Jay and the Americans

Jay and the Americans are an American vocal group who were popular in the 1960s. Their initial line-up consisted of John "Jay" Traynor, Howard "Howie" Kane, Kenny Vance, and Sandy Deanne, though their greatest success on the charts in the United States and Canada came after Traynor left and once Jay Black and Marty Sanders joined the group; Black replaced Traynor as lead singer. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.Jay and the Americans had its roots in a vocal group called The Harborlites, which was formed in 1959 in Belle Harbor, Queens by Kenneth Rosenberg (who adopted the stage name Kenny Vance), Louis Sandy Yaguda (who adopted the stage name Sandy Deanne), Sydelle Sherman, Gail Sherman, Ritchie Graff, and Linda Kahn. After a failed audition for Stan Feldman, co-owner of Ivy Records, Gail Sherman, Graff, and Kahn all left The Harborlites. The remaining three members worked on their sound, re-auditioned for Feldman, and this time won a recording contract. The Harborlites scored a minor hit with "Is that Too Much to Ask", a song written by Deanne and with lead vocal by Sydelle Sherman, but Deanne and Vance decided they wanted to start an all-male vocal group. The initial line-up of this new group consisted of Deanne, Vance, John "Jay" Traynor, and Deanne's boyhood friend Howard Kirschenbaum (who adopted the stage name Howie Kane).They auditioned for Leiber and Stoller, who gave the group its name. Specifically, Leiber and Stoller chose Binky Jones and the Americans, which the group tweaked to Jay and the Americans.The group signed with United Artists Records, with which Leiber and Stoller had a production deal. Their first single, "Tonight", became a local hit, selling 45,000 copies in the New York area. Their second single, "Dawning", initially flopped, but six months after its release a disc jockey on the West Coast played the B-side, "She Cried" (a cover of a Ted Daryll song), for six hours straight, and listeners responded. With Jay Traynor singing lead, Jay and the Americans first hit the Billboard charts in 1962 with "She Cried", which reached No. 5. The next two singles did not fare as well, and Traynor left the group. Vocalist and guitarist Martin Joe Kupersmith joined Jay and the Americans, adopting the stage name Marty Sanders. Sanders had already been playing with Jay and the Americans on tour and on their debut LP. Sanders brought his bandmate from The Empires, David Black (né Blatt), in to take Traynor's place as lead vocalist (after David first agreed to adopt the stage name Jay Black), and Black sang lead for the rest of the group's major hits.They recorded "Only in America", a song originally meant for The Drifters. It reached number 25 in Billboard, which was far short of the success of "She Cried", but a welcome return to the charts after the failure of their previous two singles. Other notable hits for Jay and the Americans were "Come a Little Bit Closer" in 1964, which hit No. 3, "Cara Mia", which peaked at No. 4, and "Let's Lock the Door (And Throw Away the Key)", which reached No. 11, in 1965. They also recorded a commercial for H.I.S. Slacks and a public service announcement for the Ad Council, featuring a backing track by Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. Two tracks from this era later found favor with the Northern Soul crowd: "Got Hung Up Along The Way" and "Living Above Your Head".

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.