Phase One, as Dean Torrence puts it, of Jan & Dean's California saga ended 13 years ago when
Jan Berry slammed his brand new Corvette Sting Ray into the rear of a parked truck.The fiberglass
body shattered, and Berry spent the next six years in a coma.
Phase Two began last August, when Jan & Dean rejoined their old teenage buddies, the Beach Boys, on
tour, coming out in the middle of the show to sing two oldies they had added harmonies to in the early
'60s: "Babara Ann" and "Fun, Fun, Fun."
"The question," says Torrence, who is 39 now, sitting in his hotel room in a bathing suit and running his
fingers through his sun-bleached hair, "is what you consider an oldie. Our audiences today are under 20,
so when 'Surf City' was a hit, they were barely walking. These songs don't sound old to them."
Jan & Dean are back on the road. They're in Washington specifically for two reasons: three sold-out
nights at the Cellar Door, and a performance for the President's Committee to Hire the Handicapped.
In their prime, Jane & Dean were probably the truest exponents of the surf-sun-girls-parties California
beach sound, even more than the now better-known Beach Boys. They had 10 gold records ("Little Old
Lady From Pasadena," "Dead Man's Curve"), a more fanatical following than the Beach Boys, and were
themselves caught up in the myth they were singing about.
"I suppose you could say we believed in it," says Dean. "Jan realyy was into cars, and I guess I loved the
Southern California image. But everyone loved it. Our biggest following was in the South and the
Midwest. I used to find better surfing clothes in Atlanta than in LA. It wa just a symbol of escapism, I
guess. You think of the Rose Bowl, and all these people are bundled up in Michigan watching television,
and the sky is blue and people have short-sleeved shirts on and they think, 'California, that must be
paradise. There's snow on the ground here.'
"And cars. They're just part of the culture. You really can't get anywhere without them in Southern
California. Gas could be $10 a gallon, and there'd still be lines."
All this car talk perks up Berry, who still upon occasion has some diffeiculty following conversations.
"I was driving in my Sting Ray late one night," he says, reciting the lyrics to 'Dead Man's Curve,' "When
the XKE pulled up on the right."
He stops and smiles, saying, "In my mind I have to learn to handle the whole story, the accident thing."
Torrence smiles as Berry gets up to walk to his room.
"Sometimes," says Torrence, "I think that Jan just has no concept of time anymore - and then I
remember the old days, and we were supposed to catch the last plane out of a town, and I'd be running
and he was still in the bathtub.
"He's getting there. I let him drive me to our first date at the Roxy in LA. Some things dont't change.
He's still a crazy driver."
From 1986
Los Angeles Times
November 27, 1986, Thursday, Home Edition
SECTION: View; Part 5B; Page 1; Column 2; View Desk
LENGTH: 1592 words
POP SINGER HITS RIGHT NOTES WITH HEAD TRAUMA CENTER
By MIKE WYMA
The thick, shiny chain around Jan Berry's neck is gold, just the sort of adornment one might expect
for a surf-music pioneer who is riding a wave of revived concert popularity. The tinny-looking bracelet
on his left wrist, however, is something different -- a Medic Alert band that lists the medicine Berry
should be given if he suffers a seizure.
The creative force in the early 1960s hit-making duo Jan and Dean, Berry suffered serious brain injuries
one morning in 1966 when he lost control of his speeding Corvette and slammed into the back of a
parked truck. The accident happened just off Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, about a mile from the
spot the pair sang about in one of their biggest hits, "Deadman's Curve."
Learning How to Walk Again
The road back has been a long one for Berry, now 45. In the first years of recovery he had to relearn
speaking and walking. His conversation remains halting at times, he limps and his right arm and hand are
partially paralyzed. He has no vision out of the left side of each eye. Before Jan could return to
performing, he spent hours relearning words to songs he had written.
"At concerts I hit the lines pretty good," he said in an interview at the Jan Berry Center for the Brain
Injured, which is expected to open in January. "I miss a line now and then, but it's OK."
