Jay and the Americans
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Jay and the Americans was a pop music group popular in the 1960s.
They were discovered while performing in student venues at New York University in the late 1950s. They auditioned for Lieber and Stoller and first hit the Billboard charts in 1962 with the tune "She Cried"; its highest charting was #5.
The group initially consisted of Howard Kane (né Kirschenbaum), John Traynor, Kenny Vance (né Rosenberg), and Sandy Yagoda.
John Traynor left the group after the first single, and Jay Black (né David Blatt) sang lead for the rest of the group's existence. Other notable hits for the group were "Come a Little Bit Closer" in 1964, which hit #3, and "Cara Mia" in 1965, which hit #4.
In 1968, they performed a remake of a song that The Drifters first popularized: "This Magic Moment". This was the group's last Top Ten hit and they broke up soon after. Jay Black continued performing on into the 1980s as Jay and the Americans with a variety of musicians, including Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who would later found Steely Dan.
The group reunited in the 1990s for special performances, most notably the 45 Years of Motown special on PBS.