Which version of these touring groups is the best?

[Doug-Morgan]

As I understand it, there are 2 touring "Platters" groups and I believe 3 different "Drifters". Has anyone here seen any of the groups recently and if so, can you tell me which one is "the best" version of those classic groups?

Thanks in advance.

[mellow_q]

Herb Reed's Platters and Charlie Thomas' Drifters



Marc Taylor

[paul_nixon]

Apparently the Drifters touring the UK apparently are the only legitimate band that can be called The Drifters. They remind me of a garden broom my father said that lasted him over 50 years - it had 7 new handles and five new brush heads and was just like new. How can a band be called any name while there are NO original members. I can see how a group of Temptations could morally use the name if one of the band was a member of the original recording group. It's the same with the 4 Tops while Duke is with them they are still the 4 Tops whoever else makes up the quartet. If however Duke left the group for any reason then the 4 Tops should be no more in my opinion as they would be no more than a tribute group. The same would apply to the Miracles without Bobby Rogers....

[144man]

... They remind me of a garden broom my father said that lasted him over 50 years - it had 7 new handles and five new brush heads and was just like new. How can a band be called any name while there are NO original members...

There is not one cell left in your body that was there when you were born; which means none of us is the same person we used to be. I believe that in some strange way a group can have a sort of a collective soul that may live on despite the change in members.

[mellow_q]

Y'all are getting a bit too deep with this. I was just offering my opinion. Charlie Thomas isn't an original Drifter, but he was with the group during their Leiber/Stoller period, which is primarily the material that fans of the nostalgia circuit spend their money to come out to hear.

Unless someone wants to get ultra, ultra, ultra technical here, Herb Reed is an original Platter. Nevertheless, he was one-fifth of their classic lineup that had the string of hits in the mid- to late 50s.

"My bad" to anyone who prefers Sonny Turner's or Buck Ram's Platters, or any other Drifters group out here.

[platters81]

if Sonny Turners Platters did a set based on his 60ts Musicor tracks...[[with this ring...washed ashore etc)...he would wow UK Northern Soul fans....."Going Back to Detroit" is one classic album........whatta voice......