The Coasters
"Those
Hoodlum Friends" - "The Clown Princes of Rock ´N´
Roll", The Coasters were the first vocal group to be inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987. They
have appeared in 6 major movies and have amassed over 100 million
record sales in their career.
The foursome
was created in October, 1955 from the nucleus of the Los Angeles,
California based vocal sextet "the Robins". It was the
young producing-composing team of Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller,
who with manager-salesman, Lester Sill, persuaded Bobby Nunn and
Carl Gardner, to leave that group and launch the Coasters. Gardner
is still the Coasters´ spokesman and lead singer today.
Attracted
by the success of SMOKEY JOE´S CAFE with Gardner on lead
vocal, Atlantic Records signed an independent producer-composer
contract with Leiber & Stoller. Two hand-chosen Californians,
Billy Guy and Leon Hughes, completed the original Coasters line-up.
They were contracted to Atlantic´s new subsidiary Atco Records.
Through the
Coasters, Leiber-Stoller launched some of the most entertaining
songs of the ´50s. The first Coasters´ recording was
DOWN IN MEXICO from January 11, 1956. The record became a "sleeper"
R&B hit - followed by the minor Pop hit, ONE KISS LED TO ANOTHER.
The group now hit the road for national promotion and produced
R&B´s most famous double-sided smash in 1957. YOUNG
BLOOD (the original A-side) was an R&B Juke Box No. 1 hit,
and a No. 2 hit on the R&B Disc Jockey chart, while the flip
side, SEARCHIN´, which occupied the No. 1 spot on the R&B
Best Seller chart for thirteen weeks, and lasted No. 1 on the
R&B Disc Jockey chart for seven weeks. Both titles also became
national Pop Top Ten hits, staying on the charts for half a year.
After three
less successful releases, the Coasters reformed and moved from
the West Coast to New York. Bobby Nunn and Leon Hughes stayed
in California, where Nunn later launched his own "The Coasters,
Mark II". Nunn died of heart failure on November 5, 1986
in Los Angeles. His group, now led by Billy Richards Jr, continued
to tour as "Billy Richards´ Coasters". Hughes
also started his own Coasters tribute group - "The Original
Coasters".
Tenor, Cornell
Gunter and bass, Will "Dub" Jones, replaced Hughes and
Nunn, and in 1959, The Coasters rattled off a string of hits that
included YAKETY YAK (a No. 1 Pop hit in 1958), CHARLIE BROWN and
ALONG CAME JONES (1959) and the double-sider POISON IVY b/w I´M
A HOG FOR YOU. The classic Coasters had a fifth member in guitarist
Adolph Jacobs from Oakland, California, who was succeeded by a
Coasters´ employee, Sonny Forriest, on WHAT ABOUT US, which
was the last single of the highly successful year of 1959.
The productions
of the Coasters´ Atco recordings were far superior to any
contemporary group efforts (using the best musicians available,
especially King Curtis´ sax breaks) with the lyrics neatly
deriding aspects of teenage and/or black ghetto life. The group
also worked out hilarious stage routines and became the most professional
act in late ´50s Rhythm & Blues and early ´60s
International Pop.
In 1960, the
Coasters had a few more minor hits with WAKE ME, SHAKE ME and
SHOPPIN´ FOR CLOTHES. In 1961 they hit with WAIT A MINUTE
(recorded in 1957). After the group´s last U.S. Pop Top
30 hit entry, LITTLE EGYPT, Cornell Gunter left the group in June,
1961. He formed his own "Fabulous Coasters" a couple
of years later. Gunter died in his car by a gun shot from an unknown
in Las Vegas on January 26, 1990.
Leiber-Stoller
had left Atco/Atlantic in 1963, and the hits quickly dried up,
but the vocal quartet renewed their collaboration with the team
in late 1966, recording for the CBS subsidiary Date Records. By
this time however, doo-wop music was hopelessly out of style,
and despite releasing several new records, The Coasters were unable
to repeat their earlier success. The group continued to perform
all over U.S. and toured Europe several times. They even made
a brief come-back on the U.S. Hot 100 Chart in 1972, with a re-rendition
of LOVE POTION NUMBER NINE. By the early ´80s Carroll had
left to reform his Cadillacs, and Guy and Jones sporadically acted
with a special "World Famous Coasters" in California.
In the late ´90s yet another fake Coasters, "Billy
Guy´s Coasters", emerged on the scene, semi-coached
by Billy Guy
In 1987 the
Coasters, Gardner, Guy, Jones, and Gunter (the line-up that made
the hits) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -
the first vocal group receiving that honor.
Carl Gardner
& The Coasters have - despite competition from bogus and off-spring
Coasters groups - been heavily engaged in live bookings during
the late ´80s and the whole of the ´90s (even performing
at the Carnegie Hall).
All of the
early members have launched their off-shot Coasters´ recording
groups during later years. Billy Guy has issued records as Billy
Guy & The Coasters, and there were/are Bobby Nunn´s
Coasters, Mark II - nowadays touring as Billy Richards´
(West) Coasters; Leon Hughes´ Original Coasters; Cornell
Gunter´s Fabulous Coasters (still acting with fake members
as Cornell Gunter´s Coasters Inc). There also was Will Jones´
World Famous Coasters (which often featured Billy Guy, who later
semi-coached Larry Marshak´s fake group, which nowadays
tours as Cornell Gunter´s Coasters with Shirley Gunter as
mentor). The true Coasters though, are still led by Carl Gardner.
The Coaster's
Top Ten Hits
1957 YOUNG BLOOD #8
1957 SEARCHING #3
1957 POISON IVY #7
1958 YAKETY YAK #1
1959 CHARLIE BROWN #2
1959 ALONG CAME JONES #9
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