DAVID GATES

A background story plus an exclusive interview by Bill Kornman for NetMusic.com

THE STORY

As the music of the 1970s has enjoyed its renewed popularity, most baby boomers have no trouble remembering such classic hits as "Make It With You" or "Baby I'm A Want You" or "If" among many others. These songs were all written by David Gates as a member of the group Bread.

The story of David Gates is an interesting journey through Rock & Roll and pop music, beginning with its inception in the 1950s through the British Invasion, through Punk... well through it all. 1996 finds Gates back with us again after more than a decade of semi-retirement. For those who loved his soft, floating tenor voice and personal songwriting style, his newest album Love Is Always Seventeen won't let you down. His new music keeps in style with the songs he wrote over twenty years ago. No heavy guitars or drum machines, just well crafted melodies, soft vocals and lyrics strong on feeling. Exactly like his music from the 70s but with the production techniques of the 90s.

Before we explore David Gates' new music, let's take the proverbial slip back into the past. Gates grew up in a musical family. His father was a band leader for the high school David attended. By the time Gates was a teenager, he could play several instruments and read and write music. While this is no different from thousands of other people, it is different in that as a teenager growing up in the 1950s he was watching and experiencing Rock & Roll as it began developing its identity. Also like thousands of other teenagers of the era, Gates was bitten by the Rock & Roll bug and formed a band. Interestingly, that band also included pop legend Leon Russell. As a band they backed legendary Rock & Rollers Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins among others.

In the late fifties, when Gates had gone as far as he could in Tulsa, he packed up and with his wife and moved to Los Angeles where the pop music scene was really taking off. It was there where Gates really began learning the "music business." Already proficient as a musician, he began to develop his skills as a composer, arranger, and producer. His list of accomplishments is both impressive and long and included working as a session musician and arranger for the instrumental group The Ventures. He also worked with Buck Owens and Merle Haggard as an arranger. As a writer he wrote the song "Popsicles and Icicles" for The Mermaids which became a Top 10 hit in 1963. He also played on a couple of sessions for the Beach Boys. He has commented that after the British Invasion happened it was an extremely difficult task to get American pop records played with the exception, of course, of "Surf" and "Hot Rod" music, which was what the Beach Boys were releasing at the start of the British Invasion. In fact, in 1965, Gates wrote a song called "I Don't Come From England". The song was released under the name The Manchesters and was also sung by Gates - sort of a British Invasion "protest" song.

Anyway, the British Invasion passed and in 1968 Gates produced an album for a Los Angeles pop group called Pleasure Faire whose members included Steve Cohn, Michael Coltrane, and Robb Royer. After completing the album, Royer immediately introduced Gates to James Griffin and together the three of them formed Bread. The Pleasure Faire album is very much in line with Bread's music and could be called "pre-Bread."

Regarding Bread, their history is an amazing success story. From their first chart single "Make it With You" released during the summer of 1970, until "Lost Without Your Love" in 1976, they racked up twelve straight Top 40 singles and seven Top 40 albums. This doesn't even include the period between 1973 and 1975 when the band was not together.

As a band, they featured a great wealth of popular music experience. James Griffin for instance recorded an album in 1963 called Summer Holiday which although not very successful, featured a worthy rendition of Eddie Cochran's "Summer Time Blues". Griffin also co-wrote a song called "Love Machine", an excellent rocker by the group The Roosters, released in 1968 and extremely difficult to find. Larry Knectal was one of the most talented and experienced session players around when he joined Bread in 1971. Knectal had played on several hits for the groups including The Byrds, The Grass Roots, and Simon and Garfunkel. A studio perfectionist, he played the lead guitar on the Bread song "The Guitar Man". Bread singles were almost always ballads. These ballads, how the public associated with Bread's music, shaped the image of the band. This image was of a "soft rock" group and they were often strongly criticized for being "light weight, sappy, and ultra commercial." Initially they were written off as irrelevant. Over the years, however, Bread's music has withstood the test of time and continues to be very popular. Indeed, although they were known for their ballads, Bread also charted in 1971 with "Mother Freedom", a classic rocker penned by Gates. Actually, "Mother Freedom", and "Let Your Love Go" were the only up-tempo Bread songs released as singles showing the group consciousness for what the public expected.

Following Bread, Gates enjoyed further success having songs of his recorded by others. Actor Telly Savalas actually turned the song "If" into a Number 1 hit in England with his strong monologue narration version in 1975. "If" has now been recorded by over 200 artists. Ken Booth also had an English Number 1 song with "Everything I Own" as well as Boy George topping the English charts with the same song in 1987. The list goes on and on. So eventually Gates got the music bug back and began to ship demos around in Nashville. In 1993 he was offered a contract to do another album by Jack Holtzman, who had originally signed Bread to Elektra Records in 1969. Love Is Always Seventeen released in 1994 is very much a continuation of David Gates' previous material, strong on melody and vocals. The record features many new romantic ballads and includes the single "Avenue of Love" as well as a tribute song to James Taylor. All in all a very listenable record showing that no matter what the fad or craze a good romantic song will never go out of style.

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