The center in Downey is an outgrowth of Berry's many trips to doctors and therapists at nearby Rancho
Los Amigos Hospital. While there, he began visiting other head-injury victims and did two benefit
performances for projects run by Disabilities Unlimited Inc., a private company that administers
government-funded rehabilitation programs. When company officials landed state and federal grants to
open a vocational center, they asked Berry to play a part.
"Most brain-injured people are like Jan," said Brian Sullivan, coordinator of the Jan Berry Center.
"Before their injuries they were living productive lives, working or going to school. What we want is to
find something that interests them, then find something they can do in that field. Someone who was
working on a 3.5 average at UCLA before he was injured isn't going to be too excited about playing
with blocks."
Sullivan, 24, said six to eight students will use computers, video equipment and dance therapy to treat
such complications of brain injury as aphasia, a loss in ability to use words. The center, across the street
from Rancho Los Amigos Hospital, is assured of $225,000 annually for two years, officials said, with
most of the money coming from the federal Department of Education. Students will attend free of
charge.
According to Sullivan and other members of the center's staff, Berry's recovery was slowed by the
absence of good rehabilitation techniques. They, along with Berry's family and his singing partner, Dean
Torrence, agree that a strong desire to perform again is what helped him most.
"I was a baby," Berry said of the first years after the accident. As he spoke, his eyebrows remained
lifted in the manner of someone straining to find the right word. "But I've always loved rock 'n' roll. So I
was practicing with the lyrics."
He also was staying in touch with Torrence.
"Jan called every week, wanting to perform again," said Torrence, 46. "I encouraged him, but in the
back of my mind I'd say, 'It's never going to happen.' He was in too bad a shape."
Torrence readily concedes that Berry was the driving force behind the duo's success, which began with
"Baby Talk" in 1959 and included the other Top-10 hits "Surf City" and "Honolulu Lulu" in 1963 and
"Deadman's Curve" and "Little Old Lady From Pasadena" in 1964.
"Sometimes Jan did 80% of it and sometimes 60," Torrence said of the writing and arranging of their
music, "but he never did less than 60%. He was a real technician and he was definitely the ambitious one
of the bunch."
After Berry's injury, Torrence, a USC advertising design graduate, started a graphics business that he
ran from the middle 1960s to the late 1970s. He explained why, by 1978, he was ready to try a pop
music comeback.
"I was making a fairly good living, but 30% of my billing just disappeared," he said. "People didn't pay.
Also, most of my stuff was music related, and in the '70s record companies were going through tight
budgets. There wasn't enough money to do work the way I wanted to do it."
By now the ever-impatient Berry had stopped waiting and gone on the road with other partners, billing
the act as Jan and Dean. Torrence, meanwhile, worked as a consultant on the 1978 television movie
"Deadman's Curve" and performed a few times with a San Jose surf revival band.
"I felt the first little ripple of what's going on now," he said, referring to the oldies craze. "I didn't want to
play for just the over-30 crowd, but I found out that teen-agers were coming out for the music. In 1978
Jan and I toured with the Beach Boys to test the waters. It went OK, and in '79 we became Jan and
Dean again. That went along fine until he got on drugs."
Fake Drug Bust
Berry talks openly about his cocaine habit, which led to the pair's breakup in 1981. At one point, while
on tour in Las Vegas, Torrence staged a fake drug bust, arranging for men impersonating police officers
to handcuff Berry. The ruse did not end Berry's drug usage. What helped, however, was Torrence's
decision to tour with Beach Boy Mike Love until Berry cleaned up. After 18 months apart, the two
reunited and have been working steadily since. Dates this year included Expo '86 in Vancouver and the
Alaska State Fair. They leave for a China tour Sunday.
Like many brain-injured persons, Berry has had to overcome regret. He said he still "feels guilty" for the
accident, which took place right after his unsuccessful appeal of a draft notice at a Selective Service
office. Berry admits he was driving too fast. Although he was alone in the car and no one else was hurt,
a story that three persons were killed found its way into "Rock On, the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock
'n' Roll" and continues to be repeated.
