Epitaph

Still Making Music . . .

an Berry passed away on March 26, 2004. Until the end, Jan kept a deep interest in writing new music.

He had recently reconnected, creatively, with old friends and collaborators Jim Pewter and Alan Wolfson.

Ever since Jenny McCarthy's infamous "shout-out" for Jan at the 2002 American Music Awards, Jan had toyed with the idea of writing a song about Jenny.

During his on-camera interview at Peter Jones Productions in 2002, Jan pulled out his charts, went through some chord progressions on his keyboard, and debuted a few tentative lines of a working composition:

I love to hold you tight
I know you almost cried
I pray you feel it too
Wah-ooh-wah, I love you

Jan always had something going, creatively -- and he still enjoyed writing the parts out by hand.
Forty-five years after "Jennie Lee" first cracked the Top Ten on the national record charts, Jan & Dean still took the stage together a few times each year.

And audiences still loved to see them.

Their final performance together was in El Cajon, California, on March 6, 2004.

Throughout the many trials and tribulations of his eventful life, music remained the one constant in Jan's life. It's was in his blood.

For Jan Berry, the Second Wave had been the longest . . . and in many ways, the most satisfying.