Where do you place them? Just had half an hour listening to their back catalogue Twilight time etc. The Four Tops, Temptations of their day. Hard to categorise but damn they were good. Can't quite work out their influence on the harmony groups that followed. It's fairly easy to work out say an artist like Sam Cooke's influence as it's so defined but they must have influenced every soul harmony group we listen to. Nice half hour anyway.

 

 

The 50's Tony Williams led group were quite influential if only because they enjoyed such massive international hits. Lots of 60's soul singers inspired to sing by listening to Tony Williams leads for the group.

He went solo in the late 50's but never made it as a big solo act / recording artist. He stayed with that 50's sound and so his influence soon faded.

He was replaced as lead singer by Cleveland's Sonny Turner. Sonny is 'the sound of the group' for me. It was tracks he was lead on that are my faves (the Musicor stuff).  But in this era, the group followed trends (making Motown sounding cuts) rather than leading the way (sound wise). Sonny went solo (led his own group) around 1970 and the guys that followed him (on lead) became more & more anonymous. PLUS, the group's manager (Buck Ram) owned the name, so there were soon loads of versions of the Platters playing live gigs across the US / world.

Sonny was prosecuted by Buck Ram & so couldn't perform under the Platters name, so he had to use a different name (Sounds Limited) for his group or go out as 'Sonny Turner of the Platters & his group'. It was Sonny (& his guys) that were big on the Beach Scene in the 70's / 80's and who were the big group on the Vegas casino live performance circuit BUT he was never allowed to bill his group as the Platters.

Sonny performed all the big Musicor cuts the Platters made @ the live show Lou Ragland & I put on in Vegas in 1998  (Vegas US Soul Trip). In the 60's, the Platters were so busy doing live dates all over the US that many times it was just Sonny who jetted back to New York to cut the group's recordings (the other voices on their records being NY studio based guys). Many of their 'backing tracks' having been pre-cut in Detroit & then the master tapes sent off to NY to be finished (Vocals added).

When I saw Sonny perform these songs ("With This Ring", "Washed Ashore", "Devri", etc) he would come on stage (after being introduced as just Sonny Turner & his group) with a big board containing the group's Musicor 45's & LP covers to ensure the audience knew they would be getting a 'Platters show'. Of course his outfit would also perform the group's 50's hits on their shows (they also re-recorded the tracks for Musicor LP's).     

 

Edited February 23, 20169 yr by Roburt

Sonny Turner still performs on a regular basis and next week he's undertaking 2 shows in Florida (his base for many years has been Las Vegas).

He's on next Wednesday a few miles up the coast from our winter home here in Coral Springs ..... only trouble is as he's doing his final show rehearsal next Wednesday for this show, we'll be waiting to board our flight from MIA back to Heathrow ...... DOOHH !! 

A recent pic of Sonny ...............

 

Nobody mentioned their early '50s period on Federal Records.  They were one of the great L.A. early '50s vocal harmony groups along with The Hollywood Flames, Robins, Flairs, Arthur Lee Maye & The Crowns, Jacks, etc.  They had a less instrumentally polished sound, stressing vocal talent and harmony, rather than strings and horns.  It was a more raw and basic sound, but very classy.

Here's one of theirs from 1953:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv7lp4W9pIw

A show in Laughlin, Nevada in 2000 where Sonny & his group got away with being billed as the Platters ....

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 20169 yr by Roburt

A story that illustrates how influential the Platters were back in the 60's ........

When the Miracles first auditioned for Berry Gordy he rejected them ......

...... coz he thought their line-up / sound was too close to that of the Platters & the world didn't need another 4 boy + 1 girl group.

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Oh one of the great early groups of the fifties, with the great-Tony Williams leading the way, The Platters set the stage for those who followed.

 

On 3/4/2016 at 04:24, Roburt said:

A story that illustrates how influential the Platters were back in the 60's ........

When the Miracles first auditioned for Berry Gordy he rejected them ......

...... coz he thought their line-up / sound was too close to that of the Platters & the world didn't need another 4 boy + 1 girl group.

At least Berry didn't let his ego keep himself from admitting his mistake.  Motown would have been somewhat less for not having had The Miracles, and, especially, Smokey Robinson, involved.

Most of The Platters 50's output seemed almost too classy for the doo-wop era, a very nice nightclub type of sound just listen to[Harbour Lights-Smoke Gets In Your Eyes]even today I feel like maybe putting on a tux when playing their songs[smile].

5 hours ago, Gotsoul said:

Most of The Platters 50's output seemed almost too classy for the doo-wop era, a very nice nightclub type of sound just listen to[Harbour Lights-Smoke Gets In Your Eyes]even today I feel like maybe putting on a tux when playing their songs[smile].

You mean most of their Mercury cuts.  ALL their Federal cuts were greasy and even raunchy, at times.  Also, a few of the Mercury cuts were pure R&B, like "Bark, Battle & Ball".

Robb, you still da man, I'm an ol friend from the other place.

40 minutes ago, Gotsoul said:

Robb, you still da man, I'm an ol friend from the other place.

Which other place?  The one Wade Flemons sang about?    Or Soulful Detroit, Motown Junkies, Motown Records Corp., Airwave Records, or the other Northern Soul forum I frequented before Soul-Source? (I'm embarrassed to admit that I've forgotten its name. )

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Am I allowed to say-Soulful Detroit???

 

1 hour ago, Gotsoul said:

 

Why not?  Lot's of posters here respect Soulful Detroit as a great (former) resource for information on Detroit in the '60s.  What was your handle (monniker) there?

I'll just say that over there I type in all caps.

2 hours ago, Gotsoul said:

I'll just say that over there I type in all caps.

So!   You don't want members here to know who you are on SDF, eh?  You'll notice that I have the same member name on every forum I frequent, and my own legal name is well known and relatively easy to find from most of those fora.  Luckily, all my valuable records are buried in an underground bunker in The Libyan Desert, south of the line between Benghazi and El Alamein.  So, if a Soul records thief were to break into my house in The Netherlands, or mine in USA, or my flat in Germany or in Denmark, they'd find nothing but some ancient cassette tapes, homemade CDs, and some Ace/Kent CDs and a few reprint LPs.

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Robb, you're a funny guy.

 

One thing about the Platters recording is the clearity of their words, you can understand everything they say.

One of their best is the nice-On My Word Of Honor.

Not the era you two are talking about .... but a piccy of the Musicor group's lead singer Sonny Turner. He's dancing with our lass @ the big soul show we staged in Vegas back in 1998 .... he broke into "With This Ring" & it's such a fave of Mrs Smith's that she had to get up to dance with him .... 

Edited March 22, 20169 yr by Roburt

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Priceless.

 

On 3/10/2016 at 16:02, RobbK said:

At least Berry didn't let his ego keep himself from admitting his mistake.  Motown would have been somewhat less for not having had The Miracles, and, especially, Smokey Robinson, involved.

Linked to the above, from today's Guardian newspaper .........

 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/22/how-we-made-motown-records-berry-gordy-smokey-robinson-stevie-wonder-interview

Nice info, cheers. The platters were a group in the background of my childhood that were appreciated by the adults around me, in the process of being caught up in 'stuff' over the last few weeks something reminded me of the Ink Spots. They were another group the adults around me spoke of with a fair amount of reverence. Possibly due to their appearances in certain films, the adults around were from the Silver Screen era when there was a cinema on virtually every street corner. From here on Thorpe Edge I can think of 5 cinemas that were within walking distance.