The Techniques cut “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” for Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records.  “Jerry gave us Apples, Peaches but I initially didn’t like it.  Not soulful enough for me but I figured he knew what he was doing since he already produced successful artists like Spanky and Our Gang, Keith and lots of other popular groups so I said OK.  After all, I wanted to make records.  Jerry was right with “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” which happened to break into the Pop Top 10 in mid-1967 and landed us a spot on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Jay & The Techniques went back to Allentown to rehearse for their upcoming performances with the release of the record.  As Jay tells it, “We were rehearsing when a box of pass-along records arrived.  One of the guys opened the box and yelled for me to come over.  I looked at the record cover and it said “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” by Jay & The Techniques.  We called Jerry and he said that many the big groups like Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Martha and The Vandellas had someone’s name at the beginning so Jerry put my name on the label. From that time on we were known as Jay & The Techniques.”

The success of “Apple, Peaches” and its October 1967 follow-up, “Keep The Ball Rollin'” (Nos. 5 and 3 on the pop charts, respectively), guaranteed the band a busy schedule.  “We must have played every college in the U.S. in 1967, and then we had an army base tour in 1968. We even had our own plane, a loaner from Rockefeller.”  Both titles scored gold records for Jay & The Techniques and Jay received his first gold record for “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” live on the Ed Sullivan Show on December 31, 1967.  “I was thrilled,” remembered Proctor. “That moment was one of the highlights of my life.”

“There is a story about how we wound up on Ed Sullivan.  The group started playing at Grossingers, in the Catskills, in some of the smaller rooms but eventually moved into the big theater after we started making hits.  Paul Anka would even show up at our performances whenever he was in the Catskills and had some free time; he loved the show.  Anyway,  I met with Mr. Grossinger in his office and asked if he could help us with an appearance on the Sullivan Show, he was a good friend of Ed’s.  A little while later, we were playing a concert in Jersey and unbeknownst to us there were some representatives from the Sullivan Show in the audience.  When our set was over we went back to our dressing room and the Sullivan guys knocked on our door.  We opened the door and saw some dudes in suits (uh oh what did we do?) but they just said “we loved your show and congratulations, you’re going to appear on the Ed Sullivan”.  None of the group knew anything about my conversation with Mr. Grossinger, we were all just blown away with the opportunity”.  The group’s success also landed them on “American Bandstand” as well as a Coca Cola commercial singing the familiar jingle.

Another hit for the group, “Strawberry Shortcake,” was basically a rewrite of their earlier hit, but failed to match “Apple, Peaches’ ” success, although it was in Billboard’s Top 30.  “I wanted to get away from that bubblegum thing” Jay says.  “We were more than that but the label and my manager insisted we continue with what we were currently doing, so we went along with it. And because of that decision, things didn’t work out the way they could have.”