David Ashworth Gates (born December 11, 1940)[1] is a retired American singer-songwriter, guitarist, musician and producer, frontman and co-lead singer (with Jimmy Griffin) of the group Bread, which reached the top of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s. The band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.[2]
Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma,[1] Gates was surrounded by music from infancy, as the son of Clarence Gates, a band director, and Wanda Rollins, a piano teacher. He became proficient in piano, violin, bass and guitar by the time he enrolled in Tulsa's Will Rogers High School. Gates formed his first band, The Accents, with other high school musicians which included a piano player, Claude Russell Bridges, who later in life changed his name to Leon Russell.[1] During a concert in 1957, the Accents backed Chuck Berry.[3] In 1957, David Gates and the Accents released the 45 "Jo-Baby" / "Lovin' at Night" on Robbins record label. The A-side was written for his sweetheart, Jo Rita, whom he married in 1959 while enrolled at the University of Oklahoma studying law and pre-med. At Oklahoma he became a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.[4]
In the meantime, Gates had been releasing singles of his own on several labels in the early 1960s.[1] On Mala Records, he released "There's a Heaven" / "She Don't Cry", "You'll Be My Baby" / "What's This I Hear", "The Happiest Man Alive" / "A Road That Leads to Love", and "Jo Baby" / "Teardrops in My Heart". On Planetary, he released "Little Miss Stuck Up" / "The Brighter Side", and "Let You Go" / "Once upon a Time" under the pseudonym of "Del Ashley" in 1965. On Del-Fi, he released "No One Really Loves a Clown" / "You Had It Comin' to Ya". He also released a single under the name of "The Manchesters" in 1965 on the Vee-Jay label.
Bread and fame
Gates and Bread performing on the television program Hotel Ninety in 1973
In 1967, Gates produced and arranged the debut album from a band called The Pleasure Fair,[1][6] of which Robb Royer was a member. A little over a year later, Gates and Royer got together with Jimmy Griffin to form Bread.[1] The group was signed by the Elektra record company, where it would remain for the eight years of its existence. Elektra released Bread's first album, Bread, in 1969, which peaked at No.127 on the Billboard 200. The first single, "Dismal Day", written by Gates, was released in June 1969 but did not sell well.
Bread's second album, On the Waters (the title a wordplay on Ecclesiastes 11:1; "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."[7]), with a new drummer, Mike Botts, was released in 1970, and became a breakout success. It contained the No.1 single "Make It with You" and was the first of seven consecutive Bread albums to go gold in the US. Bread's next three albums, Manna (1971), Baby I'm-a Want You (1972) (featuring Larry Knechtel as a new member of the band, replacing Royer) and Guitar Man (1972) were also successful, with more chart singles and gold records. From 1970 to 1973, Bread charted 11 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and all were written and sung by Gates. That caused some antagonism between Gates and Griffin, who was also a significant contributor to Bread's albums as a singer and songwriter. Bread disbanded in 1973.[1] Their last concert was performed at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 19, 1973.
Gates recorded and produced his solo album First in 1973.[1] The single "Clouds", an edited version of the album track "Suite Clouds and Rain", peaked at No.47 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No.3 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The full album version was played extensively by Radio Caroline presenter Samantha Dubois at the end of her early morning radio programme, and became her closing theme.[8] A second single, "Sail Around the World", reached No.50 on the singles chart and No.11 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The album reached No.107 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. In 1975, Gates released the album Never Let Her Go.[1] The title track was released as a single, and reached No.29 on the Hot 100 chart and No.3 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself reached No.102 on the Billboard 200.
Bread reunited in 1976 for one album, Lost Without Your Love, released late that year.[1] The title track—again written and sung by Gates—reached No.9 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the end of 1977, Gates released what would be his most successful single as a solo artist, "Goodbye Girl", from the 1977 film of the same name.[1] It peaked at No.15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. To capitalize on that success, Gates put an album together in June 1978 that featured material from his first two solo albums mixed with some new material. It yielded another hit single, "Took the Last Train", which reached No.30 on the Billboard Hot 100 but the album itself made it only to No.165 on the Billboard 200. In 1978, Gates and Bread guest starred on an episode of The Hardy Boys Mysteries.
Botts and Knechtel from Bread, along with Warren Ham, brother Bill Ham and bassist David Miner, continued to record and tour with Gates. In late 1978, they toured billing themselves as "David Gates & Bread", which brought a lawsuit from Griffin, who was still co-owner of the Bread trademark, and an injunction against the use of the name Bread. By the end of 1978, the "Bread" moniker had been dropped and they continued on as "David Gates and His Band". The dispute was not resolved until 1984.
Gates released the albums Falling in Love Again (featuring "Where Does the Loving Go"), which peaked at No.46 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979, and Take Me Now, which peaked at No.62, in 1981. He recorded a duet with Melissa Manchester, "Wish We Were Heroes", included in her 1982 album Hey Ricky. Gates was less active in music during the remainder of the 1980s.[1] He concentrated on operating a cattle ranch in the Fall River Valley of Northern California, located on land he purchased in the 1970s. He returned to music in 1994, when he released Love Is Always Seventeen, his first new album in thirteen years.
Gates and Griffin put aside their differences, and reunited for a final Bread tour in 1996–97 with Botts and Knechtel. With the deaths of three of the other principal members of Bread, Gates is the sole surviving band member from their heyday, although Royer still successfully works in Nashville.
