Happy 74th birthday to Dean Torrence of JAN AND DEAN! The rock and roll duo charted 26 songs on the Billboard Top 100 and Cash Box magazine charts from the late 50s through the mid 60s. Jan & Dean collaborated with Brian Wilson of THE BEACH BOYS on over a dozen singles and album cuts, including their No. 1 record in 1963, Surf City (written by Wilson.) These pioneers of the surf music craze recorded three other top 10 hits, Drag City, Dead Mans Curve, and The Little Old Lady from Pasadena. A little known fact is Dean sang lead vocals on The Beach Boys hit Barbara Ann, but was not credited (at the end of the song, you can hear Carl Wilson saying, Thanks, Dean.) After his partner Jan Berry received severe head injuries in an automobile accident in June 1966 just a short distance from Dead Mans Curve in Beverly Hills (Jan was in a coma for nearly two months), Torrence majored in advertising design at USC and worked as a graphic artist. He designed and created album covers and logos for other artists, including Harry Nilsson, Steve Martin, The Beach Boys, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Linda Ronstadt, Canned Heat, The Ventures, and many others. In 1972, Torrence won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover for the first album from psychedelic rock band Pollution, and was nominated three other times in the same category for albums recorded by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 01:54:05 +0000
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