drink free beer, be driven to and from the jet by limos and get paid for doing it.
Jan and I had a totally bitchen time on tour with our old South Bay friends. The Surfin' Deja Vu 1978 Summer Tour brought back some very, very special fond old memories and at the same time we created a bunch of new ones. We thank our old buddies The Beach Boys for being truly great and loyal friends.
Because of The Beach Boys kind offer of letting us share their stage with them, we were able to see first hand that we still had a lot of old fans out there that still cared about us and better yet we had somehow (most probably the TV movie) picked up a bunch of new younger fans along the way. Because of these very special summer of 1978 experiences, Jan and I decided to go for it one more time, the "Gotta Take That One Last Ride Summer Tour" became a reality.
And go for it we did, we have put in another twenty years. Jan & Dean got to play The Rose Bowl (four times), Three River Stadium (three times), Mile High Stadium, Murphy Stadium, many sports arenas, hundreds of state and county fairs, lots of theme parks, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Summerfest, Hot August Nights, The Band Shell (Daytona & Honolulu), The Crazy Horse, The Golden Bear, The Palomino Club, birthday parties, corporate parties, wedding parties, political parties, frat parties,street dances, mall openings. We even played in the Peoples Republic of China, where I got to be the first to skateboard on the "Great Wall of China".
We have had a blast and we feel so totally blessed to still be performing our old time rock and roll music for all these many years.
We wish to thank our band "The Belair Bandits". We couldn't have done it without them!
current band
Gary Griffin / keyboard-vocals (1983-present)
Randell Kirsch / guitar or bass-vocals (1984-present)
David Logeman / drums (1988-present)
Don Raymond / guitar-vocals (1998-present)
super subs
Mark Ward / guitar or bass-vocals (1980-present)
Chris Farmer / bass or guitar-vocals (1983-present)
Phillip Bardowell / bass or guitar-vocals (1987-present)
John Cowsill / drums-vocals (1983-present)
Sterling Smith / keyboard-vocals (1981-present)
past band members
Papa Doo Run Run:
Don Zirilli / keyboard-vocals (1978-1981)
Jim Rush / bass-vocals (1978-1980)
Crazy Jim Shippey / drums (1978-1980)
Jim Armstrong / guitar-vocals (1978-1981)
Jeff Foskette / guitar-vocals (1988)
more past members
Danny De Hart / drums (1981)
Terry Farmer / guitar (1990-1992)
celebrity band members or vocalists
Steve Moris
John Stamos
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter
Bob Greene
Corky Carroll
Mickey Jones
Marilyn Wilson
Diane Rovell
Joe Osborn
James Burton
Howard Kaylan
Mark Volman
Doug Kershaw
Singles Discography
http://www.jananddean.com/disco.html
Jenny Lee (Jan & Arnie)
1958
8
Gas Money (Jan & Arnie)
1958
21
I Love Linda (Jan & Arnie)
1958
Baby Talk
1959
10
There's a Girl
1960
97
Clementine
1960
65
White Tennis Sneakers
1960
We go Together
1960
53
Gee
1960
81
Judy's an Angel
1961
Don't Fly Away
1961
Heart and Soul
1961
25
Wanted, One Girl
1961
104
A Sunday Kind of Lov
1962
95
Tennessee
1962
69
My Favorite Dream
1962
Frosty the Snowman
1962
Linda
1963
28
Surf City
1963
1
Honolulu Lulu
1963
10
Drag City
1963
10
Deadmans Curve
1964
8
New Girl in School
1964
37
Little Old Lady from Pasadena
1964
3
Ride the Wild Surf
1964
16
Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga
1964
77
Sidewalk Surfin'
1964
25
From all over the World
1965
56
You Really Know How
1965
27
I Found a Girl
1965
30
Universal Coward (Jan Berry)
1965
Folk City
1965
109
Batman
1966
66
Popsicle
1966
21
A Surfers Dream
1966
93
School Days
1966
Yellow Balloon
1966
111
Vegetables
1967
Only a Boy
1968
I Know My Mind
1968
In the Still of the Night
1968
Vegetables/Jenny Lee
1972
Gonna Hustle You
1972
Mother Earth (Jan Berry)
1972
You Just Know It (Jan Berry)
1973
Tinsel Town (Jan Berry)
1974
Fun City (Jan Berry)
1975
Sing Sang A Song (Jan Berry)
1975
Sidewalk Surfin'
1976
107
Little Queenie (Jan Berry)
1977
Skateboard USA (Jan Berry)
1978
CD's and Albums
http://www.jananddean.com/disco.html
] Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
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