Fingers of night will soon surrender...the setting sun
(8 downloads)Saturday, Dec 22, 2007
In the mind’s ear, it might be a bit hard to separate the lyrics from melody to “Twilight Time” but that’s the way it was until The Platters recorded their version in 1958 with lyrics by their manager and Mercury A&R man and looming figure across the post-War music industry, Buck Ram. The original version was this instrumental penned by brothers Al and Morty Nevins, and their cousin Art Dunn; BKA the Three Suns. And it was their first big hit fourteen years earlier in 1944.
Buck Ram was responsible for composing the lyrics, and often the music too, for several of the Platters hits including “Only You”, “The Great Pretender” and “Magic Touch” He supposedly wrote the lyrics to “Great Pretender” in the men’s room at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. He is also alleged to have pushed Mercury Records into releasing the Platters’ first hit single, “Only You”, on their standard pop label, as opposed to the purple colored “race music” label back in 1953. “Only You” first topped the R&B chart, then crossed over to the Pop Chart and hit number five. They followed up almost immediately with “Great Pretender” which went straight to number one on the Pop Chart. They were perhaps the most successful black vocal act since Louis Jordan and remain more familiar to this day.
The Three Suns’ name has definitely faded a bit since their own heyday. Though once upon a time their decidedly sparse, ‘modern’ styled arrangements gave their music a cutting edge sound (in the world of 40’s pop), which suggests to me that they were pretty much about as cool as accordion music ever got. Which is pretty cool in its own right...don’t get me wrong.
More on the Three Suns with side B.
Hit 7092, 1944