The Platters Biography, Photos and Posters

The Platters

Biography

Started: 1953
City and Country of Origin: Los Angeles, California
Music Background:
Awards: 1990 inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Top Recordings: "Only You," "The Great Pretender," "The Magic Touch," "My Prayer," "You'll Never Never Know," "I'm Sorry," "Twilight Time," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Harbor Lights," "If I Didn't Care," "With This Ring"
The Platters Biography: In 1953 The Platters, the most successful group of the early rock era, got its start when 4 men Cornell Gunther, Alex Hodge, Herb Reed, and Joe Jefferson converged on Los Angeles where they won several amateur contests and appeared on the TV show The Ebony Showcase.

Songwriter/arranger Buck Ram, who had his background as an arranger for big bands like Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey had settled in LA and was intent on becoming a manager, was intrigued with the rich tenor voice of Tony Williams and guided the groups early career. The group signed a contract with Federal Records, but none of their recordings had much success including "Only You" a number written by Ram. After a few changes in personnel the group consisted of Tony Williams, David Lynch, Paul Robi, Herb Reed, and Zola Taylor. Now, Ram was also managing other groups among them the Penguins and Mercury Records was interested in signing them to a record deal. Ram consented, but only if they would also take the Platters. Strangely enough The Penguins, who had a blockbuster hit with "Earth Angel," would never have another hit record while The Platters would go on to become the hottest group of the early rock era.

Ram was still convinced that his song "Only You" could be a hit, so he had the group re-record the tune for Mercury during their first session in 1955. The song soon became the groups first pop top 10 single and topped the R&B charts for 7 weeks. The groups follow up "The Great Pretender" would become their first number 1 hit and topped the R&B charts for 11 weeks. During the late 50s the group churned out hit after hit after hit including 3 more number 1 hits.

In 1960 lead singer Tony Williams left the group to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Sonny Turner, but Mercury balked at the change and would not record any further Platter records, instead choosing to release material previously recorded with Williams as the lead singer. After this the group began to splinter and many legal battles were instituted over the rights to The Platters name. After years of haggling between such groups as Sonny Turner's Platters, Zola Taylor's Platters and Jean Bennett's Platters a 1997 court decision awarded the exclusive rights to the earliest surviving member, still performing, Herb Reed.

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