Jan Berry’s original music score, used by Wrecking Crew and Sacramento AFM studio musicians to record the original track in 1964. A cover of the Beach Boys classic from Jan & Dean’s Command Performance album (#33 Billboard; #42 Cash Box).
Transcribed by Mark A. Moore from Jan Berry’s music archive, in association with his estate. Moore is the author of Dead Man’s Curve: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Life of Jan Berry (McFarland 2021) and The Jan & Dan Record (McFarland 2016).
Fiji Printing #19. Distributed by ArrangeMe and the Hal Leonard Corporation.
Available From:
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Perfect for high school and college ensembles, or any combo interested in tackling this classic from 1964. Full Music Score and Individual Charts.
Live Performance Backing Track Arrangement:
WOODWINDS: Alto Sax; Tenor Sax; Baritone Sax.
BRASS: Trumpets 1-3; Trombones 1-3.
RHYTHM: Guitar 1; Guitar 2; Guitar 3 (Danelectro 6-String Bass); Bass (Fender); Percussion (Hand Claps, xylophone); Drums; Piano/Organ.
Vocal Arrangement:
VOCALS: Lead; Falsetto Lead; Soprano; Alto; Tenor; Bass
Publication Includes:
(1) Illustrated cover page; (2) Introductory text with commentary on the music and the musicians who performed on it; (3) Song chronology with recording session details; (4) Full music scores; (5) Individual charts for each part in the music scores; and (6) Illustrations, including images from Jan Berry’s music archive.
14 distinct chords.
52 Pages.
From the Publication:
“I GET AROUND”
Arranged and produced by Jan Berry.
Transcribed from Jan Berry’s original music scores and charts, used by Wrecking Crew[1] and Sacramento AFM[2] studio musicians to record and perform the original song.
Transcribed by Mark A. Moore, in association with Jan Berry’s estate.
THE SONG
“I Get Around,” written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, was the first #1 hit single for the Beach Boys, topping the Billboard charts for two weeks in July 1964. The song was also included on All Summer Long, the band’s sixth album for Capitol Records (#4 Billboard; #4 Cash Box).
BEACH BOYS CONCERT
The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean—purveyors of the West Coast Sound—were good friends, and friendly rivals (signed to rival record labels), and had been performing live together occasionally since 1962.
Jan Berry and Brian Wilson—the leaders of their respective acts—had forged a lucrative songwriting relationship in early 1963, which led to Jan & Dean’s #1 blockbuster “Surf City” and continued through 1964.
In August 1964, the Beach Boys performed Jan & Dean’s recent smash hit “The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena)” as part of a live show recorded at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, California. Their live recording of “Little Old Lady” (sweetened in the studio) was included on the band’s Beach Boys Concert album, released in October (reaching #1 on the Billboard album charts in December 1964).
JAN & DEAN CONCERT
On October 24, 1964, Jan & Dean headlined a concert promoted by Fred Vail at the same venue in Sacramento where the Beach Boys had recorded “Little Old Lady” two months earlier. Also on the bill were Dave Marks & the Marksmen (featuring former Beach Boys member David Marks); Glen Campbell, Terry Black, and the Fantastic Baggys (Phil Sloan and Steve Barri). Seats were sold for $2.00 in advance and $2.50 at the door.
Jan & Dean returned the favor, paying homage to their friends by adding a couple of Beach Boys songs to their set list, including “I Get Around.”
The Jan & Dean show was recorded for the duo’s Command Performance / Live in Person album, which was released in January 1965 and reached the national Top 40 (#33 Billboard; #42 Cash Box). The recording was made via mobile (remote) unit from Wally Heider Studios in Los Angeles. The engineers were Bones Howe, Lanky Linstrot, and Wally Heider. The concert was hosted by KFWB (L.A.) disc jockey Roger Christian, who was Jan’s close friend and songwriting collaborator.
NOTES ON PAPER
Arranger-producer Jan Berry’s music archive from the 1960s is one of the largest surviving collections of original music manuscripts used by Wrecking Crew studio musicians to record the original songs in Hollywood’s finest recording studios.
