Jean Bennett

"It's All About Promotion." - Jean Bennett 

Fifty-four Years with The Platters  (2009)         

When an entertainer makes it big, almost everyone knows who he is and acknowledges the talent the entertainer possesses.  But what happens before the big time?  Someone has to be there to keep the artist's spirits up when things are down -- AND keep him level-headed when things are up.  But most importantly, someone has to believe in that artist.  For the hottest group of the '50s, The Platters aka The Buck Ram Platters, that important job belongs to Jean Bennett.

Jean wrote The Platters first biography and traveled with them everywhere -- overseeing their publicity, their promotion, keeping them out of scrapes and rescuing them when they managed to get into one.  She spent time booking them in high school auditoriums for little or no fees and building fan clubs and acquainting juke box operators with the artist's new releases while Buck Ram badgered local promoters to include the act on west coast tours -- anything to get The Platters public exposure.  Jean promoted their records up and down the west coast and traveled extensively all over the United States to launch "Only You," The Platters' first release on Mercury Records in mid-1955.

After opening and maintaining branch offices in New York City from 1957, and opening an office in Chicago in 1962, where Mercury Records headquearters where located, Jean moved to Las Vegas in 1964, recognizing the city's great potential as the World Capital of Entertainment.

She purchased Personality Productions, including the management of The Platters, from Buck Ram and incorpoated in Nevada in 1966.  Ram kept his publishing interests in California and turned over the management portion of the business, and other interests, to Jean in the Las Vegas office.

In 1976, Jean assumed the presidency of The Five Platters, Inc., the corporation which Ram and The Platters originated in 1956 in order to protect the longevity of the name.

Jean is proud of the legal precedents set by her corporation's cases against bogus groups.  "These precedents will help protect and preserve valuable trade names and service marks in the music industry for years to come," she says.

Jean has represent The Five Platters, Inc. in lawsuits, beginning in 1967, against acts copying The Platters.  Jean says, "There have been so many varied groups using the name and trying to benefit from Buck's and my hard work and success, and they all seem to claim to have at least one of the original group members.  It seems that we are the only group who doesn't claim to have an original!  We have continuity, and the common law owenrship rights for the longest, continual use of the name."

Since 1956, Jean has traveled the world with The Platters, Jean says one of the most exciting and glamorous experiences of her life took place in Paris, France in 1957.  Ram had gone to Paris for The Platters opening at the Olympia Music Hall, and he called Jean in New York to join him for the formal event.  Jean, with a new Paris hairdo and lovely Paris gown, and Buck were seated next to Gina Lolabrigida and Bridget Bardot.  The first overture of the opening program was composed entirely of Buck Ram songs.

Another of Jean's many favorite experiences was her 1978 South African tour with The Platters.  In Johannesburg The Platters were the first entertainers since Liberace's appearance in 1971, to fill the 2,200 seat theater.  The city was filled with taxis and buses displaying ads for the coming appearance of The Platters and almost every shop displayed a poster in its window.  The original Platters had only appeared in North Africa, so the wonderful reception received in 1978, over twenty years later, was especially thrilling as was her success in getting the group named International Goodwill Ambassadors by the President.

By 1994 Jean had spent 40 years of hard work developing The Platters promotional materials, promoting the group itself, taking care of their personal and showtime needs, bailing a few of them out of jail on occasion, and handling the corporation's business and legal affairs.

TRUTH IN MUSIC 101:  Jean Bennett and Herb Reed are the only two surviving members of the team that was The Platters.