Colin McEnroe's funny commentary on policing fake oldies groups...

Allowing Fake Platters Just Won't Doo-Wop (Htfd Courant)
The story (and here I am grateful for the reporting of Dirk Perrefort of the News-Times in Danbury, whom I intend to nominate for a Pulitzer Prize in Doo-Wop Investigative Journalism) in a nutshell:

A hotel in Danbury was advertising an event called "An Evening With the Platters." Connecticut's fairly new "truth in music" law is crystal clear on the conditions that must be met for such an event. It must (a) take place in the evening and (b) involve actual members of The Platters or people who have murdered the Platters and taken their identifying papers and (c) appropriate $2.3 million for sewer improvements in Norwalk. (The last one seems a little fishy.)

Somehow, this event and the fact that it involved ersatz Platters came to the attention of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, ....Blumenthal told the hotel they could not host the event unless they changed its name to "An Evening of Platters Songs Performed by Doddering Impostors," although that ran into a little interference from another doo-wop group that tours as Albert Minge and the Doddering Impostors. The fake Platters insisted they had licensed the rights to the name. This was not true, according to Fred Balboni, manager of Herb Reed, who founded the Platters. Balboni told future Pulitzer laureate Perrefort, "Herb founded the group as a kid. He put his blood, sweat and tears into this, and now people are passing themselves off as the Platters. … It's not fair." This was an unfortunate choice of words because under Connecticut law, music groups cannot make reference to blood, sweat and tears unless David Clayton-Thomas is present and actually sings "Lucretia McEvil." The problem of unlicensed musical impersonation is especially rampant, for some reason, in doo-wop, possibly because so many original practitioners have left the field to pursue other opportunities, such as death. - complete column

They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind
When your heart's on fire
You don't realise
Smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes