Saturday, November 1, 2014

Blast from Your Past, Book 1 - Excerpt 3: Radio Rocks Jay & the Americans



Sandy Deanne w/Jay & the Americans – Excerpt #3 from Book 1, Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs: the First Five Years 1954-1959

Your Rockin’ Rochelle at BFYP-FM is stroking the clock for timely tunes. I’m tickin’ down the decade’s end with a tuneful tale from the other side of the microphone. Listen up, m’friends!
Mixing business with pleasure can be nice, but heed my advice, keep your cool, don’t be a fool, “Is That Too Much to Ask?”

Sandy Deanne
of Jay & the Americans
with bandmates Howie Kane and John Reineke (Jay #3)

BFYP trivia alert! Do you know that before Jay & the Americans, original member, Sandy Deanne, first wrote and released songs as founding member with the Harborlites in the late 1950s? And it was a friendly radio disk jockey who helped the teen trio hit the airwaves in New York City.
“Cousin Brucie and I were dating sisters,” said songwriter Sandy, in his palpable New York inflection. “I knew he was a DJ and he knew I had a band.” But until their record “Is That Too Much to Ask” was released in 1959, conversations were a fleeting “hi” in chance meetings at the sisters’ home.
“When the record came out,” Sandy continued, “Cousin Brucie stepped up to the plate. He really liked it, I guess, ‘cause he played it a lot. It was a turntable hit for us and got us started.”