Of all the 'might have beens,' think of Jan Berry

The summer of 1966 was one of the most idyllic times in my life.

It was the summer before my senior year in high school. I was 16, and I spent part of the summer as a camp counselor. It wasn't a paying job, but I had a great time. I played a lot of baseball with my friends and I listened to a lot of music.

My favorite song that summer was sort of a novelty, the last hit from Jan and Dean. I don't remember if I had heard about it or not, but Jan Berry had been in a horrific accident on April 12th when his Sting Ray rammed into the back of a parked truck. He was in a coma for several months, and may have still been comatose in mid-June when the group's last hit record made the charts.

"My phys ed teacher's got me working too hard ..."

Jan Berry

Jan had movie-star good looks and a lot of ability as singer, songwriter and producer. Some of the most memorable songs to come out of the California scene in the '60s were his and Dean's -- "Surf City," "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena," "Ride the Wild Surf" and "Dead Man's Curve" among them.

But what they were, first and foremost, was clown princes of the surf scene. There was their anthem to skateboarding, "Sidewalk Surfing," with its chorus of "bust your buns, bust your buns now." Then there was "One Piece Topless Bathing Suit" about the French sensation, but of course the woman wearing it was the 94-year-old granny from "Little Old Lady."

Then there was "Popsicle."



And that was it. Jan and Dean never had another hit record. They reached the charts 14 times between 1959 and 1966, and they had a national No. 1 hit in 1963 with "Surf City," whose line "two girls for every boy" painted a wonderful picture.

Only it wasn't over. Jan never fully recovered from the brain injuries he had been lucky to survive in 1966. He had to learn to walk again and he had to learn to talk (and sing) again. But he returned to music as a producer in 1973, and by 1979 he was touring with partner Dean Torrence on summer oldies tours.

It wasn't easy. Jan's brain injuries damaged his memory to the point where he had to relearn the lyrics to his songs every day to be able to perform them at night.

Writer Bob Greene toured with Jan and Dean numerous times in those later years, and his book "When We Get to Surf City" gave us a backstage look at the last 15 years they performed together. Greene is a writer people seem either to love or hate, but he is on the top of his game here.

What appeals to Greene so much -- what he makes so appealing to readers -- is the idea that growing up doesn't necessarily mean you have to give up all the things you loved when you were young.

Mick Jagger may have said when he was young that he didn't see himself singing "Satisfaction" when he was 50, but he's 70 now and still performing with the Rolling Stones. Paul McCartney is 71, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys will be 73 in March.

No, rock 'n' roll will never die.

Concert footage exists on YouTube of Jan and Dean performances from the '80s and '90s, and there is a certain poignancy to watching Jan try so hard to be what he was. His voice is flatter and you can hear him working so hard to enunciate words.

In a show from the late '90s, Jan's face is puffier and he performs while sitting. But he still seems to be enjoying himself.



One thing that meant a lot to him was that he put together an album of his own and got it released in 1997. "Second Wave"  is a mixture of new songs and reworking of some old ones, and while it wasn't a big hit -- or even a hit at all -- showing that he could still function as singer, arranger and producer was definitely a victory.

Jan was performing to the end, and in March 2004 he had a seizure and died at the age of 62.

But it's important to remember that he wasn't just some plucky survivor who provided an inspirational story about battling long odds and winning. In April 1966, before he got into his car and had the accident, Jan Berry was on top of the world.

He and Dean were negotiating for a weekly television show as well as a movie, and they were making hit after hit. Jan had even more to look forward to; he was completing his second year of medical school. When he finished and earned his M.D., he has going to leave the music business and be a surgeon.

But he could sing and he was a star. Instead of leaving you with the image of an older Jan Berry, here he is from 1963, performing the group's biggest hit.

Yeah, he definitely had something.