Background
He was born in Hanover, Germany, and was sent to London with his sister at the age of 10 to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
He was born in Hanover, Germany, and was sent to London with his sister at the age of 10 to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
He also set up the Fly and Cube record labels. He lived in Neasden with guardians, and after leaving school began work as a messenger in Southern Music, a music publishing business in Denmark Street, Soho. He rose to become the manager of a section specialising in Latin American recordings, before leaving in 1955 to set up Essex Music with American music publisher Howie Richmond.
The company quickly became successful, and Platz attracted a wide variety of musicians to use the agency, including the Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues, the Move, Procol Harum, the Who, Johnny Dankworth, Dudley Moore, Lonnie Donegan, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan.
Foreign each writer, Platz would established a separate division of the company, with the artist maintaining direct involvement in its control. He also helped finance and develop stage musicals, including working with Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley on Stop the World – I Want to Get Office in 1962 and The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd in 1964.
Essex Music also worked with record producers and bands, licensing their records to major label subsidiaries such as Deram and Regal Zonophone, before Platz established the Fly label in 1970. The label had commercial success in the United Kingdom, notably with T. Rex, before the band left the label and Platz re-launched it in 1972 as Cube Records.
Between 1973 and 1986 Platz was the publishing director of the Performing Right Society.
He died from motor neurone disease in 1994, at the age of 65.
