[2] Their other charting top 10 singles were "Baby Talk" (1959),[3] "Drag City" (1963),[3] "Dead Man's Curve" (1964; inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008,[4])[2][3] and "The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena)" (1964).

[14][15] In order to enter a talent competition at University High School, Berry and Torrence helped form a doo-wop group known as "The Barons" (named after their high school's Hi-Y club, of which they were members),[16] which was composed of fellow University High students William "Chuck" Steele (lead singer), Arnold P. "Arnie" Ginsburg (born November 19, 1939; 1st tenor), Wallace S. "Wally" Yagi (born July 20, 1940; 2nd tenor),[17][18] John 'Sagi" Seligman (2nd tenor),[19] with Berry singing bass and Torrence providing falsetto.

[24] In March 1958, the fathers of Berry and Ginsburg signed contracts authorizing Lubin to produce, arrange, and manage their sons.

"[28] Distributed by Dot Records,[29] "Jennie Lee" was released in mid-April,[30] entered the charts on May 10, 1958, the same day they appeared on ABC's Dick Clark Show.

[32] In July 1958, Jan & Arnie released their second single, "Gas Money" backed with "Bonnie Lou" (Arwin 111), both written by Berry, Ginsburg, and Altfeld.

[33] Jan & Arnie were a featured act on the Summer Dance Party that toured the US East Coast, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut in July 1958.

On August 24, 1958, Jan & Arnie played in a live show hosted by Dick Clark that featured Bobby Darin, the Champs, Sheb Wooley, the Blossoms, the Six Teens, Jerry Wallace, Jack Jones, Rod McKuen and the Ernie Freeman Orchestra in front of nearly 12,000 fans at the first rock-n-roll show ever held at the Hollywood Bowl.

After graduation Ginsburg worked for several noted Los Angeles architects, among them Charles Eames,[37] and in December 1973 he was granted a U.S. patent for a table he designed.

During this time Berry co-wrote or arranged and produced songs for other artists outside of Jan and Dean, including the Angels ("I Adore Him", Top 30), the Gents, the Matadors (Sinners), Pixie (unreleased), Jill Gibson, Shelley Fabares, Deane Hawley, the Rip Chords ("Three Window Coupe", Top 30), and Johnny Crawford, among others.

Jan and Dean were college students, maintaining their studies while writing and recording music and making public appearances on the side.

Subsequent top 10 hits included "Drag City" (#10, 1964), the eerily portentous "Dead Man's Curve" (#8, 1964), and "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" (#3, 1964).

The film also featured such acts as the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Gerry & the Pacemakers, James Brown, Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Lesley Gore, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and the Beach Boys.

Also in 1964, the duo performed the title track for the Columbia Pictures film Ride the Wild Surf, starring Fabian Forte, Tab Hunter, Peter Brown, Shelley Fabares, and Barbara Eden.

The pair were also to have appeared in the film, but their roles were cut following their friendship with Barry Keenan, who had engineered the Frank Sinatra Jr.

[45] After the surfing craze, Jan and Dean scored two Top-30 hits in 1965: "You Really Know How to Hurt a Guy" got up to 27 and "I Found a Girl" got to 30—the latter from the album Folk 'n Roll.

During this period, they also began to experiment with cutting-edge comedy concepts such as the original (unreleased) Filet of Soul and Jan & Dean Meet Batman.

[46] On April 12, 1966, Berry received severe head injuries in an automobile accident on Whittier Drive, just a short distance from Dead Man's Curve in Beverly Hills, California, two years after the song had become a hit.

He was en route to a business meeting when he crashed his Corvette into a parked truck on Whittier Drive, near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard, in Beverly Hills.

Berry also had separated from his girlfriend of seven years, singer-artist Jill Gibson, later a member of the Mamas & the Papas for a short time, who also had co-written several songs with him.

Besides his studio work, Torrence became a graphic artist, starting his own company, Kittyhawk Graphics, and designing and creating album covers and logos for other musicians and recording artists, including Harry Nilsson, Steve Martin, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Michael Nesmith, Dennis Wilson, Bruce Johnston, the Beach Boys, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Linda Ronstadt, Canned Heat, the Ventures and many others.

Warner issued three singles under the name "Jan and Dean", but a 1968 Berry-produced album for Warner Bros., the psychedelic Carnival of Sound, remained unreleased until February 2010, when Rhino Records' "Handmade" label put out CD and vinyl compilations of all tracks recorded for Carnival, along with various outtakes and remixes from the project.

Torrence had recently released some Jan & Dean songs with new vocal parts by Bruce Johnston (of the Beach Boys) and producer Terry Melcher under the moniker the Legendary Masked Surfers.

Their first actual multi-song concert billed as Jan and Dean took place in 1978 in New York City at the Palladium as part of the Murray the K Brooklyn Fox Reunion Show.

The duo experienced a resurgence after Paul Morantz's "Road back from Deadman's Curve" article appeared in Rolling Stone in 1974, writing the piece after spending extensive time with the two singers, their families, doctors and associates.

Jan and Dean continued to tour on their own throughout the 1980s, the 1990s, and into the new millennium – with 1960s nostalgia providing them with a ready audience, headlining oldies shows throughout North America.

[54] On April 18, a "Celebration of Life" was held in Berry's memory at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California.

In 2012, Torrence reunited with Bruce Davison, who portrayed him in the 1978 film Deadman's Curve, to perform with the Bamboo Trading Company on their From Kitty Hawk To Surf City album.

[citation needed] In 1964, Jan and Dean were signed to host what became the first multi-act rock and roll show that was edited into a motion picture designed for wide distribution.

Using a high-resolution videotape process called Electronovision (transferred from television directly onto 35mm motion picture stock as a kinescope), new sound recording techniques and having a remarkable cast, The T.A.M.I.

[60] The Who covered Jan and Dean's "Bucket T" on their UK EP Ready Steady Who from 1966, one of only a few songs the group performed where surf-fan Keith Moon provided the lead vocals.