Many African-American close harmony groups flourished in the US in the 1950s, but few appealed to both black and white audiences as much as the Coasters. Their success owed a lot to the witty lyrics of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller on such songs as Charlie Brown and Yakety Yak, but it was also founded on the characterful vocals of Carl Gardner, who has died after a long illness aged 83.
Gardner was born in Tyler, Texas, where he was exposed to a wide range of music including gospel, big bands and opera. His sister, Carol, eventually became an opera singer in New York. After high school, Gardner worked in a department store by day and sang and played drums with a local dance band by night. "We played all over Texas, mostly for the real elite," he remembered.
In the early 50s, he decided to further his career in Los Angeles. He hung around the clubs and asked every band if he could get up and sing with them. By then, big bands in the style of Count Basie were being replaced by smaller R&B groups, and the first offer of a job came from the Robins, a doo-wop group that had already made some recordings. The group's lead singer had recently been sent to jail, and Gardner was able to fill the vacancy.
Soon he was recording Leiber and Stoller compositions with the Robins. These included some slow ballads, but the first hit to feature Gardner was Smokey Joe's Cafe. The songwriters were fascinated with the Mexican-American culture of Los Angeles and the song combined Latin rhythms with a quirky narrative, in which Gardner describes how he is attracted to a girl in a cafe but is soon ejected by her boyfriend, the eponymous owner of the establishment. Without losing a sense of humour, Gardner's voice manages to communicate a rapid series of emotions, by turns cool, excited and frightened.
Smokey Joe's Cafe was issued on the songwriters' own Spark label, but it attracted the attention of a much bigger company, Atlantic Records in New York. Nesuhi Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic, arranged for the Spark catalogue to be purchased and reissued on Atlantic. Smokey Joe's Cafe went on to sell 250,000 copies.
The plan was for Leiber, Stoller and the Robins to move to the east coast. However, three of the Robins wanted to stay in Los Angeles, so Gardner and the bass singer, Bobby Nunn, recruited new singers (Billy Guy and Leon Hughes), and their manager, Lester Sill, called this new group the Coasters.
Their first record, Down in Mexico, released in 1956, reprised the Latin theme in its tale of a young American's misadventures south of the border, and it was another big hit with black audiences. But some of the later songs that Leiber and Stoller presented to the Coasters were targeted at white teenagers as well. The lyrics for One Kiss Led to Another made a reference to "soda pop", and Searchin', the Coasters' first pop hit, listed a series of fictional detectives.
Searchin' went to No 3 in the US in 1957 and was followed by a number of American hits for the Coasters. They also achieved success in the UK with the singles Charlie Brown, which portrayed a high-school clown who "called the English teacher daddy-o"; Yakety Yak, the plaint of a teenager who is told to "take out the papers and the trash", "scrub that kitchen floor" and ignore his "hoodlum friend outside"; and Poison Ivy, a 1959 track that was later recorded by the Rolling Stones.
Several other Coasters songs were favourites with British artists. Screaming Lord Sutch attempted to emulate Gardner on his version of I'm a Hog for You Baby and the Hollies reworked Ain't That Just Like Me.
The group's hits gradually dried up in the 1960s and there were several changes of personnel. Eventually, several individuals, including Gardner, led their own versions of the Coasters, playing often at rock'n'roll revival events. In 1987, the Coasters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The following year, Gardner and Guy performed at a New York concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records.
In order to prevent acts from unfairly performing under the Coasters' name, Gardner was instrumental in lobbying the state legislature in Florida in 2007 to pass a law restricting the use of a group's name to those bands which contained one or more original members of the lineup. That year, he also published an autobiography, Yakety Yak I Fought Back: My Life With the Coasters. He had recently managed and coached the official Coasters group, which is now led by his son, Carl Jr.
Gardner is survived by his wife, Veta, and his son.
• Carl Edward Gardner, singer, born 29 April 1928; died 12 June 2011
Gardner was born in Tyler, Texas, where he was exposed to a wide range of music including gospel, big bands and opera. His sister, Carol, eventually became an opera singer in New York. After high school, Gardner worked in a department store by day and sang and played drums with a local dance band by night. "We played all over Texas, mostly for the real elite," he remembered.
In the early 50s, he decided to further his career in Los Angeles. He hung around the clubs and asked every band if he could get up and sing with them. By then, big bands in the style of Count Basie were being replaced by smaller R&B groups, and the first offer of a job came from the Robins, a doo-wop group that had already made some recordings. The group's lead singer had recently been sent to jail, and Gardner was able to fill the vacancy.
Soon he was recording Leiber and Stoller compositions with the Robins. These included some slow ballads, but the first hit to feature Gardner was Smokey Joe's Cafe. The songwriters were fascinated with the Mexican-American culture of Los Angeles and the song combined Latin rhythms with a quirky narrative, in which Gardner describes how he is attracted to a girl in a cafe but is soon ejected by her boyfriend, the eponymous owner of the establishment. Without losing a sense of humour, Gardner's voice manages to communicate a rapid series of emotions, by turns cool, excited and frightened.
Smokey Joe's Cafe was issued on the songwriters' own Spark label, but it attracted the attention of a much bigger company, Atlantic Records in New York. Nesuhi Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic, arranged for the Spark catalogue to be purchased and reissued on Atlantic. Smokey Joe's Cafe went on to sell 250,000 copies.
The plan was for Leiber, Stoller and the Robins to move to the east coast. However, three of the Robins wanted to stay in Los Angeles, so Gardner and the bass singer, Bobby Nunn, recruited new singers (Billy Guy and Leon Hughes), and their manager, Lester Sill, called this new group the Coasters.
Their first record, Down in Mexico, released in 1956, reprised the Latin theme in its tale of a young American's misadventures south of the border, and it was another big hit with black audiences. But some of the later songs that Leiber and Stoller presented to the Coasters were targeted at white teenagers as well. The lyrics for One Kiss Led to Another made a reference to "soda pop", and Searchin', the Coasters' first pop hit, listed a series of fictional detectives.
Searchin' went to No 3 in the US in 1957 and was followed by a number of American hits for the Coasters. They also achieved success in the UK with the singles Charlie Brown, which portrayed a high-school clown who "called the English teacher daddy-o"; Yakety Yak, the plaint of a teenager who is told to "take out the papers and the trash", "scrub that kitchen floor" and ignore his "hoodlum friend outside"; and Poison Ivy, a 1959 track that was later recorded by the Rolling Stones.
Several other Coasters songs were favourites with British artists. Screaming Lord Sutch attempted to emulate Gardner on his version of I'm a Hog for You Baby and the Hollies reworked Ain't That Just Like Me.
The group's hits gradually dried up in the 1960s and there were several changes of personnel. Eventually, several individuals, including Gardner, led their own versions of the Coasters, playing often at rock'n'roll revival events. In 1987, the Coasters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The following year, Gardner and Guy performed at a New York concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Atlantic Records.
In order to prevent acts from unfairly performing under the Coasters' name, Gardner was instrumental in lobbying the state legislature in Florida in 2007 to pass a law restricting the use of a group's name to those bands which contained one or more original members of the lineup. That year, he also published an autobiography, Yakety Yak I Fought Back: My Life With the Coasters. He had recently managed and coached the official Coasters group, which is now led by his son, Carl Jr.
Gardner is survived by his wife, Veta, and his son.
• Carl Edward Gardner, singer, born 29 April 1928; died 12 June 2011
