Jan and Dean were an American rock and roll duo consisting of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence. In the early 1960’s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles popularized by the Beach Boys. Among their most successful songs was “Surf City”, which topped US record charts in 1963. Their other charting singles were “Drag City” (1963), “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” (1964), and “Dead Man’s Curve” (1964); the last of which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. (More from Wikipedia)
Brian Wilson was the bandleader and primary songwriter of the Beach Boys; writing for Allmusic, William Ruhlmann says that Brian Wilson “is arguably the greatest American composer of popular music in the rock era”. In the beginning, there were fun songs about surfing and cars and girls, as well as a (more or less) friendly rivalry with Jan & Dean that prefigured the more contentious Beatles vs. Stones debates. It is no secret that Jan Berry – a wunderkind in his own right – wasn’t happy that the Beach Boys copied the surf sounds that Jan & Dean pioneered.
(June 2013/2)
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The first time we all saw hula dancing was on Elvis Presley movies and other Hollywood productions, and it was typically winsome girls wearing grass skirts and small tops and flowered necklaces who were swaying gently to slow background music of no particular distinction. I remember hearing that there was more to hula than that, but it wasn’t until I got to appraise Hilton Hawaiian Village at Waikiki Beach (near Honolulu) that I actually saw how strong and athletic the dancing was (and how there were at least as many men dancing as women) and actually heard the drum-driven music that accompanies that dancing.
It is much the same with surf music; there is no denying the talent and fun of the music by the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean (and former UARB the Rip Chords for that matter), but there is more to the surf sound than that.
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My introduction to the tougher sounds of surf music was on one of the compilation albums of that period, Shut Downs and Hill Climbs that I picked up from Columbia Record Club when I was ordering Jan & Dean records and other such. There are two Jan & Dean songs, “Hot Stocker” and “Little Deuce Coupe”; both are on one of their better albums, Drag City, with “Little Deuce Coupe” being a previous hit by the Beach Boys (and also the name of one of their albums, Little Deuce Coupe). There are other cool numbers on the album also, such as “Six Days on the Road” by Dave Dudley, “Seven Little Girls Sittin’ in the Back Seat” by Paul Evans, two instrumentals by the Ventures (more about them later), and a cover of the Rip Chords hit “Hey Little Cobra” by a band called the T-Bones.
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Later I picked up the Pebbles, Volume 4 LP (subtitled “Summer Means Fun”). There are songs by Lloyd Thaxton, a piano-playing DJ from LA whose show ran on TV in the afternoon when I was growing up; two songs by the immortal Trashmen (the flip side to their big hit “Surfin’ Bird”, “King of the Surf”, plus “New Generation” that features a hydrogen bomb blast); “Masked Grandma” by the California Suns, an answer song to the Jan & Dean hit “Little Old Lady from Pasadena”; “California Sun ’65” by the Rivieras (a remake by this Michigan surf band of their own well-known hit, “California Sun”); “Anywhere the Girls Are” by the Fantastic Baggys (composed of P. F. Sloan, author of “Eve of Destruction” among many other songs, and Steve Barri); a version of “Hot Rod High” by the Knights; and a paean to the California capital city “Sacramento” by Gary Usher. A bonus track is a radio jingle for Coca-Cola by Jan & Dean.
The album, Pebbles, Volume 4 LP was the first time I had heard of Bruce & Terry, two LA studio whiz kids, Bruce Johnston, now a member of the Beach Boys, and Terry Melcher to be specific. (The surf scene seemed to have people like that by the carload – others include Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Jan Berry of Jan & Dean). When I looked up the Rip Chords in Wikipedia before starting my post on the UARB, I was redirected to their entry on Bruce & Terry.
Glen Campbell quickly became highly sought after as a guitarist and played for a wide variety of artists in the 1960’s; Wikipedia lists recordings by Bobby Darin, Rick Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, the Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan & Dean, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra.
(February 2015)
