Kenny Vance: I turned Mick Jagger on to makeup
Print  By Mark Voger/The Star-Ledger

on August 30, 2013 


As bragging rights in the musical world go, being in the first-ever group to open for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in America would be a biggie.



Kenny Vance (left) says he introduced Mick Jagger to stage makeup. Ever since, the Rolling Stones singer hasn't exactly been a stranger to the stuff.


Kenny Vance lays claim to the distinction, as an original member of Jay and the Americans. Vance sang on the Americans' 1960s hits "Only in America," "Come a Little Bit Closer" and "This Magic Moment." He later made a mark working on the scores for such movies as "American Hot Wax" and "Eddie and the Cruisers."

The singer is scheduled to perform with his group, the Planotones, at multi-act shows Sept. 7 in Ocean Grove and Oct. 11 in Englewood.

Vance, 69, is a Brooklyn guy who acknowledges the right-place-right-time advantage that benefited rock 'n' roll singers in 1950s New York.

"Oh, sure," he said. "We would look on the records that we had, and there would be these addresses — like 1650 Broadway, 1619 Broadway — where the record companies were. We would take the subway in and audition for the different record companies.



Vance today (foreground) and in his pop-star days in the 1960s.


"At some point, we got a deal and we made a few records. Not too long after that, we started Jay and the Americans. That was around 1960. We auditioned for (songwriters-producers) Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in the Brill Building. They signed us. We had a 12-year history of making Top 10 records."

Vance boasts another Stones-related milestone. It happened at an early show for which, as Vance recalls, disc jockey Murray the K hired the Americans to open for the Stones — at Carnegie Hall, yet.

"We're all up in the dressing room," Vance said. "It's one big room — us and the Rolling Stones. We're like these 'squares,' you know, from Brooklyn. I'm putting on makeup. So (Rolling Stones members) Mick Jagger and Brian Jones come over to me and say, with an English accent, 'What is that, mate?' And I said, 'Oh, it's makeup.'

"So they took the makeup sponge and they put makeup on themselves! It was out of context, you know what I'm saying? These guys were wearing sweat shirts, and we were all dressed with Alpaca sweaters and tight pants and doing, you know, choreography," Vance said with a laugh. "It cracks me up, thinking that that was probably the first time they ever saw a guy putting on makeup."





(It wasn't the last time Jagger wore makeup, Vance was told. "That's for sure," he came back.)

Of course, the so-called British Invasion bands unseated many of the old-school rock 'n' rollers of the time. Does Vance recall feeling threatened by the movement's forerunners, the Beatles?

"In my mind," he said, "they were imitating, you know, Larry Williams. I mean, John Lennon was Larry Williams. They were imitating the Isley Brothers, Little Richard.

"At first, I didn't feel threatened. And then," Vance added, laughing again, "as time went by, I figured I'd better get a guitar."


http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/08/mick_jagger_rolling_stones_1.h...

Never heard this before, could be true. I saw this guy once a few years ago and he wasnt wearing any make up on his rugged face. Maybe as a younger man he did.