The David Gates Songbook, containing earlier hit singles and new material, was released in 2002. Engelbert Humperdinck included "Baby I'm-a Want You" on his 1972 album In Time and "If" on his 2003 album Definition of Love. Frank Sinatra covered "If" in a live performance at Madison Square Garden on October 12, 1974, which was recorded by Reprise.[9] Gates's songs have been recorded by many artists, including Telly Savalas, who had a UK No. 1 hit with "If" in 1975; Vesta Williams, who made a rendition of "Make It with You" in 1988; the band CAKE, which covered "The Guitar Man" in 2004; Ray Parker Jr., who also recorded "The Guitar Man" in 2006; and Boy George, who took "Everything I Own" to No. 1 on the UK chart, when he covered the Ken Boothe reggae version of Gates's song, which itself had been a UK No. 1 in 1974. Jack Jones recorded a Bread tribute album, Bread Winners (1972) including the Gates' standard, "If", which has long been a staple of Jones' live performances.
Personal life
According to a 1996 article in People, Gates has remained married to high school sweetheart Jo Rita since 1959. Together they raised four children: three lawyers and a cardiothoracic surgeon.[10] Gates, who studied the cattle ranching business while touring with Bread, purchased a 1,400-acre (570ha) cattle ranch financed by royalties he earned during his time with the band. He lives happily with his wife in Mount Vernon, Washington, enjoying his retirement.[11][12]
Bread was an American soft rock band from Los Angeles, California. They had 13 songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1970 and 1977.
Bread is the debut album by soft rock band Bread, released in 1969.
James Arthur Griffin was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the 1970s soft rock band Bread. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1970 as co-writer of "For All We Know".
"For All We Know" is a soft rock song written for the 1970 film Lovers and Other Strangers, with music by Fred Karlin and lyrics by Robb Wilson and Arthur James. Both Royer and Griffin were founding members of the soft rock group Bread. It was originally performed, for the film's soundtrack, by Larry Meredith. The best known version of the song is by American pop duo the Carpenters which reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the US Billboard Easy Listening chart in 1971. The song was also a hit for Shirley Bassey at the same time in the United Kingdom. It has since been covered by various artists, including Petula Clark.
"I Think I Love You" is a song by Tony Romeo, written as the debut single for fictional musical TV family the Partridge Family, released in August 1970, a month prior to the debut of the ABC-TV musical sitcom The Partridge Family starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy, both of whom appear on the record, with Cassidy as lead vocalist. The single topped Billboard's Hot 100 for three weeks in November and December 1970 and later was certified by NARM as the best-selling single of 1970.
"Everything I Own" is a song written by American singer-songwriter David Gates. It was originally recorded by Gates's soft rock band Bread for their 1972 album Baby I'm-a Want You. The original reached No. 5 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Billboard ranked it as the No. 52 song for 1972. "Everything I Own" also reached No. 5 in Canada and No. 12 in Australia.
On the Waters is the second album by Bread, released in July 1970. After the commercial failure of their first album, Gates, Griffin and Royer, along with studio drummer Mike Botts, returned to the studio in a second attempt to make a hit record. Thanks largely to the success of the coinciding single "Make It With You / Why Do You Keep Me Waiting", the album was a success, peaking at 12 on Billboard 200.
Manna is the third studio album by American soft rock band Bread, released in 1971. The title, like that of the preceding album On the Waters, is a Biblical pun on the name Bread, in this case the manna from Heaven which was fed to the Israelites. Although it was not literally bread it has often been metaphorically described as bread from Heaven. The singles "Let Your Love Go" and "If" were released from this album. Record World said "Let Your Love Go" has a "heavier sound than usual from [the] group." Cash Box said that it "brings a new strength to the act's vocal sound, rumpling a bit of the letter-perfect smoothness of their first two hits."
Baby I'm-a Want You is the fourth album by Bread, released in 1972. Its singles included the title cut, "Everything I Own", "Mother Freedom", and "Diary". The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in March 1972. This was the first Bread album to feature keyboard player Larry Knechtel.
Guitar Man is the fifth album by Bread, released in 1972.
Lost Without Your Love is the sixth and final studio album by Bread, released in 1977. The title track became the group's sixth and final top 10 hit, reaching number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100 in February 1977. "Hooked on You", the follow-up single, subsequently reached number 60.
The Best of Bread is a multi-platinum compilation album by the band Bread released in 1973 by Elektra Records. The original album contains 12 songs that were first released between 1969 and 1972.
"Don't Pull Your Love" is the debut single by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds which became a top ten hit single in 1971. The song was written by Brian Potter and Dennis Lambert.
"Make It with You" is a song written by David Gates and originally recorded by American pop-rock group Bread, of which Gates was a member. Gates and drummer Mike Botts are the only members of the group to appear on the recording, which was Bread's only No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
"The Guitar Man" is a song written by David Gates and originally recorded by the rock group Bread. It first appeared on Bread's 1972 album, Guitar Man. It is a mixture of the sounds of soft rock, including strings and acoustic guitar, and the addition of a wah-wah effect electric guitar, played by Larry Knechtel. It peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States and was their third No. 1 hit on the easy listening chart,.
Robert Wilson Royer is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the soft rock band Bread from 1968 to 1971. While he was with the band, they had a #5 UK/#1 US hit single with "Make It With You". He was replaced by Larry Knechtel in 1971.
"Mary, Mary" is a song written by Michael Nesmith and first recorded by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band for their 1966 album East-West. Nesmith's band, the Monkees, later recorded it for More of the Monkees (1967). Hip hop group Run–D.M.C. revived the song in the late 1980s, with an adaptation that appeared in the U.S. record charts.
"Took the Last Train" is a song by David Gates, lead singer of the group Bread, which was released as a single in 1978 following the premiere of the hit film The Goodbye Girl. It was the follow-up single to the title track hit song from the album of the same name.
"Diary" is a song written and produced by David Gates and released by his band Bread in 1972, both as a single and on the album Baby I'm-a Want You.
Real Friends is the third studio album by R&B group The Friends of Distinction, released in 1970 on the RCA Victor label.
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