When Kenny Vance looks back at the golden era of Doo-Wop, a sound born on the street corners of New York’s Black and Latino neighborhoods, he sees more than just nostalgia. He sees a debt that has yet to be paid.
“Did those original architects of the sound ever get the credit or compensation they truly deserved?” Vance asked on Tuesday. “No. Not even close.”
Vance, a founding member of Jay and the Americans and the former musical director for Saturday Night Live, was in Stony Brook on Feb. 10 to receive the inaugural Music Documentary Film Festival Legacy Award from the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. The award recognizes his 20-year labor of love, the documentary Heart and Soul: A Love Story, which chronicles the origins of Doo-Wop and the often-overlooked artists who created it.
For Vance, the film is a testament to survival in more ways than one. Much of the precious footage he collected over decades was nearly lost when Superstorm Sandy devastated his home. Miraculously, while the house was destroyed, the tapes survived the floodwaters. It was a twist of fate that parallels the music itself, which has endured despite an industry that often treated its creators as disposable.
“It’s a miracle,” Vance said. “I’m glad to have finished this and to put it out in the world. This film reminds people that this was the crime of the century. These people were my heroes, and I got a chance to honor them.”
Vance describes the genre not just as pop music, but as a unique “hybrid” created when teenage vocal groups were backed by older Black jazz musicians in the studio. He explained that the musicians on those records were African American men born around 1900 who brought a specific “feel” to the tracks. When combined with the teenage vocals, it created a sound that sold millions of copies worldwide.
Despite the global success, many of the original artists saw little of the wealth. Vance notes that groups who played prestigious venues like the London Palladium would return home to “sit on their stoop in Harlem,” often without legal protection or fair pay.
Tom Needham, vice chairman of LIMEHOF, noted that honoring Vance’s film was the perfect way to launch the Hall’s new legacy award series, cementing the institution’s role as a guardian of music history.
“We are officially the only music documentary film festival in the country,” Needham said. “This film does an excellent job of not only telling the story of some of these amazing groups, but also the sad reality that a lot of these groups didn’t get the recognition they deserve.”
For Vance, the mission of Heart and Soul is clear. He wants a younger generation that might only hear snippets of these classics on social media to understand the human cost behind the harmony.
“I wanted all of America to know that the Black experience was the one that started and created this music,” Vance said. “I always knew, ‘Oh, this is the best music.’ And one day I got a chance to make this movie and show the world.”
Heart and Soul: A Love Story is available now on Amazon Prime.
