R.I.P.: Herb Reed of the Platters music group dies at 83

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 1:10 AM



Herb Reed, the last surviving original member of the Platters, the most successful vocal group in rock ‘n’ roll history, died Monday in a Boston area
hospice after a long illness. He was 83.

Reed, who gave the group its name when it launched in Los Angeles in 1953, sang bass on Platters’ classics “Twilight Time,” “Smoke Gets In Your
Eyes,” “Only You” and “My Prayer,” all of which hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

He toured with his own Platters group until last year, and said he was the only person to have sung on all of the group’s 400-plus recordings.

While the Platters had no chart hits after a brief mid-1960s radio revival that included “With This Ring,” they have sold more than 200 million
records. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

They were one of the few vocal groups that scored top-40 hits in the early rock ‘n’ roll era and also appealed to classic pop harmony audiences,
giving Reed and the group’s other singers a concert career that extended decades beyond their radio popularity.

A native of Kansas City, Reed moved to Los Angeles and formed his first Platters group with Cornell Gunther as lead singer.

Gunther went on to sing with a number of popular West Coast vocal groups, including the Coasters, but he was replaced in the Platters by Tony
Williams, whose distinctive soaring lead became the group’s signature sound.

Williams was recruited by the group’s new manager, Buck Ram, after they recorded several unsuccessful sides for Federal Records.

Ram brought the group to Mercury and convinced the new label to let the group re-record “Only You,” a Ram composition that Federal felt had no
commercial potential.

The Mercury version, released in 1955, became a standard. Ram, whose songwriting lineage went back to pop vocal groups like the Mills Brothers
and Ink Spots, kept the Platters in that groove through the 1950s.

A drug bust in 1959 damaged the group’s image, though none of the members were convicted of anything, and starting in the early 1960s the
group began to splinter and fall into a series of lawsuits over who owned the rights to the name and the music.

Reed eventually became entangled in several of those suits, winning, losing and then last year winning again the rights to use the name.

He expressed frustration over the suits and the multiple incarnations of groups calling themselves Platters. He said they cost his own group
thousands of bookings even when he was the only original Platter still performing.

He also said he felt grateful, though, that he was able to sustain the career that almost none of his fellow 1950s rhythm and blues or pop singers could.

He is survived by a son and three grandsons.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/herb-reed-platters-music-group-dies-83-article-1.1090683#ixzz1x2Xz5M6v