Set up an interview with Kenny Vance to talk about his career and you don't know where to begin. Pick a topic and Vance, 65, doesn't know where to end. Dude can talk.

This guy has been around -- and around some of the biggest names in show biz -- for 50 years, first as a founding member of Jay and the Americans, who parlayed a string of hits into, among other things, a slot opening for the Beatles on their 1964 U.S. tour, and later the Rolling Stones.

Vance moved into movie music, deciding where the right notes went in movies like National Lampoon's Animal House, The Warriors, Streets of Fire, John Waters' original Hairspray and both Eddie and the Cruisers flicks. He also served as musical director for Saturday Night Live in the early 1980's (okay, the show sucked then but that was mostly Joe Piscopo's fault).

Vance also dabbled in acting, appearing in no less than six Woody Allen movies (although his duet with Tracey Ullman in Everyone Says I Love You was cut from the final edit).

Oh, yeah, he also produced the early recordings of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who proceeded to form my all-time favorite band, Steely Dan. Vance was impressed that I still have an 8-track of their movie soundtrack You've Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It (or You'll Lose That Beat) that he produced. Or maybe that I'd even heard of it.

Vance tells such stories -- and sings doo-wop ditties with his band, the Planotones -- Friday night at Capitol Theatre in Clearwater. I'll have some of his memories of working and playing with John Belushi, the Woodman and others online and on page 2B tomorrow. For now, enjoy Vance's recollection of discovering the band and song responsible for one of the 80's greatest movie hits.

A little background: Vance met director Marty Davidson, wjo mentioned he was making a movie called Eddie and the Cruisers, about a 1960's band on the Jersey shore. Vance mentioned that Jay and the Americans lived that life, providing photos for proof and inspiration. Davidson appreciated that, and asked Vance to listen to the movie's central song, writtten by Joe Brooks, who inflicted You Light Up My Life on public ears.

"Marty plays the music and asks what I think," Vance said. "I told him it’s garbage. It’s no good. It sounds like a jingle guy's idea of what Eddie and the Cruisers should be. He asked me to read the script and give him some ideas.

"While I’m doing that, I’m thinking of a group I had just seen in Greenwich Village, at the Bitter End: the Beaver Brown Band with John Cafferty. These guys had been together for 11 years, and were about a day away from getting real jobs. I went to meet them in Rhode Island, walked in and they knew me as Professor LaPlano in American Hot Wax. Right away I had credibility. I told them this guy has this movie and needs some music. let's make some records.

"Cafferty had a song loosely based on Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, called On the Dark Side. That night, Cafferty and the band were playing in a little New Jersey club. I went back to New York with the record, piled Marty and some Hollywood guys into the car and played the song. Nobody said anything.
Then we got into the club and Cafferty did it live.

"When those guys saw the rave-up inside the club with these kids going crazy, they said that’s it. That's the song. It wound up selling 4 million copies."