Below, you'll find The Platters singing "Only You". Is that (see snippet below) what was released on Federal Records, in 1954? I can't see it being a "remake" as some called it!

Jim replies...

First of all, the snippet you have given is the song as recorded for Federal in 1954.

The remake, for Mercury in 1955, is similar, apart from the piano parts, much of the lead vocal, and bits of the backing vocal.

I did an interview with Buck Ram in 1989, and he said that he had originally written "Only You" for the Ink Spots, who turned it down and he was only intended the Federal session as a demo for the Penguins, whom he was hoping to manage - and who were just coming off their one big hit "Earth Angel".

Federal released it anyway when it looked as though they were about to lose the Platters, but although it failed nationally, it was the only single by the Platters to make a profit for

the label, and for the next twenty years or so, they made a lot more money sticking it on compilation albums!

In 1954, Ram took over management of The Penguins promising them that he could get them a better label than Doo-Tone, and he moved both them and the Platters to Mercury.

However, Mercury only signed the Platters because Ram would not agree to give them The Penguins unless they took the Platters also.

Ram re-recorded "Only You" with the Platters, but if I remember rightly, (and at this stage I remember very little rightly), it was Tony Williams and Jean Bennett who persuaded Buck Ram to re-make it - he had told Mercury that The Penguins would be doing it, and the funny thing was that moving to Mercury made the Platters but finished off the Penguins.

The session to re-record it was aooarently weird.

Although Ram, who was both a qualified lawyer and a qualified musician who had worked with people like Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, he had never played on a hit recording session.

However, when the session pianist told Bob Shad who was producing the session, that he had to go home just as they were about to record "Only You", Ram offered to fill in - and as a result, he ended up playing on a million seller!

Although I was always mad about the Platters - and it is a shame that most people forget just how big they were. On Billboard alone, they had forty hits, ranging from "Only You" in 1955, to "Sweet Sweet Loving" in 1967 - the real hero was Buck Ram.

He was a genius - and not just musically. And he was also a very ethical manager who (rarely for those days), paid everybody promptly. He even turned the Platters into a corporation (unheard of in the 1950s), giving each member shares in the company.

And of course he was a great writer and producer.

Over the years, apart from everything the Platters put out, he also produced records for the Drifters and The Coasters, Ike & Tina Turner and Ella Fitzgerald.

He also wrote such classics as "Only You", "The Magic Touch," "Come Prima (For The First Time)," "Twilight Time", "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "The Great Pretender" amongst many others.

One of my heroes.