Jay Black
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) |
Jay Black (b. David Blatt, 2 November 1938, New York) is a singer, also known as "The Voice," whose height of fame came in the 1960s when he was the lead singer of the band Jay and the Americans. The band had numerous hits including "Cara Mia", "Come a Little Bit Closer", and "This Magic Moment" [1]. Black grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the neighborhood of Boro Park. In his later career, he has become known for touring New York State and Florida singing, mainly solo, and preceding his singing with a stand-up comedy routine. Black has been widely criticized for his vulgarity during these routines, once receiving a letter from New York Governor George Pataki warning Black to keep his act clean when he performs in New York State parks. Jay and his brother speak Yiddish fluently and Jay has been known to speak to his brother on his mobile phone in Yiddish.
Jay Black also received notoriety because of his close friendship with former Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Gotti and his crew, which included his son John Gotti, Jr., would often attend Black's concert performances at Westbury Music Fair (now Capitol One Theater at Westbury) on Long Island during Gotti's heyday in the mid to late-1980s and early-1990s. He is related by marriage to one of the soldiers in the Gambino crime family. Junior Gotti would continue his father's habit of attending the Long Island concerts throughout the 1990s. The two were both high-stakes gamblers that would often spend thousands "betting the horses". Black attended the Dapper Don's racketeering trials with Peter Gotti and John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico, and also performed at John Gotti, Jr.'s wedding reception at the Helmsley in Manhattan, as well as Victoria Gotti's wedding, singing John Gotti's personal favorite "Cara Mia".
In 2006, Black completed bankruptcy proceedings in Manhattan, after he accrued a $500,000 debt in back taxes to the IRS as a result of his gambling addiction. Black did however win a legal battle involved in the case, which granted him the right to continue to use the name "Jay Black", although he can no longer perform with a band as "Jay and the Americans".
[edit] Career
Jay was the second, and more widely-known Jay to lead the band Jay and the Americans, the first being Jay Traynor. He had previously used David Black as his professional name, but changed his first name to suit the band's pre-existing name.
