Singer, songwriter, and producer Kenny Vance had a long and varied career in music that began in the late '50s and was still going strong in the early years of the 21st century. The core of his interest in music was vocal harmony, from the doo wop groups with which he started out to his long tenure as a member of Jay & the Americans in the '60s. From the '70s on, he used his musical knowledge in a series of films while also releasing the occasional solo album. In the '90s, he returned to his original love by forming his own neo-doo wop group, Kenny Vance & the Planotones. Throughout his career, he served as a mentor to a generation of younger musicians that included Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, Peter Himmelman, and others.