Jay Traynor obit

Legendary Singer Jay Traynor Dies at 70: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Traynor was the first lead singer of Jay and the Americans.

 

He was not on the list.

Legendary singer John “Jay” Traynor has died at the age of 70 after a battle with liver cancer. His death was announced by his friend Jay Siegel via Facebook:

Jay Traynor was the first leading singer of the Jay and the Americans. Prior to this, he had been the lead singer of the Mystics. His departure from the Americans is detailed on the band’s website:

With the success of “She Cried”, Jay and the Americans were booked on a continuous string of one niters. The constant travel and the failure of the next two singles, proved too much for Traynor. He started missing rehearsals and the guys thought he wanted to go solo. He admitted he had been thinking about it and the guys said “don’t think, we’ll go on without you” (Brooklyn Attitude) Actually it was a sad day for everyone involved. John Traynor”s solo career was less than it should have been.

Much of the band’s early material was produced by the legendary duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The pair wanted Jay to become known as “Binky Jones” rather than “Jay” but eventually relented as Traynor made it clear he did not wish to be known as “Binky.”

Traynor was replaced in the Americans by “Jay Black.”

It’s alleged that the reason he was hired by The Mystics because he fit into their former lead singer’s costume. Later he was fired from the band after the group’s manager allegedly found Traynor rifling through his desk. The singer maintained he was looking for a publicity photo to pass along to a friend but was fired anyway.

He was a native of Brooklyn, New York. The Americans were discovered performing in venues around New York University during the 1950s. According to Traynor, he’d wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll singer since seeing a band perform at his high school when he was 15. Like so many stars, Traynor’s career began by singing on the Subway for nickels with another group of individuals, collectively they were known as the Ab-Tones.

He left the Americans in 1964 and began releasing solo records. His major hit as a solo artist was “Up & Over” which became a hit in the UK Northern Soul scene.

During the 1970s, he took a more “behind the scenes” role in music, working with bands such as The Who and Yes.

In his later years he became a fan of big band music and Frank Sinatra, performing Sinatra songs with Joey Thomas Big Band. He released records and toured in this vain. Traynor also toured with The Tokens in 2012.

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, he started Jay and the Americans with Kenny Vance and Sandy Yaguda, and was the original lead singer. He sang lead on the group's first hit, "She Cried", which was followed up by the album She Cried. All recordings were produced by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, who produced numerous artists and wrote many hits for Elvis Presley, the Drifters, the Coasters, and many more.