Bread (band)
| Bread | |
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Bread in 1971 (L-R: David Gates, Robb Royer, Jimmy Griffin, Mike Botts)
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Genres | Soft rock |
| Years active |
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| Labels | Elektra |
| Associated acts |
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| Past members |
David Gates Jimmy Griffin Robb Royer Mike Botts Larry Knechtel |
Bread was an American soft rock band from Los Angeles, California. They placed 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1970 and 1977 and were an example of what later was labeled as soft rock.
The band consisted of David Gates (vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, violin, viola, percussion), Jimmy Griffin (vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion) and Robb Royer (bass guitar, guitar, flute, keyboards, percussion, recorder, backing vocals). On their first album session musician Jim Gordon played (Drums, percussion, piano), Mike Botts (drums, percussion) became their permanent drummer when he joined in the summer of 1969 and Larry Knechtel (keyboards, bass guitar, guitar, harmonica) replaced Royer in 1971.
David Gates was from Tulsa, OK. He had a hit 45 in the late 1950s entitled "Living Doll" on Atlantic. Gates knew Leon Russell and both played in some bar bands around the Tulsa area. Both Gates and Russell headed for California to check out the music scene there.
Before forming Bread, Gates had worked with Royer's previous band, The Pleasure Fair. The Pleasure Fair wrote and recorded the title song to the 1970 Academy Award winning movie FGF Friends and Other Strangers. The song used in the movie was "For All We Know." It was not a hit for the group, but was a hit later on for the Carpenters. Gates produced and arranged the band's 1967 album, The Pleasure Fair. Royer then introduced Gates to his songwriting partner, Griffin, and the trio joined together in 1968 and signed with Elektra Records in January 1969, after choosing the name "Bread" in late 1968, supposedly after getting stuck in traffic behind a Wonder Bread truck. The group's first single, "Dismal Day", was released in June 1969 but did not chart. Their debut album, Bread, was released in September 1969 and peaked at No. 127 on the Billboard 200. Songwriting on the album was split evenly between Gates and the team of Griffin-Royer. Jim Gordon, a session musician, accompanied the band on drums for the album.
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