Here’s another classic song of the day about another type of man, a “Guitar Man.” This song, released by the group Bread in July of 1972, rose to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, #10 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart.
Like most (all?) of Bread’s big hits, “Guitar Man” was written, sung, and produced by leader David Gates. Session ace Larry Knechtel, who also happened to be a member of the group, played the tasty little electric guitar solo. Other group members on the song included James Griffin on acoustic guitar and Mike Bolts on drums.
Larry Knechtel, while he played guitar, wasn’t the group’s main guitarist; he normally played keyboards. On this tune, however, he had the juice they needed, as David Gates recalls:
“James [Griffin, the band’s main guitarist] went out and tried to play a solo that wasn’t sounding right, and I went out and tried it and didn’t have any luck either. Larry plays a little guitar, so I asked him to try it. He hooked up a little wah-wah pedal, and he came up with all those things on the spot. I’ll bet that wasn’t more than two hours of work on his part.”
Bread was not named after the doughy comestible but rather the green stuff in your wallet. Apparently David Gates wanted to make a lot of it, so he left the L.A. studio scene, where he’d made his bones, and formed his own group. That way he’d get all the songwriting and performance royalties.
Gates, who hailed from Tulsa, Oklahoma, started out as a music copyist in the early ’60s then moved on to being a studio musician, later adding songwriting and producing to his resume. Gates wrote “Popsicles and Icicles” for the Murmaids and produced records for a number of groups, including the girl group classic “My One and Only Jimmy Boy” (which he also wrote) for the Girlfriends. He formed Bread in 1969 and they had a nice run until they broke up in 1973. (They reunited briefly in 1977 and 1978, before calling it quits for good.) Gates also had a brief solo career, culminating with his top twenty hit, “Goodbye Girl,” in 1977. He left the music business in the 1980s, save for a short return in the 1990s, and turned to raising cattle on his ranch in Washington State. He’s currently 84 years old and retired.
So here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, a briefly reunited “David Gates & Bread” performing “Guitar Man” live on some television show in 1978. Who draws the crowd and plays so loud? Baby it’s the guitar man…
