Dennis Yost, lead singer and drummer with sixties outfit Classics IV, has died at the age of 65 in Hamilton, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Yost suffered a brain injury back in 2005, and had been cared for in nursing homes since then, and ultimately succumbed to respiratory failure.
Yost was born in Detroit, but raised in Jacksonville, Florida, where Classics IV formed from the remains of a local cover band, The Classics. The group moved to Atlanta in 1967 and were discovered by Bill Lowery, who produced their first hit for Imperial Records, 'Spooky', in 1968. The group later changed its line up, with several members moving on to the Atlanta Rhythm Section by 1974, and its name, which became Classics IV featuring Dennis Yost. Yost continued to perform with the group until 2005. Plans for 40th anniversary celebrations in 2006 had to be abandoned after a fall down a flight of stairs caused the brain damage that was to end Yost's career.
Former bandmate James R Cobb said of his late colleague: "Dennis was a friend as well as a fellow musician. I always thought he had a very distinctive voice, and I think we had some of the hits we had because of him and his ability as a singer".
Jon Bowman, of former rock and comedy group Sha Na Na, held a benefit concert last year to assist Yost with his increasing medical costs. He is quoted as saying: "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".
Yost is survived by his wife and five children.