Tony Williams born 5 April 1928

Tony Williams (5 April 1928 – August 14, 1992) was the lead singer of the Platters from 1953 to 1960.

Samuel Anthony "Tony" Williams was the original lead singer of The Platters, the most successful black rhythm-and-blues doo-wop group to emerge in the Fifties. The Platters sold over 50 million records and introduced a unique blend of orchestral arrangement with a distinct rhythm-and-blues harmonising, which almost immediately earned them acceptance amongst the United States' white audience.

Williams, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey was the brother of the blues singer Linda Hayes, and it was she who first introduced him to the ex-lawyer turned songwriter and arranger Buck Ram in 1954. Ram had previously worked with the Duke Ellington and Count Basie bands. Ram was a booking agent at the time of the introduction, and was reputedly so impressed by the tonal purity of Williams's high tenor, that he decided to create the 'Platters sound', around his voice. Williams was working as a parking-lot attendant in Los Angeles at the time.

Williams had formed the group in 1953, with his fellow members David Lynch, Alex Hodge and Herbert Reed. It was when Buck Ram signed them to a management contract, and added a female singer - Zola Taylor, a member of The Teen Queens - that a distinct style began to emerge. It was unusual to find a female vocalist in a doo-wop group, and Ram sought to widen the range and vocal blend with this addition. Shortly after Ram took over the management, Hodge was forced to leave the group after an incident with the police. The vocalist Paul Robi replaced him, and this new line-up was the final combination which made The Platters the most successful black group of the Fifties.

The Platters signed a contract with Mercury records in November 1955, and the label's initial commercial reaction to them was that they were simply another rhythm-and-blues group. But Ram placed promotional emphasis on Williams's voice as a ballad singer, insisting that the group were pop-chart material. Their first single, 'Only You (And You Alone)', hit the mainstream US chart at number 5, much to the amazement of Mercury's A and R department.

 

                   

In February 1956 Mercury released their follow-up single, the ballad 'The Great Pretender'. The record, composed by Ram, was a perfect showcase for the emotional range and scope of Williams's voice, and remained at the top of the US hit parade for over two weeks, selling more than a million copies. In September the song was backed with 'Only You' and released in Britain, where it reached No 5 in the hit parade. Before this several cover versions of both of these songs had entered the British charts (there was a delay in Mercury's obtaining a UK outlet). When the original Platters recording finally hit the charts the New Musical Express described Williams's voice as 'unearthly'.

Tony Williams met his wife Helen, a model, in Las Vegas in 1957. She replaced Zola Taylor as the female vocalist, and they were married in 1963, three years after Williams left the group to embark on a solo career with Frank Sinatra's Reprise label.In August 1962, Tony signed with Philips, a subsidiary of Mercury.

Although The Platters soldiered on through the Sixties, releasing unused cuts featuring Williams singing lead and even scoring a minor soul hit in 1967 with the beach music standard "With This Ring," the ever-changing lineup was essentially reduced to a traveling oldies act by the turn of the decade. Indeed, legal wrangling led to over 125 different "Platters" lineups touring the country, a practice that continues even today. Tony was still performing as late as the 90's with his wife as the New Platters. Early in 1992 he and his wife and their son Ricky did six weeks of performances in Thailand and Japan, yet sadly later that year on August 14th he passed away at his Manhattan apartment, age 64 in 1992 from smoking related emphysema.       

He was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Platters in 1990.

(Info edited from various sources mainly The Independent)