Robert Hover
Jan Berry and Arnie Ginsburg were members of the Barons, an informal all-male club based at University High School in L.A.—the same school that Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys, ace-drummer Sandy Nelson of “Teen Beat” fame, and future producer and record label owner Phil Spector attended. One night, just for fun, the guys made tracks for the New Follies Theater at Fifth and Main in L.A. It seems that the feature of the evening was a very well-endowed stripper named Jennie “The Bazoom Girl” Lee. Jan and Arnie were extremely impressed. All the way home, they gestured and sang freely of her mammoth mammaries.
“I was the predominant writer on Jennie Lee,” Ginsburg told Time Barrier Express‘ Stuart Hersh.
“I had the melody, and I think about two-thirds of the words, before going up to Jan Berry’s house and working out the rest.” The boys were determined not to let their feelings go unexpressed. To create an echoey shower-room effect, two tape recorders were set up in Berry’s garage. “The track was actually recorded there in the garage on an old out-of-tune piano, the other parts were overdubbed in a Hollywood recording studio.” The musicians used on this record were Ernie Freeman on piano, Rene Hall on guitar and Jackie Kelso on sax. Label credit was given to the Don Ralke Orchestra. The flipside of “Jennie Lee” was another Ginsburg-Berry composition called “Gotta Getta Date.“
A couple of Jan Berry’s friends, the then-unknown duo of Lou Adler and Herb Alpert, successfully managed to get the song released on the L.A. based Arwin label, reportedly then owned by Doris Day (of all people). Everyone involved was surprised when the 45 rpm, with Arnie beating a cardboard box and singing nearly indecipherable lyrics, penetrated the Top 10.
But, according to Arnie, ” began to get disenchanted very quickly with entertainment … with the business and with the people. It didn’t seem worth it … it wasn’t enough fun. Jan was a difficult person to deal with, and the people in the industry were not very “cool.” They didn’t seem very stable, and it’s hard to be an entertainer, a really hard thing (to be an entertainer).”
Despite the tensions and Arnie’s disenchantment, the duo did manage to record enough material for two more single releases before their break-up: “Gas Money” and “Bonnie Lou” (1958), ” Love Linda” and “The Beat That Can’t Be Beat” (1958).
Subsequently, Arnie had one release issued by Arwin as by the Rituals: “Girl From Zanzibar” and “Guitarro” (1959) before leaving the music business for a career in commercial art and graphic design. Jan Berry located Dean Torrence, and with help from the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean created almost the entire cross-fertilized genre of surf and hot rod music.