The number one song back in early 1959 still reverberates to this day as a deeply felt tour-de-force from tenor Tony Williams.
The Platters were one of the earliest and most successful examples of a black singing group who found a large white audience, back in the early 1950s when radio stations were highly segregated in their choice of program material. The group was founded in 1951 and specialized in doo-wop, gospel oriented versions of standard Broadway classics.
They scored big hits with “Only You”, and “The Great Pretender”, but they are best known today for their unforgettable recording of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”. It’s a deeply felt tour-de-force that featured the tenor voice of Tony Williams, along with string arrangements for the bridge that drew on Ravel’s “Bolero” to build a climax like no other.
The song was written by composer Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach back in 1933 and had been recorded by dozens of artists in a rather low-key, straight ahead fashion. Kern passed away in 1945 at the early age of 60, having written the music for over 700 classic songs. Harbach, the lyricist, was one of the greatest of Broadway wordsmiths. The title of the song, btw, comes from a Russian proverb “when your heart is on fire, smoke gets in your eyes.” The song was first used in the 1933 musical Roberta and soon became a favourite of vocalists who specialized in musical theatre.
Nat King Cole released an instrumental version, and Harry Belafonte recorded a very subdued and frankly uninteresting take on one of his earliest albums. The surprise performance was from Sarah Vaughan in her 1958 album No Count, with a jazzy and reworked melody that greatly pleased Jerome Kern’s widow, Eva. It didn’t sell all that well, but it was a modest income earner for the Kern estate.
When Eva Kern learned that The Platters were intending to record their own version, she contacted Mercury Records and threatened a lawsuit. There was no way she would allow a doo-wop rock and roll band to desecrate her husband’s classic song, she declared. The music director of Mercury agreed, but was over-ruled. Eva’s own lawyer advised her that the royalties from a successful release might be substantial. She relented with some reluctance.
The Platters’ recording was made while the group was on tour in Europe at the Olympia Theater in Paris, France, back in September 1958. Mercury’s own arranger, David Carroll, flew in from New York and conducted an orchestra drawn from the French musicians of the Palais Garnier.
Eva hated the result, pronouncing it melodramatic and a musical travesty. Billboard magazine thought otherwise, making it their top pick in late 1958. It became number one in America and Britain, and ensured touring success of the group across the world for decades, even after the original members had long since departed or passed on. The Kern estate earned huge profits from record sales, and Eva’s early comments on the group’s “travesty” subsided accordingly.
The Platters’ version of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” was featured in the centrepiece prom scene of the movie American Graffiti, along with two other Platters’ tracks in other scenes. It’s been recorded by countless artists since its 1959 success, most notably by J.D. Souther in an unexpected turn, Patti Austin in a scorching late ’90s R & B interpretation, and a sensational 2018 version by the Korean jazz virtuoso WoongSan. The song lives on, though the Tony Williams performance is still unequalled, an earworm for the ages.