Berry also has found his ambitions frequently stymied. After several failed attempts to be on his own, he
lives with his parents in their Bel-Air home.
"He would move into an apartment with someone, and the visitors would walk off with his records and
other belongings," said Berry's father, 76-year-old William Berry. Jan Berry shrugged in agreement and
held up his hands as if to say, "There was nothing I could do."
The singer has had to give up his dream that one day the partial paralysis on his right side will lift.
"Nowadays it's just forget the body and go on," Jan said, "but 10 years ago it was, 'Oh God, how can I
make it better?' I'd get in bed and put two pillows over my head.' "
The senior Berry is Jan's legal guardian and watches over his welfare. On tour, Torrence serves as
unofficial guardian. The two men have different life styles and some
ill feeling exists between them.
"From the time of the accident until 1981, when it got lucrative, Torrence was very scarce," William
Berry said bitterly.
"In a way that's true," Torrence responded. "I encouraged Jan, but we didn't see each other very much.
I'm not kidding, I worked six days a week for 12 years. So Jan was pretty much on his own. I couldn't
give the kind of professional help he needed."
Torrence believes that Berry's parents "do too much" in the way of caring for their son.
"I force him to think. On the road we always make him carry something -- not as much as the other
band members, but something. You have to, or he'll use his disability to get away with murder. If you're
playing blackjack and you've got 16 and the dealer shows a 10 and you ask Jan what to do, he'll say
right off, 'You gotta figure the dealer's got 20, so you hit.' But ask him where he put his airplane ticket
and all of a sudden it's, 'Gee, ah, I dunno.' "
Torrence said he and Berry often talk on the phone when not touring, but that they don't spend much
time together.
'Lives of Our Own'
"Off the road we have lives of our own," he explained. "Jan has to have other sources of his enjoyment.
We're hoping the Jan Berry Center will be part of that."
Ask whether Torrence is too hard on him, Berry smiles and replies, "We have to fight sometimes to
survive." He said he is looking forward to taking part in the activities of his namesake center because he
has enjoyed his hospital visits to people with brain injuries.
"We go down the hallway where the beds are with the sick and say, 'How are you?' We say, 'It's not
that bad; you may have serious problems, but you can survive and be happy-go-lucky once in a while.' "
The extent of recovery for brain-injured persons varies widely. Gary Holzman, 62, of Sherman Oaks
helped found the California Head Injury Rehabilitation Center Inc., a residential center, after his son was
hurt in a 1979 motorcycle accident. Holzman said he hopes the Jan Berry Center succeeds in getting its
students working again.
"It's very difficult, though," he cautioned. "They don't turn into very good employees. They're out there
with people who aren't handicapped, and all of a sudden they say something dumb, or they forget
something important. Even if they function at a very high level, they continue to have setbacks."
Berry has had enough setbacks to agree that they are inevitable. He relies on Torrence to cover for him
in concerts when he drops a word. He can trust his memory enough to sing lead on only a few songs.
But he is glad to be working again.
From 1999 (interview with Dean)
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
July 23, 1999 Friday MORNING EDITION
SECTION: ACCENT; Pg. E01
LENGTH: 2426 words
HEADLINE: ...and DEAN;
PROFILE: Dean Torrence has made legendary surf music with Jan Berry for 42 years. Talk about
complicated.
AMY WILSON, The Orange County Register
He looks like you want him to. Which is mighty presumptuous, but
there it is.
He's blond. He's tall. He smiles good. You know, like he means
it, like he's having a good time. Like having a good time is easy.
And you'd swear the jeans are the same size as they were in 1963
when he first sang about the mythical "Surf City" or when, more
than two years later, he was the uncredited high-harmony guy on
"Barbara Ann. "
If you had girl teen fantasies in 1963, he was it. If you
imagined him at 59, this is what you wanted him to look like, only
richer.
You ask him about the best time in his whole life and he starts
telling you about how, just recently, he took his little girls down
to Balboa to see where his family used to rent a beach house every
summer and how he can still smell the weird electric-and-oil scent
of the bumper cars on the pleasure pier.
