We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
Before the music, now called soft-rock, had a title, the radio format that played stuff like The Carpenters, Herb Alpert and Olivia Newton-John was called MOR. It stood for Middle of The Road…and even though some of the artists that populated those radio playlists would also get played on the so-called Top 40 or rock stations, it didn’t mean they were rockers. Case in point is Bread. The LA based band was one of the most popular “soft-rock” acts of the early 70’s and they released their 3rd studio LP “Manna” in 1971.
The group was led by David Gates and James Griffin. Gates was a Tulsa boy who came up with Leon Russell in the 50’s and headed to LA to seek his fortune. Griffin wrote songs with Robb Royer who played multiple instruments. The original group, which had a number 1 hit in 1970 with “Make It With You” didn’t have an everyday drummer until they added Mike Botts. Royer left the band in 1971 and was replaced by crack LA session man Larry Knechtel.
Gates and Griffin were both fine pop vocalists and Gates was a solid arranger of these tunes…many were lightweight but sometimes they broke through the saccarine nature of the genre with tunes like “Let Your Love Go” which cracked the Top 30 and had a little bit of an edge to it…and “Take Comfort” that rocks a bit…but the production is so clean, that like the Carpenters, any edge is blunted to keep it from getting too “heavy”.
The LP also has the monster hit “If” which cracked the Top 5 and is really interesting only for the shimmering guitar effect that makes up a bit for it’s greeting card sentiments.
Most of the other tunes are pedestrian pop songs although a couple sound like they could have easily appeared on future Dan Fogelberg records.
The band would have a successful run of hits through 1974 when Griffin, pissed that his songs were passed over for singles, left the band. They would re-group for a short and succesful reunion in 1976.
Gates was a talented guy and his songs were very pretty. That was enough to make them an MOR staple early in the 70’s and earned them a solid living.
Comments