Beginning in 1958, Jan learned the ropes by watching and working with some of the best arrangers and producers in Hollywood—Joe Lubin, Don Ralke, Ernie Freeman, Lou Adler, Herb Alpert, and Jimmie Haskell, among others. Jan had learned to read music by taking piano and guitar lessons as a kid. He also took music theory courses as a pre-med student at UCLA[3]—concurrent with Jan & Dean’s recording sessions and live performances. He further honed his skills by studying Russell Garcia’s influential music text The Professional Arranger-Composer (originally published in 1954).
When Jan signed with Nevins-Kirshner Associates in 1961, at age 20, he began getting label credit as an arranger on Lou Adler’s productions for Jan & Dean and other artists. Jan then became the sole producer for Jan & Dean in late 1962, with the sessions for “Linda.” At the age of 21, he gained full creative control of the act.
Jan was a part-time musician—a college student and later a medical student at the California College of Medicine—who gave his music career roughly half his attention. In that light, the surviving evidence of his music arrangements—not to mention Jan & Dean’s string of hit records—is incredible.
As a staff songwriter and record producer for Nevins-Kirshner and subsequently Screen Gems-Columbia Music, Jan submitted his music arrangements through the musicians’ union—AFM Local 47 in Hollywood—and got paid for them. He was paid handsomely for his arrangements alone, in addition to income from his lucrative contracts as a writer and producer. He employed the best copyists in the union but sometimes served as his own copyist, earning yet another stream of income through the union. By the summer of 1964, he was a wealthy young man.
Jan was a skilled and talented music arranger who fully scored his arrangements and had the charts for each instrument group ready before booking studio time—including note-for-note parts for bass, bass guitar, and drums. Drum charts were essential for Jan’s sessions because he used two drummers playing in tandem, in unison. Substantial parts for brass, woodwinds, and strings were also hallmarks of his arrangements. He was efficient. Working with the best musicians in Hollywood, Jan could produce completed versions of backing tracks for three or four songs in a single three-hour recording session.
JAN’S MUSIC ARRANGEMENT FOR “I GET AROUND”
For “I Get Around,” Jan wrote an arrangement that was mostly faithful to the original while also featuring his signature “Big Band” treatment for live performances. Jan & Dean had recorded strong studio versions of previous Beach Boys hits “Surfin’,” “Surfin’ Safari,” and “Little Deuce Coupe”—their track for “Shut Down” remained unreleased—but Jan’s arrangement for “I Get Around” was used only for live performances.
BRASS & WOODWINDS
Jan wrote alternate horn arrangements for live performances because Jan & Dean did not recreate their full studio vocal sound for concerts. Their live vocals were sparse by comparison, with Jan preferring to use brass and woodwinds to cover many of the vocal harmony lines.
For “I Get Around,” he used saxophones and trombones to faithfully cover the bass and harmony lines sung on the Beach Boys recording. The trumpet section covered Brian Wilson’s soaring falsetto parts. In the descending transition leading to the solo break (“Get around, round, round, round”), and the similar two-bar transition later in the song, Jan added harmony lines not sung by the Beach Boys.
The horns also covered the staccato rhythm groove and melodic break during the verses.
The hard ending was another hallmark of Jan’s arrangements for live performances. He often wrote high notes for trumpet on the endings, as he did for “I Get Around.” When I transcribe these parts into MuseScore Studio, the software warns me that the notes in question are outside the boundaries of playability for average players—and it always brings a smile. Jan had the luxury of pushing the boundaries because he knew he was writing for the best musicians around. He never hesitated to write high notes in the “professional range” that would challenge less experienced players.
For “I Get Around”—and all other tracks on the Command Performance LP—the brass and woodwind parts were played by nine members of AFM Local 12, based in Sacramento, California. Jan hired these musicians for the gig and served as their leader.
GUITAR
The guitarists for the live Command Performance show were Wrecking Crew musician Glen Campbell and Phil Sloan, a fellow Screen Gems signee (with Jan) who would soon rise to fame as singer-songwriter P. F. Sloan.
Jan’s arrangements for studio recordings often featured three guitar parts. For this publication, Guitar 1 is a transcription of Jan’s chord chart for “I Get Around.”
Guitar 2 features double-stop eighth-note grooves, the staccato rhythm groove and melodic break during the verses, and a transcription of Carl Wilson’s guitar solo from the Beach Boys recording (including tablature). For the live Command Performance show, Glen Campbell played a variation of Carl’s solo.
