1969 Dennis Yost and the Classics IV – Everyday With You Girl

1969 Dennis Yost and the Classics IV – Everyday With You Girl

A group called The Classics formed in 1965 in Jacksonville, Florida in 1965. James Cobb played guitar, Walter Eaton played bass, Joe Wilson was on keyboards, and Dennis Yost was their drummer. The group played instrumental covers of popular songs in clubs and Dennis began singing vocals after enough requests from audiences.

Talent agent Alan Diggs became their manager with help from Paul Cochran. Bill Lowery convinced the band to move to Atlanta and helped them get a singles contract with Capitol Records. Joe South wrote the song Pollyanna and Bill produced the song as group’s first single. He played the group Sherry to inspire their performance.

The song became a regional hit and started getting airplay in New York City until WABC played the song. The manager of the Four Seasons called the station and made threats about cutting the station out of future Four Seasons promotions unless they stopped playing the record.

The group also heard from the manager of the Classics, a doo-wop group who had a hit record in 1963 and objected to the use of their name. The band became the Classics IV to end that problem.

They then signed with Imperial Records. Dennis began playing drums standing up so that his singing would be more prominent. The group hired Kim Venable to play the drums so that Dennis could become their frontman full time.

Mike Sharpe and Harry Middlebrooks Jr. wrote the song Spooky. Their instrumental reached #57 in 1967.

Buddy Buie and James wrote lyrics for the song, and Buddy produced a single for the group. It reached #3 on the Hot 100 in late 1967 and has become a popular song at Halloween each year.

Joe left the group, and Dean Daughtry replaced him.

The group’s next two singles did not chart well, but they recovered and had hits with two more songs that were co-written by James and Buddy: Stormy (#5 on the Hot 100 in 1968) and Traces (#2 in 1969).

The group’s last top twenty hit was Everyday With You Girl.

James and Buddy again wrote the song The lyrics of the song, which “borrowed heavily” from the 1936 song Everyday with Jesus (is sweeter than the day before) by Robert C. and Wendell P. Loveless. The group even created a video for the single.

Despite all their hard work, the record peaked at only #19. Their follow-up single stalled at #49, and their next six singles didn’t do that well.

In 1970, James, Buddy, and Dean left to form a group that became the Atlanta Rhythm Section.

The Classics IV became Dennis Yost and the Classics IV. Their only remaining top forty single touched #39 on the Hot 100 in 1972, and the hits came to an end.

Dennis toured for a few years as The Classic One, but eventually regained the ability to tour using the Classics IV name. He died in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics_IV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Yost

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