You've asked about his whole life. And he doesn't bring up Dick
Clark or screaming fans or a Grammy Award.
He alludes to a smell and he's not at all big on sentiment. The
Balboa story, then, is vivid image. You have to do the work on what
it means.
Which, you sense, is OK with Dean Torrence, one-time teen idol,
California dream.
Actually, there is nothing enigmatic here. Or contrived. Or
false.
He lives in the official "Surf City" now, since he helped get
his adopted hometown of Huntington Beach to take on the moniker. He
laughs that inflation has hit the whole concept, though, as now it
is no longer "two girls for every boy" but three.
They are named Susan, Katie and Jillian. His wife and two
daughters are what matter now. He's just traded in his $ 40,000
Porsche for a Honda Odyssey minivan. (The Porsche was in the garage
and made a great laundry shelf, his wife says.) He has built a koi
pond. Has a dog named Biscuit. Lives three miles from the ocean he
has enshrined. Spent Friday morning looking for his underwear,
which his gigging little girls had stuck in the freezer.
His name is in the Surfing Hall of Fame. He has surfed 30, maybe
40, times in his life.
His name is recorded in Hollywood's Guitar Center Hall of Fame.
His band members prefer it when he doesn't actually play.
His 9-year-old daughter can read music better than he can, his
wife says _ "and that's not saying that much. "
For the record, 9-year-old Katie Torrence likes the xylophone.
And her 5-year-old sister, Jillian, likes snakes and a nice man
named Jan.
Her daddy, remember, is named Dean.
And for a long time before she was born and ever since, they
have been Jan & Dean.
Explaining what that has meant to Dean _ and maybe to the rest
of us _ will take some time.
Jan Berry and Dean Torrence met in 1957 while both were at
University High School in West Los Angeles. Jan was this incredibly
driven, amazingly bright, musically talented wild son of well-to-do
parents. IQ: 180. Drop-dead gorgeous. Dean was this laid-back,
easygoing, long-legged kid with a cool voice from a middle-class
family, and whose football locker just happened to be near Jan's.
They sang do-wop in the showers. Pretty soon, along with a few
buddies, they recorded "Jennie Lee," a tune about a stripper, using
two tape machines and all the acoustic sophistication Jan's garage
could muster.
The song got marketed, somehow, while Dean was away doing Army
Reserves duty for six months. Dean heard it on the radio, billed as
a new release from "Jan and Arnie. " Arnie was one of the original
buddies, but, come to find out, he's had no chemistry with Jan. So
when Dean returned from Fort Ord in 1959, it was back to Jan & Dean.
They found young producers Lou Adler and Herb Alpert. They
performed at the Michigan State Fair with Frankie Avalon in
September. In October, they were invited to do "American Bandstand"
for the first time. Their songs _ like "There's A Girl" and "We Go
Together" _ started to chart.
In their off-hours, they had enough sense to go to college.
In 1962, Jan & Dean met and started a collaboration with the
Beach Boys. Brian Wilson, by all accounts, including Wilson's,
learned a lot about producing from Jan. Jan learned about harmony
and the things that make great music great music from Wilson.
Wilson and Jan co-wrote "Surf City" in 1963. Jan & Dean topped the
charts with the quintessential tune about all things young and
Californian shortly thereafter.
Eleven more songs _ among them "The Little Old Lady (from
Pasadena)," "Deadman's Curve" and "Ride the Wild Surf" _ made it
into the Top 40 in the next three years. The bona fide teen idols
hosted the TAMI show, they covered some Beach Boys songs, they
talked about a TV series, they made a movie deal.
Then, on April 12, 1966, Jan took the turn at Sunset and
Whittier boulevards at 90 mph and slammed into a parked gardener's
truck. He was so badly hurt that he was pronounced dead at the
scene.
