★★★★★
Wax Museum was the follow-up to the successful oldies revivalism of Jay and the Americans' previous album, Sands of Time, and was also the group's last charting album. "Walkin' in the Rain," an excellent cover of a 1964 Ronnettes hit, made the Top 20, but the album produced no further singles and didn't quite reach the album Top 100. The band later complained that they recorded only reference vocals for the album and United Artists released it before they could set down the finished tracks...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
This album offers a surprising amount of variety, mostly because three different groups of producers worked on its 12 songs. About half of Jay and the Americans shows just how well the Phil Spector-style Wall of Sound approach to pop music worked with male voices...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
This archival release -- which would have made a great last disc in a Jay & the Americans four-disc box -- should delight serious fans of the group, the first nine songs representing their sole concert release. The show in question dates from April 2, 1970 (in Passaic, NJ), the period in which the group was riding the charts once again thanks to Wax Museum and its follow-up, and includes their then-current single, "Walkin' in the Rain"...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Early-'60s rock & roll albums are a funny animal -- no one, not critics or fans, ever really knew what to make of them, mostly because they were usually so superfluous to how we knew and understood the artists involved...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Nine months before "Cherry Cherry" would launch the career of Neil Diamond as a singer, he had his first Top 20 chart record as a songwriter, "Sunday and Me," the leadoff track to Jay & the Americans' album of the same name. Continuing with the Spanish-flavored sound found on 1964's "Come a Little Bit Closer" and 1965's "Cara Mia," the light pop comes in with flamenco guitar, Jay Black's familiar voice, and bullfight trumpets...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27