Jay & The Americans Come A Little Bit Closer. The Best Of Jay & The Americans {emi Cdp 7934482} (1990)

The definitive Jay & the Americans collection, Come a Little Bit Closer: The Best of Jay & the Americans, collects the highlights of the band's career with each of its lead singers, Jay Traynor and Jay Black. Traynor was the voice behind the group's first big hit, 1962's "She Cried," as well as singles like "Dawning," the melody of which cleverly mimics Edvard Grieg's "Morning Mood" and a laid-back version of "Tonight" from West Side Story. It's too bad that the Americans didn't wait to record that last song until Black had entered their fold. His impressive range and theatrical delivery made songs like "Only in America" sound like they were from some forgotten musical and made the band's version of "Crying" closely rival Roy Orbison's original. Along with the title track, "Come a Little Bit Closer" also features the hits "Cara Mia" – one of the best showcases for Black's vocal prowess – and "This Magic Moment," as well as sound-alike follow-ups like "Let's Lock the Door (And Throw Away the Key)," "Some Enchanted Evening," and "Sunday and Me".

Ex-boxer Screamin' Jay Hawkins' live show, full of on-stage coffins, skulls, and toilets, prefigured the extravagant concert productions of later artists like Alice Cooper and George Clinton, and Hawkins' full awareness of the visual aspect of rock music extended even to his lyrics, which were purposefully graphic and surreal. In essence, Hawkins was a one- or two-trick pony, but boy, those ponies could run. His masterpiece was "I Put a Spell on You," which he originally recorded for OKeh Records (supposedly while extremely drunk) in 1956, and while Hawkins' version was never even close to being a commercial hit, the song has been covered so many times (most notably by Nina Simone) that it has deservedly been certified as a rock and R&B classic.

The 11 performances that make up this collection were culled from The Band's Rock Of Ages (The Band In Concert) double-LP concert album, released in 1972.

There are already so many "best-of" collections of Gerry & the Pacemakers – including previous releases from EMI, Capitol, and Collectables – that this double-CD set from EMI's U.K. division probably won't seem very impressive or important. Actually, very little of the band's history is left out, at least in terms of the various facets of their music – the hits are all present, along with a brace of engaging B-sides and LP and EP tracks that greatly broaden the range of music at hand. The quartet's best-known songs are well-crafted pop/rock in a Merseybeat mode, but they had a harder side as well, and even traded in some R&B and country sounds, and those aspects are represented here in between the hits. Some listeners who like their more rocking sides, such as "Jambalaya," "Maybellene" or "Pretend," may not appreciate the presence of such string-laden pop as "Walk Hand in Hand" or "Girl on a Swing," but this is a valid representation of their sound. And the sound is optimal, to put it mildly, with lots of presence on all of the instruments.