Dean says he is lucky not to have been in the car _ "where I
normally sat, it was gone. "
Whatever they had was over. Jan was in a coma, his brain
damaged, his right arm and leg paralyzed, his speech halted, with
everything to be relearned.
In 1966, Jan had been in medical school at UCLA. Dean, in
graduate school at USC, was studying design and architecture.
"I had spent five years," Dean says, "working to have a fallback
position. "
And so, he fell back.
The commitment to school looks smart, in retrospect. But it was
smart at the time, too, Dean explains.
"It kept us objective five days a week. Because those who wanted
to eat you up couldn't reach you and those who wanted to burn you
out couldn't find you. "
Still, Dean says now, "We had a remarkable seven-year run. I
never felt cheated. "
They had been friends as well as partners. In fact, at the time
of Jan's accident, the two were sharing a house.
Close as brothers?
"We were brothers in sugar," Dean says. "Every morning, we'd
stop the Helms (Bakery) truck and get jelly doughnuts before we
went to school. "
After the accident, that closeness could not be sustained. Jan's brain damage was _ and is _ significant.
(Every weekend still, in
airplanes and hotel rooms, Jan sits with his Walkman, relearning
again the words to the songs he wrote 40 years ago and has
performed countless times.)
Dean tried a few musical ventures in late 1966 and 1967, to keep
the act alive. He'd promise Jan they'd perform again but never
believed it was possible.
But what Jan had to do, Dean could not do for him.
Dean started a graphics business and, for 13 years, designed
album covers for groups such as the Turtles and The Nitty Gritty
Dirt Band. He won a Grammy in 1972 for designing the cover for the
band Pollution. It featured a baby chick wearing a gas mask.
In 1978, after a TV movie recounted their lives, the Beach Boys
asked Jan & Dean if they'd like to open for them at Pittsburgh's
Three Rivers Stadium. They agreed to try.
Twenty years later, and a few bumps along the way (Dean fired
Jan at one point because of Jan's cocaine habit), the act is still
together. Jan and Dean, as longtime friends, are not.
"We have nothing in common," says Dean, with little emotion.
There is a past, of course, but Jan does not remember it. There
is the act as well, but Dean believes it cannot last much longer
because of Jan's failing health.
Audiences are surprised, at first, by Jan's appearance on stage.
Truth be told, if it has been a few weeks since Dean has seen Jan,
so is he.
The familiar, almost requisite, songs are always sung in the
same order, to help Jan remember. It has been that way for 20 years.
So is this all, you know, OK with Dean?
"If I were an audience, I'd get tired of it. I do think we've
gone a couple of years longer than is really comfortable. "
Still, his basic philosophy of life has served him well. That
is, "I've been OK with what life's presented me, almost to a fault.
I'm interested in anything and everything. I take what's presented
as far as I can. "
He's ready for what's next. He's got an ongoing consulting
project with a real estate development. He's writing a book.
There's a movie project working, and he's pondering putting his two
storage bins full of memorabilia into a "has-been surfer's pawn
shop. "
And there's still 40 to 50 shows a year, doing what he knows
best, making $ 15,000 an hour.
You have to ask, is it any fun?
"I am not doing it for my own pleasure. But there are moments
when it's really kind of neat. When everything's right. The buyer
is happy and the sound system is working and the promotion has been
done. And the audience is into it. Then there are times when you
are looking at your watch and figuring you'll be done in an hour. "
In the old days, there were groupies.
"Lucky for us, all they wanted to do was scream," says Dean,
smiling that smile again.
His Grammy sits on the back of his toilet.
His shirt is still untucked and, standing by the mural at the
International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach, he touches the
thigh of the painted surfer girl. Then he moves his hand farther up
the thigh.
Bob Greene, the nationally syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist
who recently traveled with the band, says he first heard "Surf
City" while backing his dad's Thunderbird out of his driveway with
his best pal, Dave Frash, at his side, on their way to a tennis
tournament in his small town of Bexley, Ohio. Greene had just
turned 16.