Guitar 3 is the Danelectro 6-string bass. The Dano was a standard on Jan’s studio productions. It was tuned like a standard guitar (with note-for-note parts written in the treble clef) but sounded an octave lower. It generally doubled the bass line, resulting in a distinctive tic-tac sound—especially when doubling an acoustic bass. The Dano closely followed the bass line on Jan’s productions, but sometimes played additional notes to accentuate the bass parts.
The Dano was not used for Command Performance, but Jan’s Dano part for “I Get Around”—doubling the bass line—is included in this publication, for ensembles that want to achieve the bass sound Jan used on his studio productions.
BASS
One of the hallmarks of Jan’s original music scores is note-for-note bass lines that match the recordings. And the bass part stands out as one of the most interesting aspects of Jan’s arrangement for “I Get Around.”
The bassist for the live Command Performance show was Larry Knechtel, a Wrecking Crew musician whose main instruments were keyboards and bass. Larry was a surprising choice for bass, because the usual bassists on Jan’s productions were Ray Pohlman and Jimmy Bond, with occasional input from Lyle Ritz and Red Callender. It likely came down to availability for the Sacramento gig.
Jan’s studio productions often featured two basses—a Fender electric and an upright (standup) acoustic bass. They mostly played in unison, occasionally playing an octave apart with the upright bass taking the lower notes.
The guitar, bass guitar, and bass parts on the Beach Boys rhythm track for “I Get Around” (performed with Wrecking Crew assistance) were outstanding. But for Jan’s arrangement of the song, he opted not to use the bass and bass guitar lines from the Beach Boys recording. Instead, he wrote a completely new bass line that was quite busy, with several portamento (smooth) slides from one note to another.
Bear in mind that the music charts (and score) I’m transcribing from are the very same music charts that Jan put in front of each musician for the Command Performance show and recording in 1964.
When “I Get Around” kicked off, Larry Knechtel was caught off guard initially. He began by playing simple quarter notes before locking into the groove presented on the chart in front of him. And as the song progressed, he deviated but always came back, playing notes that fit throughout. He was not Jan’s usual bassist, but he made it work—a seasoned professional getting the job done and performing at a high level.
This publication features the bass line as Jan wrote it in his music score for “I Get Around,” from which a music copyist generated the bass chart used by Knechtel. The copyist labeled the bass and Dano parts as “Bass Guitar 1-2,” but they are separate. The bass part is written in the bass clef, and the Dano part is written in the treble clef.
Jan’s base line fit the song well (as heard in the audio preview).
KEYBOARDS
Jan’s studio productions always featured a keyboard player—piano, tack piano, celeste, organ, or harpsichord. Depending on the song, the keyboard part may not have stood out on its own, but it was always there, adding weight to the rhythm section. Jan’s go-to keyboardists were Leon Russell and Don Randi, with later appearances by Larry Knechtel.
No keyboardist was specified for the Command Performance recording, but Jan did write a chord chart for piano for his arrangement of “I Get Around.” Keyboards were likely not used for the live performance.
This publication features a transcription of Jan’s chord chart for “I Get Around,” which can be used for piano or organ. I have added bass notes for the staccato rhythm groove in the verses, and a right-hand part for the melodic break in the verses.
DRUMS & PERCUSSION
Beginning in March 1963, as Jan honed his signature sound as a record producer, there were always two drummers on his sessions—Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer. The best in the business. They played in tandem, in unison, on the studio recordings—an innovative, driving sound that became a major part of Jan’s productions. Hal said that he and Earl often used identical blue-sparkle drum sets. In the early 1980s, Earl Palmer told Modern Drummer magazine that the dual drumming for Jan Berry’s productions was among the accomplishments he was most proud of as a session drummer. High praise from one of Hollywood’s best musicians. Hal Blaine touted the dual drumming on Jan’s sessions as innovative, in multiple media outlets on multiple occasions over the years, and always in the context of Jan Berry and Jan & Dean (not Phil Spector).
The grooves and fills on Jan’s drum charts generally match the recordings. But if a part was labeled “Floor Tom” in the score (for example), it may or may not have been played on the floor tom on the recording. But rhythmically it was the same. The drummers would work it out and decide how best to play the fills from drum to drum.
But for the live Command Performance recording in Sacramento, Hal Blaine was the sole drummer. On Fred Vail’s concert poster promoting the event, the ensemble was billed as “‘Mr. Drums’ Hal Blaine and His Band” (Frederick Vail Productions).
