Kenny Vance and the Planotones is an American musical group led by

Kenny Vance Kenny Vance (born Kenneth Rosenberg, December 9, 1943) is an American singer, songwriter, and music producer who was a founding member of Jay and the Americans. His career spans from the 1950s to today, with projects ranging from starting doo-wo ...

, formerly of

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 ...

Original group

Kenny Vance and the Planotones first came to be as a fictional band appearing in the 1978 film

American Hot Wax ''American Hot Wax'' is a 1978 biographical film directed by Floyd Mutrux with a screenplay by John Kaye from a story by John Kaye and Art Linson. The film tells the story of pioneering disc jockey Alan Freed, who in the 1950s helped introduce ...

. The band consisted of Kenny Vance,

Joe Esposito Joe Esposito may refer to: *Joe Esposito (author) (1938–2016), American author and publisher *Joe Esposito (singer) (born 1948), member of the Brooklyn Dreams *Joe Esposito (politician) (1872–1928), American corrupt politician *Joe Esposito (ba ...

Bruce Sudano Bruce Charles Sudano (born September 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, noted for creating songs for artists such as Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and his late wife, the Grammy Award-winning singer Donna Summer. Sudano is t ...

and Ed Hokenson. They were just a combination of Vance with the musical group

Brooklyn Dreams ''Brooklyn Dreams'' is an American comic book Limited series (comics), limited series written by J. M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Glenn Barr. It was published by the DC Comics imprint (trade name), imprint, Paradox Press in 1994 and later collec ...

. In the film they were portrayed as a very popular group with many hits and sang songs that were actually by artists like

Danny & the Juniors Danny & the Juniors are an American doo-wop and rock and roll vocal group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania originally consisting of Danny Rapp, Dave White, Frank Maffei and Joe Terranova. Formed in 1955, they are most widely recognized for thei ...

and

The Del-Vikings The Del-Vikings (also known as The Dell-Vikings) were an American doo-wop musical group that recorded several hit singles in the 1950s and continued to record and tour with various lineups in later decades. The group is notable for the hit songs ...

The Planotones

After leaving

, Vance formed Kenny Vance and the Planotones in 1992. The band currently includes Johnny Gale, Kurt "Frenchy" Yahjian, Jimmy Bense, Chip Degaard and Tony Gallino as his band and they began touring. The group plays

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 ...

songs of the 1950s and 1960s and their original material is strongly influenced by it. They have released four albums to date which include both original material and covers. In 1996 they had some success with the song "Looking For An Echo."

References

External links

Kenny Vance and The Planotones Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vance and the Planotones, Kenny Rock music groups from New York (state) Musical groups from Brooklyn United Artists Records artists