Greene heard the words "two girls for every boy" and said to
himself and to his pal, "Here's the song for this summer. "
He says Dean doesn't understand that making 50-year-old people
feel 16 again is "a pretty good gift to give to the world. "
Howard Kramer, associate curator of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
in Cleveland, says that is not the only legacy of Jan & Dean.
"They were basically responsible for the very first shift in the
public consciousness toward the California dream. Their songs,
their images, their illusions made everybody want to be young and
in California on the beach driving your Woody, hanging with your
hodad, whatever that means. "
Beyond that, Kramer says , the duo gave Brian Wilson an early
opportunity to work outside of his father's reach and outside of
the Beach Boys.
That counts big if you follow the history of American music.
While reiterating his belief that Jan & Dean were way more than
few-hit wonders, "there is a question," Kramer says, "of how they
would have fared with the encroaching Summer of Love (in 1967).
Their music was not of social importance. It was not substantive. "
By the time of Jan's accident, music was changing. The Beatles
had come to America; the L.A. scene was gaining steam; Dylan was
out there.
Dean wonders as well about the potential survivability of the
duo. But see, they had every intention of surviving. He and Jan had
a TV series in the works, something very "Monkees," a little
"Saturday Night Live. " They were smart college kids, remember, and
not oblivious.
Then again, Dean says, maybe they'd have tanked.
"Without Jan's crash, you kind of wonder if we'd have known when
it was over. "
He waited until he was 42 to marry. His oldest child is not yet
10.
"I wonder why it took so long sometimes, but in retrospect,
fatherhood and all that, it was right on time. "
So it's good being Dean?
"It is absolutely bitchin', " he says, smiling.
For a time, when he was young, he was surprised to find himself
where he was. Then, for a bit, he took it for granted.
Occasionally, he is surprised again.
"I do stop sometimes and think, 'This is pretty darn great. ' "
He will say this to himself, "well, like a few weeks ago, we
were in Missoula, Mont., and some guys were buying me a beer and I
thought about it. "
Torrence thinks he has the best kind of fame. He makes
quasi-celebrity money, if not "big celebrity" money. He is rarely
recognized, which is good because it embarrasses him. If people do
recognize him and hassle him, he denies their recognition or _ at
the least _ doesn't help them.
He talks about this stuff with his friends. You know, like Tom
Hanks, who clearly has a harder time carving out a normal life but
manages.
Dean manages fine, too. His home is not on a gated street. There
is nothing extravagant about it. To get to his upstairs home
office, he must pass through a large playroom, dodge a few My
Little Ponies and ignore whatever is going on in the Barbie mansion
on the right.
"The great thing," says his wife, Susan, "is that the girls can
walk in and say, 'Daddy, take me to the snake store. ' And he does.
He's a wonderful father. "
These days, he is also busy restoring his vintage Hollywood home
that recently burned and being the detail man for the act. In that
capacity, he arranges everything, including making sure that Jan
knows when to get to the airport and where to sleep at the hotel.
On the road, he is his partner's keeper.
He is also the one, he says, who makes sure that the people who
have employed Jan & Dean are happy with Jan & Dean. He is the one
who wants the audience to get what they came for.
Or think they got.
Three weeks ago, he and Jan played to a couple of thousand
people at a cowboy theme park in Tucson. Great reception. Usual
feel-good crowd. Nice gig.
The next day, at the airport waiting to come home, with his
guitar over his shoulder, he caught sight of gentleman in his 70s
staring at him.
Finally, the man spoke up.
"You played last night, didn't you? " the man said.
"Yes, I did," replied Dean, pleased yet surprised that this
older man might be a fan.
"That was wonderful," the man said.
"Thank you," said Dean, sincerely moved.
Obviously anxious to keep the conversation going, the man
continued. "Sure was a pretty wedding. "
Dean, nonplused by the misidentification, laughed. "Sure was. "
The man nudged Dean and complimented him on that one great song,
that naughty "Makin' Whoopee. ' "
Dean winked. He has never in his life sung "Makin' Whoopee. "
"Well, sir," he said to the nice man, "that's why we play it. "
