Coasters to head concert at MACC on Saturday
Drifters and the Platters also to perform
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One of the most popular groups of the late 1950s, the Coasters had a string of hits including "Charlie Brown," "Love Potion #9," "Searchin,'" "Yakety Yak," "Along Came Jones," and "Poison Ivy." Widely regarded as the pre-eminent vocal group of the original rock 'n' roll era, the Coasters, in 1987, became the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Keeping the flame alive, lead singer Early Clover has been performing with Cornell Gunter's Coasters for 35 years. A relative of original member Gunter, who passed away in 1990, Clover will head to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Saturday, on a bill with the Drifters, and the Platters.
"I'm very honored to have the privilege," Clover said about performing the Coasters' songs. "It's from a time and era that is unlike any other. It was pure and innocent and those songs told stories of people's lives, and people can identify with them even today."
Clover first recalled hearing the Coasters' music as an 9-year-old in Georgia. "It was 'Yakety Yak,' and I was standing in the middle of a cotton field with my transistor radio on my on my shoulder. I didn't have the faintest idea that not only would I become the lead singer for the Coasters, I didn't know that Cornell was my cousin. It was all like a puzzle. It all fell into place."
The Coasters were produced by the legendary team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who composed many of their songs. They also wrote and produced records for Elvis Presley, the Drifters, Ben E. King, and the Clovers.
Among the Coasters' humorous hits, it's hard to imagine that "Yakety Yak," their number one hit about teens and parents clashing over chores, was denounced in 1958, during a United States Senate hearing concerned with the music industry.
A counsel for the American Guild of Authors and Composers played "Yakety Yak" to illustrate how rock and roll was responsible for ''the cheapening of American music." Senator John O. Pastore rose to the song's defense, noting, "my daughter bought it."
And a year later, over in England, the BBC temporarily banned "Charlie Brown" from the radio due to its referencing delinquent behavior in school.
Their parody of Western silent film melodramas, "Along Came Jones," had original lyrics about the hero's white hat and white boots deleted by their record company. "After reading the lyrics, (Coasters' singer) Billy Guy would predict, 'Man, they're gonna hang us in Mississippi from the highest tree,'" Leiber reported in the book "Rhythm and the Blues."
One of their songs "Hey Sexy," was considered too salacious to release at the time, and their last hit, the risque "Little Egypt," was also controversial, depicting an exotic dancer wearing nothing but a button and a bow, and was widely banned in the South.
Singing hits that were sometimes viewed as social satire, in his autobiography, Atlantic Records' producer Jerry Wexler noted; "the same indignant spirit that informs 'Charlie Brown,' about the bad boy archetype, continues to be a staple of hip-hop in the form of rough-and-tumble rap."
Both the Beatles and Rolling Stones were drawn to covering their songs. "'Searchin'' became a big number with The Beatles," Paul McCartney recalled in "Anthology." "We always used to do it at the Cavern." The Beatles also performed the Coasters' "Three Cool Cats" and "Young Blood" in their early shows.
The Stones recorded two versions of "Poison Ivy," the first appearing on their EP "The Rolling Stones." It was only in the late 20th century that we got to learn that "Poison Ivy" was a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease, as revealed in "Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography."
Summing up the group's appeal, author Arnold Shaw wrote in "The Rockin' '50s," "They reflected the world of the young with understanding, good humor, and social insight. This was rock 'n' roll at its best – ebullient, energizing, entertaining, expressive and danceable."
Clover feels fortunate that he got to sing with original members Billy Guy and Bobby Nunn before they passed. "They were a riot," he recalled. "It was fun working with them the short time I did. I learned a lot from them that I still put into the show today, because we want to keep it as close to original as possible."
Cornell Gunter's Coasters, the Drifters, and the Platters, perform in the MACC's Castle Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.†Tickets are $30, $50, $60, $70, and a limited number of $125 premium seats, plus applicable fees. All ticket sales are online only at MauiArts.org.