Aloha Dennis Yost

Some thirty or so years ago in the good old "hanabata" days, a successful group was one that would come up with hit after hit after hit. One such group was a group called the Classics IV featuring lead singer Dennis Yost. Starting with the hit "Spooky", followed up with "Stormy" and "Everyday With You Girl", and then the monster hit "Traces", this group was "classic" for sure. Long before the reunion circuit was cool, I remember seeing Dennis Yost solo doing one of those "oldies but goodies" productions at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Hawaii. Aloha Dennis, thank you for all the wonderful memories, you will be missed. You will always be cool in my book. Here's something from Rodney Lee's Honolulu Advertiser "Midlife Crisis" blog. Thanks Rodney for the cool writeup!!!!

A True Classic is Gone
December 12th, 2008 by Rodney
Dennis Yost, the lead singer with the rock group the Classics IV, which in the late 1960s and early ’70s challenged the then-ascendant music of drugs and protest with a more laid-back, softer sound in Top 10 hits like Spooky, Stormy and Traces of Love, died on Sunday in Hamilton, Ohio. He was 65.
The Classics IV Web site announced the death. Mr. Yost had been hospitalized since suffering a brain injury in a fall in 2006. The cause was respiratory failure, a hospital spokesman told The Associated Press.
The music of the Classics IV lacked the hard edge that characterized much of rock during the years of the group’s success, 1968 to 1974. Later singles, like Everyday With You Girl, placed higher on easy-listening charts than on rock charts.
Mr. Yost’s throaty baritone defined the sound. Buddy Buie, who with guitarist J.R. Cobb wrote many of the group’s songs, said in an interview with Mix magazine in April that Mr. Yost drew passion from his youthful devotion to r&b and doo-wop.
Mr. Yost moved to Jacksonville from Detroit when he was 7, and in high school played drums for a group called the Echoes.
After the Echoes broke up, he joined a band called Leroy and the Moments in the mid-1960s. With his arrival, that group changed its name, inspired by his Classic drum kit. It became the Classics and specialized in cover versions.

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