Surf City Legend

The Huntington Beach Marketing and Visitors Bureau thanks Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean fame for his vision and unwavering support to market our community. The "Surf City" song on SurfCityUSA.com was recorded by his Surf City Allstar Band and generously donated to the bureau for noncommercial purposes.

Dean, a local resident and former bureau board member, was influential in convincing the Huntington Beach City Council to officially brand the community as "Surf City" back on September 16, 1991. For weeks he tirelessly championed the idea and granted media interviews. The flood of ensuing publicity solidified support for what was a unique concept at the time: branding a city. The name has been enthusiastically embraced and today more than 65 businesses in Huntington Beach include "Surf City" as part of their name, the largest concentration of Surf City businesses in the world.

To Dean, Surf City has always represented more than just a nickname. "It's a state of mind," he says when explaining his branding concept. "When we think of the song Surf City, it's a description of the California beach lifestyle and everything a seaside paradise stands for. Surfing is part of it, but it's much more than that. It's an emotional response on a very deep level, a yearning for freedom, eternal youth and sunshine... an endless summer."

Dean and his partner Jan first popularized the song in 1963 when it became the first "surf" song in history to hit number one on the Billboard charts. He helped his partner Jan Berry and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys write it. You can read all about Jan & Dean's rise to fame and fortune, including an in-depth history of their greatest hits, by surfing to their official website at www.jananddean.com.