Jan and Dean were an American rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry and Dean Ormsby Torrence. In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles popularized by the Beach Boys.
Among their most successful songs was 1963's "Surf City", the first surf song ever to reach the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Their other charting top 10 singles were "Baby Talk", "Drag City", "Dead Man's Curve" and "The Little Old Lady". According to an obituary for Berry written by The Associated Press and also published by Billboard of their singles were certified as gold records in the US; however, there are no listings for any of their singles in the online database of the RIAA, the agency that officially certifies singles and albums in the US.
In 1972, Torrence won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover for the psychedelic rock band Pollution's first eponymous 1971 album, and was nominated three other times in the same category for albums of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 2013, Torrence's design contribution of the Surf City Allstars' In Concert CD was named a Silver Award of Distinction at the Communicator Awards competition.