About This Blog

This blog features: neighborhood restaurants, nearby restaurants, downtown restaurants, Casa View Shopping Center, nearby shopping, Downtown shops.

I will first list places and my connections with them. For the spirit of completeness, I will then list other places, known to me but not visited. I choose not to list the unknown.

I like the section entitled Places I Wish I Had Visited.

My focus is places and locations which existed from 1953, when I moved to Dallas, until 1965, when I graduated from high school. This list will continue with my college years, until I turned 21. I left Dallas in 1969 and, as I did not return except to visit my parents until 1973, my memory of East Dallas ends at that time.

Some categories were easy to separate – restaurants and shopping. Some experiences are not so easy to categorize, but are still meaningful. They may be all lumped in together, and then teased out as other connections are made.

Music wise, we may have thought we were born of the “wrong generation.” I always thought the older generation (i.e. 3 to 4 years older than me) had a richer and deeper experience.

But we, the beginning of the Baby Boomer generation, had it best – stable family life, rising expectations for the middle class and parents who wanted to give so much to their children, which most did not have in their childhood. We were left to play and roam outdoors to make our own fun. We had the best toys and the best music.

And yet we lived in tumultuous times – the Cold War, Civil Rights, Integration and the Kennedy Assassination through the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Hopefully we came out as loving, caring, sharing adults whose experiences made us better people and gave us the ability to show appreciation and gratitude for the neighborhood and experiences which enriched us and our loved ones.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Looking for an Echo



Lead singer John Traynor was originally a member of the Mystics, but left to form his own group, The Harbor Lights or Harbor Lites in 1959.  This Brooklyn quartet also included Howard Kirshenbaum, Kenny Rosenberg and Sandy Yaguda.  They recorded two songs in 1960.

In 1962 they met up with producers / writers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller via an audition and a contract with United Artists.  They changed the name of the group to Jay (John’s nickname) and the Americans.

Jay decided to leave the group for a solo career.  He was replaced by David Blatt who was currently the singer for The Empires, and all-Jewish group from Tildon high School in Brooklyn.
Leiber and Stoller were reluctant to change their name.  David Blatt became Jay Black, Kenny Rosenberg became Kenny Vance, Howard Kirshenbaum became Howie Kane.

Kenny Vance began working with record producer Joel Born and recorded one the last doo-wop classic in 1975 “Looking for an Echo.”  His backup group included Eddie Brigati of the Rascals, David Brigati of The Hi-Five, Pete Anders of The Tradewinds, and most of The Americans, minus Jay.

Source:  American Singing Groups- A History from 1940 to Today by Jay Warner.  Hal Leonard Books, 2006.

They paid tribute to the 50s by covering songs by The Happenstance, The Passims, The Cleftones, The Platters, The Skyliners and The Impressions.  They also drew from 60s groups like The Angels, The Tymes, The Mamas and the Papas, as well as the Drifters.


They spent their entire career of 32 singles with one recording company, United Artists.
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