Dennis Yost of the Classics IV Passes Away at 65

Dennis Yost, the lead singer of the 60's hit makers the Classics IV, passed away Sunday at Fort Hamilton Hospital in Hamilton, Ohio from respiratory failure. He had been hospitalized for over two year after suffering a brain injury in a fall. Yost was 65.


The Classics IV grew out of a Jacksonville, Florida cover band called Leroy and the Moments who were able to mimic most of the top forty hits of the day. They originally signed with Capitol in 1966 where they released a Four Seasons sound alike record call Pollyanna (written by Joe South) which did no better than number 103.

After a couple of more flops, they left Capitol and signed with Imperial. Group members James Cobb and Buddy Buie heard an instrumental called Spooky, wrote words and a new arrangement and the hit period for the group was born. Yost, who had been both vocalist and drummer, found that they needed a fulltime frontman and left the drumming to others.

The group ran into some problems early on because their sound was extremely diverse. While Spooky reached number three, the follow up, Soul Train, barely charted. It wasn't until almost a year later that Imperial released the song Stormy off of the group's second album that they once again reached the top ten, peaking at number five. The follow-up, Traces, did even better, topping out at number two.

In early-1970, the name of the group was changed to Dennis Yost and the Classics IV and they continued to have success; however, it was more on the easy listening charts than rock. Everyday with You Girl went to 19 (12 on easy listening) while What Am I Crying For? went only to 39 on the pop chart but 7 on adult contemporary.

By the time the group broke up in 1975, there were few of the original members left. Many had left to start the Atlanta Rhythm Section. Yost began touring on the oldies circuit, continued to write and did some producing. He continued to tour under the group name up until the time of his accident.

Jon "Bowzer" Bauman of Sha Na Na commented on Yost's passing. "He was a tremendous talent who did an enormous amount of the work for that group. Paradoxically, I came to know Dennis better in the later years, in which he was involved in a massive struggle to retain his own musical identity, which was one of the saddest and most difficult cases of someone losing the name of their own group, when he had pretty much been the group."

SOURCE: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com


Traces Classics IV Dennis Yost