Music By Bread

When you hear the word bread do you think about food or music? Well of course people will probably say food and look at you strangely. That means they have forgotten or haven’t heard about the rock group which came from Los Angeles, California and was called Bread. Between 1970 and 1977 they had 13 songs which hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart and their kind of music was known as soft rock.

You could say that Bread created American soft rock or at least made people aware of this kind of music and made it very popular. The boys in the band were David Gates vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard, violin, viola and percussion, Jimmy Griffin vocals, guitar, keyboard, and percussion, Robb Royer bass, flute, keyboard, percussion, recorder, and backing vocals, Mike Botts drums, and Larry Knechtel bass, guitar, keyboard, and harmonica. The most interesting thing was which many wanted to know how they chose their name. It came to them in a flash you could say when they got stuck in traffic and wound up sitting behind a Wonder Bread truck.

When the group came together in 1968 they chose to call themselves Bread and signed on with Electra Records. Their first album was an introduction to them and their music titled Bread. Among the songs were “The Last Time” and “It Don’t Matter to Me”.

However it was their second album On the Waters which netted them a hit single “Make it With You” which quickly rose up on the Billboard Hot 100 to number one. It turned out to be the group’s only number one single. Their next charted hit was “It Don’t Matter to Me”. Bread went on tour and gathered fans wherever they performed. Their next recorded album Manna included another hit “If”. All the songwriting was done by Gates and Griffin-Royer.

It was in the beginning of 1972 that Bread recorded their most successful album titled Baby I’m a Want You which rose up to number three on the Billboard 200. This album brought another hit single “Everything I Own”. Another song which became popular was “Diary”. After the next album Guitar Man the most played songs were “The Guitar Man”, “Sweet Surrender”, and “Aubrey”.

Bread has the kind of singing style that you could understand all the words of each song and many of their songs spoke to those who listened. You could identify with many of their songs if you had fallen in love, had a heartbreak, or anything else that might be going on in your life emotionally. That was what mostly made their songs a great success and even today when I hear a song by Bread I sit back just to listen.

Even though they were successful and had songs which were hits there were problems among the group members and finally Bread made the decision to disband. In 1973 they came out with a compilation album The Best of Bread and it was very successful and stayed up on the charts for more than two years. It was followed by the second volume of the same name.

Then in 1976 due to interest about Bread the group got together to record another album titled Lost Without Your Love and it came out in the beginning of 1977. From the album “Lost Without Your Love” made the charts. That same year they came out with the single “Hooked On You “but it wasn’t as successful. Afterward Bread made no plans to continue as a group. David Gates went on to a solo career and sang the popular song “Goodbye Girl” from the movie starring Marsha Mason “The Goodbye Girl”.

Bread came together one more time in 1996 for their 25th Anniversary Tour which was a great success. They toured the U.S., Europe, South Africa, and Asia. The tour continued into 1997 and it was the final time that the original members of the group performed together. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006. The only surviving original members of Bread are Royer and Gates. In 2013 the U.K. released a biography of the group through Helter Skelter Publishing "Bread: A Sweet Surrender."