The auxiliary percussion in Jan’s arrangement for “I Get Around” featured hand claps and xylophone. No percussionist was identified for the xylophone part (which can be heard on the Command Performance recording), and it may have been added as a studio augmentation. Jan’s go-to percussionists for studio work were Emil Richards (Radocchia), Julius Wechter, and Gary Coleman. Coleman also played percussion for the live shows recorded for Jan & Dean’s Filet of Soul in December 1965.
VOCALS
Having written saxophone and trombone parts to cover the Beach Boys harmonies, Jan sang the bass and lead vocal parts for “I Get Around”—analogous to Mike Love’s parts on the Beach Boys recording.
Dean Torrence sang the lead falsetto parts, doubling the trumpet lines—analogous to Brian Wilson’s falsetto parts on the Beach Boys recording.
Phil Sloan and Steve Barri added a few harmony lines that worked for the song, but it is important to remember that the authentic Beach Boys harmony lines were covered by brass and woodwinds in Jan’s arrangement.
You will also notice that Jan & Dean slightly altered the Beach Boys lyrics, and that Jan slightly altered the lead vocal melody.
After the Sacramento recording, Jan & Dean’s vocal parts were sweetened in the studio back in Los Angeles—just as the Beach Boys had done for their Concert LP earlier in the year.
In this publication, the vocal arrangement transcription includes Jan & Dean’s alternate lyrics and altered lead vocal melody. The Beach Boys harmony lines (from Jan’s brass-and-woodwind treatment) are also included for ensembles that want to tackle the full vocal arrangement on top of Jan’s Big Band backing track arrangement.
MARK A. MOORE
March 2025
Jan Berry Official Website: www.jananddean-janberry.com
Text and session data © 2025 by Mark A. Moore. All rights reserved.
“I GET AROUND” CHRONOLOGY
APRIL 15, 1964
Copyright Filing:
“I Get Around”
Words & Music by Bran Wilson
© Sea of Tunes Publishing Co.
Note: The original copyright filing listed Brian Wilson’s name only. Bandmate Mike Love’s name was added as a co-writer in the 1990s, after a successful lawsuit against Wilson.
OCTOBER 24, 1964
Live Performance:[4]
Location: Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, 1515 J St., Sacramento, California
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Musicians (AFM Local 47, Los Angeles): Hal Blaine (drums); Steve Barri (vocals); Glen Campbell (guitar); Larry Knechtel (bass); Phil Sloan (guitar and vocals).
Musicians (AFM Local 12, Sacramento): Kenneth Harvey; Paul Kingsbury; Lester Lehr; Emmett O’Sullivan; Charles Perkins; William Peron; Stanley Smith; Gary Lee Truesdail; Gilbert Woody (brass and woodwinds).
Arranger & Producer: Jan Berry
Engineers: Bones Howe, Lanky Linstrot, and Wally Heider, on location in Sacramento via mobile (remote) unit from Wally Heider Studios, Los Angeles.
JANUARY 1965
Album Release:
Command Performance: Jan & Dean / Live in Person
Featuring “I Get Around.”
Liberty LRP-3403 (Mono); LST-7403 (Stereo)
#33 Billboard; #42 Cash Box
[1] The Wrecking Crew was drummer Hal Blaine’s moniker for Hollywood’s elite studio musicians, who worked through the local musicians’ union (AFM). These professionals played on numerous hit records by various artists, and also performed on soundtracks for films and television shows.
[2] American Federation of Musicians.
[3] University of California Los Angeles.
[4] Recording session data is based on contract documentation logged by the American Federation of Musicians—AFM Local 47 in Hollywood, California; and AFM Local 12 in Sacramento, California. Additional session data is from Jan Berry’s personal archive.
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Just wanted to thank you for your continued and brilliant work in sharing Jan’s music as a singer, performer and most of all as an arranger and producer.
I live in the UK and have both of your excellent books. I have been a Jan and Dean fan since 1966 – just discovered them through bad radio static. Jan’s productions cut through – my first album was Golden Hits (Volume 2 but as Volume 1 wasn’t released here it had no number.)
Only six of their albums were released over here so I had to pay for the others to be exported here at some cost.
Jan’s work has been part of my life ever since.
Keep up the good work.