(AP) Carl Gardner, original lead singer of the R&B group the Coasters
of "Poison Ivy" and Yakety Yak" fame, has died in Florida after along battle
with congestive heart failure and vascular dementia. He was 83.

Gardner’s wife Veta said her husband died Sunday at a local hospital. Funeral
services are slated for next week.

"He loved his singing," Veta Gardner said of her husband of 24 years. "That was
his whole life.”

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Coasters had a string
of hits in the late 1950s,

1959