Platters founder Herb Reed was on all of nearly 400 recordings
BOSTON — Herb Reed, the last surviving original member of 1950s vocal group the Platters who sang on hits such as Only You and The Great Pretender, has died. He was 83.
Reed died on Monday in a Boston area hospice after a period of declining health that included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, manager Fred Balboni said.
Reed was a Kansas City, Mo. native who founded The Platters in Los Angeles in 1953. Then a quartet, the group won amateur talent shows, and performed nights and weekends up and down the California coast while the members worked days.
Reed came up with the group’s name, inspired by ’ 50s disc jockeys who called
their records platters.
The group had several lineup changes, even adding a female singer to become a quintet, before signing their first major recording contract in 1955.
Reed sang bass on the group’s four No. 1 hits, including The Great Pretender, My Prayer, Twilight Time and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.
The Platters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Their recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The group’s popularity reached across racial lines and genres, “achieving success in a crooning, middle- of- the- road style that put a soulful coat of uptown polish on pop- oriented, harmony- rich
material,” according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s website.
Reed credited his survival in the music industry to the poverty he experienced as a child in Kansas City. While other members of the group spent frivolously, he used his first big royalty cheque to buy a house.
“I never thought that it would keep going, and I never wanted to assume we’d keep getting cheques,” he said earlier this year.
Reed was the only member of the group to appear on all of their nearly 400 recordings. He continued performing up to 200 shows per year, until last year.