Jay Black, R.I.P.

Jay Black, lead singer of the 1960's band Jay & The Americans, passed away on Friday of pneumonia. Black had also been suffering from dementia which had forced him to retire from performing in 2017. He was 82. 

Born in an Orthodox Jewish family the Borough Park section of Brooklyn as David Blatt, he cultivate his talent for singing at shul. Blatt would change his name to Jay Black when he succeeded Jay Traynor as the lead singer of The Americans in 1963. After scoring a hit in 1962 with "She Cried", the group struggled for a follow up hit and Black was brought in to replace Traynor. 

With Black as the group's front man, they would have a huge hit with the Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart and Wes Farrell composition "Come a Little Bit Closer". The following year, Jay and The Americans would have another huge hit with "Cara Mia" which had been a hit more than a decade earlier in the U.K. for David Whitfield. Jay and The Americans would have one additional hit in 1968 with "This Magic Moment", a Mort Shuman-Doc Pomus composition which had previously been a hit for The Drifters in 1960 with Ben E. King on lead vocal. 

For nearly a half century, Black performed on the oldies circuit. His career, however, was marred by a gambling addiction which eventually left him owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes to the IRS. Whatever his financial troubles, Black sang like a million bucks every time. R.I.P.