Posts Tagged ‘Carl Gardner’
Carl Gardner of the Coasters dead at 83
Written by admin on June 13, 2011 – 8:30 pm -Lead singer of The Coasters, Carl Gardner, sadly died on Sunday, June 12 of heart failure and vascular dementia at at Port St. Lucie Hospice Home. He was 83.
Gardner was born on April 29, 1928 in Tyler, Texas, to a black father and Comanche Indian mother. He began singing as a young child and during high school had a regular spot singing on local radio before a racially-motivated sacking. After a brief spell in the army, he joined the group The Robins in the early 1950s. It was while a member of The Robins that what was to be a fruitful association with the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller began. The pair had penned several songs for The Robins, including “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” and this brought them to the attention of Atlantic Records who offered Leiber and Stoller a contract to produce the group at Atlantic. The group would become The Coasters, with an original line-up of Carl Gardner, Billy Guy, Leon Hughes and Bobby Nunn. The latter two were replaced by Cornell Gunter and Will “Dub” Jones in 1957 to form the classic Coasters’ line-up.
Tags: Carl Gardner, Carl Gardner death, Leiber and Stoller, the Coasters, the Robins, Yakety Yak
Posted in Obituaries, Rock 'n' roll | 2 Comments »
