Jay Black (born David Blatt; November 2, 1938 – October 22, 2021) was an American singer whose height of fame came in the 1960s when he was the lead singer of the band

Jay and the Americans Jay and the Americans are an American rock group who formed in the late 1950s. Their initial line-up consisted of John "Jay" Traynor, Howard Kane (born Howard Kirschenbaum), Kenny Vance (born Kenneth Rosenberg) and Sandy Deanne (born Sandy Ya ...

. The band had numerous hits including "

Come a Little Bit Closer "Come a Little Bit Closer" is a song by the 1960s rock and roll band Jay and the Americans. It reached number 3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on November 21, 1964, making it the band's highest-charting single. It also peaked at number 4 on the ...

", "

Cara Mia "Cara Mia" is a popular song published in 1954 that became a UK number 1, and US number 10 hit and Gold record for English singer David Whitfield in 1954, and a number 4 hit for the American rock group Jay and the Americans in 1965. The title me ...

", and "

This Magic Moment "This Magic Moment" is a song composed by lyricist Doc Pomus and pianist Mort Shuman. It was first recorded by The Drifters, with Ben E. King singing lead. Original Drifters version It was recorded first by Ben E. King and the Drifters, at Bell ...

Biography

Black was born in

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

and grew up in the

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

neighborhood of Borough Park. In his later career, he was known for touring

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

and

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, singing, mainly solo, and preceding his singing with a

stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...

routine. Jay and his brother spoke

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

fluently. In 1966, he recorded a Yiddish song "Where Is My Village" about the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Career

Jay Black was the second, and more widely known, Jay to lead the band Jay and the Americans, the first being

Jay Traynor John "Jay" Traynor (March 30, 1943 – January 2, 2014) was an American singer. Traynor was the third lead vocalist of the Mystics, singing falsetto on "The White Cliffs of Dover", and lead on "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Blue Star". Later, ...

. Black had previously come from the

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

group The Empires, where he had sung lead on their 1962 lone

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America Sony Corporation of America (SONAM, also known as SCA), is the American arm of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group ...

single "Time and a Place" b/w "Punch Your Nose" (Epic 5-9527). He had previously used David Black as his professional name, but changed his first name to suit the band's existing name. He would later bill himself as "Jay Black and the Americans" after the original band had broken up. In 2006, Black completed bankruptcy proceedings in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, after he accrued a $500,000 debt in back taxes to the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...

as a result of his gambling addiction. The IRS initially sought to force him to sell the rights to perform as "Jay Black" as well as the trademark for "Jay and the Americans" in order to satisfy his debt to the IRS. Black did, however, win a partial victory in the case, which granted him the right to continue to use the name "Jay Black", but he was required to sell the rights to perform as "Jay and the Americans". The trademark to "Jay and the Americans" was purchased by former members of "Jay and the Americans". He lost the right to perform as "Jay Black and the Americans" and later performed as "Jay Black The Voice". In 2011 Black performed for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

showcasing his longstanding range at age 72. His final performance was in 2017.

Health issues and death

In a 2014 interview, he implied that he might have been suffering from the early stages of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, but that was not officially diagnosed. Black died from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in Queens on October 22, 2021. At the time of his death, it was confirmed that he also had

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

References

External links

Jay Black
a
Wenig-Lamonica Associates
* * 1938 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American male singers 20th-century American singers 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American male singers 21st-century American singers American male pop singers Deaths from pneumonia in New York City People with dementia Jay and the Americans members Jewish American musicians Jewish singers People from Astoria, Queens People from Borough Park, Brooklyn Singers from New York City Yiddish-language singers {{US-singer-stub