American singer noted as the foremost member and founder of rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group The Coasters. Best known for the 1958 song “Yakety Yak”, which spent a week as number one on the Hot 100 pop list, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 along with the other members of the Coasters – Cornell Gunter, Billy Guy and Will “Dub” Jones.
As a singer, his first major career success came with The Robins, a rhythm and blues group that had a big hit in 1955, “Smokey Joe’s Café”. After leaving that group, in 1956 Gardner formed the Coasters with the Robins’ bass singer Bobby Nunn, Leon Hughes and Billy Guy, at the behest of the songwriting/producing team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and had a two-sided hit in 1957, “Young Blood” (on which Gardner sang lead) and “Searchin'”. With new members Cornel Gunter and Will “Dub” Jones, the Coasters went on to produce several enduring classics of 1950s rock and roll music including “Yakety Yak”, “Charlie Brown” (1959), and “Poison Ivy” (1959).
In 1993, shortly after moving with wife Veta to Port St. Lucie, Florida, Gardner sought treatment for a nosebleed. He was ultimately diagnosed by an ENT specialist with a cancerous tumor of the nasopharynx “the size of a grapefruit”, and was told chances of survival were slim. Nevertheless after enduring weeks of radiation therapy, the cancer went into remission never to recur. Despite some change in the sonority of his voice he continued to perform with the Coasters as lead singer.
Carl Gardner, Sr. published his autobiography Yakety Yak I Fought Back: My Life with The Coasters in 2007. He died in Port St. Lucie on 12 June 2011 at age 83, after suffering with congestive heart failure and vascular dementia (according to the Coasters website). Carl, Jr., took over as lead singer, but was fired by Veta Gardner.
Link to Wikipedia biography