The Platters & Myles Savage

Marge & Myles

I was busy interviewing people at Two Rivers Convention Center in Grand Junction, Colorado for my assignment for the local, senior monthly newspaper, the BEACON, when I spotted the table manned by Myles Savage of the illustrious PLATTERS. The occasion was the “Beaconfest,” held annually by the publisher of the newspaper to promote and reward their advertisers and the people who support and patronize them.

Onstage were musical artists alternating their performances for the crowd. A gal playing the guitar reminiscent of California in the ‘60’s was first, and then a sophisticated harpist played. Next was an accordion player with a definite “Lady of Spain – Dick Contino” attitude. The harmonic, controlled sounds of the local Barbershop Quartet followed her. Directly below the stage, about 200 chairs, strung out in wide rows of 20, held the appreciative, listening and watching audience.

Rectangular tables lined the walls of the Convention Center, manned by crews of volunteers and employees promoting their products or services, with second and third rows of identical tables stretching down the middle. It felt like a Senior Halloween “Trick or Treat” day as the unorganized procession of retired folks carrying plastic bags, circled the hall, stopping at each table to pick up free pens, or samples of food or hand cream, or whatever else was offered them. A masseuse from a beauty salon was giving a neck massage in the corner, while investment bankers and realtors handed out flyers for their companies at some of the other tables.

At the end table near the stage, Myles Savage stood to promote their May event coming to the Avalon Theater downtown and to sell the Platters’ CDs. Smiling, dressed in a ruby red, silky tux with a formal white shirt, we chatted about the Platters and the Coasters and the “doo-wopshoo- bop” jive sounds of the ‘50’s that I remembered from when I grew up back East.

“After graduating from high school, my girlfriends and I used to go to the Jersey shore every summer. We loved to dance to the big bands, like Harry James or Buddy Rich, who played on the Ocean Pier on Saturday nights,” I said. “But our favorite performers were Steve Gibson and the Red Caps, with beautiful Damita Jo. They played in a little bar and the room would fill up with cheering kids like us from small towns. I think it was before Detroit’s Motown and we’d never heard that sound anywhere else.” Myles laughed, and then said, “It was Wildwood. Right?”

Astonished, I replied, “Right. It WAS Wildwood. But how did you know?”

“Well, I didn’t join the Platters until 1976,” Myles answered, “but everybody knows about Steve Gibson and the Red Caps and where they played at the shore in the ’50s.”

“Not everybody.” I mused. “Just girls like myself who were lucky enough to be in Wildwood in the ‘50’s and earlier. We all owned our own portable 45 record player. Every high school girl had to buy one. And we bought Frankie Laine’s “Blue Moon” and Johnny Ray’s “Cry”. We bought the “Platters” and the “Coasters” songs. We bought the ‘Velvet Fog’, Mel Torme’s records and those of that upcoming Hoboken, New Jersey kid, Francis Albert Sinatra. We bought them all. The record players then were like the cell phones of today. You had to have one.

“Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time”

They called Myles up on the stage at regular intervals to perform between the other local amateur performers. He was so professional in his attitude and style. He sang some of the old songs, like “Only You” that the Platters were famous for while the seated audience watched and occasionally clapped.

“Oh, yes, I’m the great pretender.
Just laughing and gay, like a clown.”

When Myles returned to his table, I told him I felt that the Rolling Stones had copied Steve Gibson’s style the way Steve played guitar and pranced across the stage, while his piano player stood up grinning, at the keyboard, not looking down, but punching out the keys without missing a beat. When they sang gospel songs, beautiful Damita Jo sounded like Whitney Houston does today. She was every bit as stunning as Whitney is in her gorgeous evening gowns.

“Wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.” and “I found my thrill. On Blueberry Hill.”

On April 27, 1952, Steve Gibson and the Redcaps, with other stars like Jackie Gleason, took the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York for the Sullivan’s TV Sunday Night Show, “Toast of the Town”, the most popular show on television of its time.

“Here’s my check, Myles. I NEED that CD and may I take your picture?”

“Alright,” he laughed, accepting my check. “Let me sign it for you. And do you want to have someone take a picture of us together? “Sure,” I answered quickly, giggling silently as I handled my digital camera to a passerby. “Wow. Do I want my picture with one of the Platters? Is the Pope Catholic?”

I joyfully returned to my car in the parking lot, clutching my camera and my new CD. “Thanks, Wildwood for all those W0NDERFUL memories.” Pulling out onto First Street, I headed home, wailing along with the Platters, “Yakety-yak. Don’t talk back.”