David Gates

David Gates served as a key figure in the soft rock ensemble Bread, which rose to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while also establishing himself as a songwriter, keyboardist, vocalist, and producer. His initial success writing material arrived via the Murmaids’ chart favorite “Popsicles and Icicles.” Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a band director father and a piano teacher mother, Gates grew up immersed in music and mastered piano, bass, and guitar before finishing high school. In 1957 a pivotal opportunity arose when Chuck Berry performed in Tulsa, leading to Gates’ debut single “Jo-Baby,” created for his high-school sweetheart Jo Rita. He wed Jo Rita and started a family while attending the University of Oklahoma. The household relocated to Los Angeles in 1961, where Gates launched a dual career writing and producing songs. Before the decade closed he had collaborated with Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, and Merle Haggard, and he oversaw the 1965 Glenn Yarbrough hit “Baby the Rain Must Fall.”

Convinced that only by performing his own compositions could he guarantee their release, Gates assembled Bread in 1968. The lineup originally featured Gates alongside James Griffin and Robb Royer, later expanding to include drummer Michael Botts and keyboardist Larry Knechtel. Bread’s self-titled debut appeared in 1969 and yielded the singles “It Don’t Matter to Me” and “Dismal Day,” while the follow-up On the Waters contained “Make It with You.” The band’s signature soft rock sound soon turned its members into enduring figures on the pop landscape. Even greater acclaim arrived with the 1971 release Manna and its standout track “If.” After the subsequent albums Guitar Man and Baby, I’m-a Want You, diverging ambitions prompted the group’s 1973 split, though the original members reconvened in 1977 to record Lost Without Your Love.

Throughout the 1970s Gates also issued solo projects, First in 1973 and Never Let Her Go in 1975, and his theme “The Goodbye Girl,” written for Neil Simon’s play of the same name, reached the adult contemporary charts. Numerous other performers, among them Julio Iglesias and pop/rocker Boy George, have covered his work. “Everything I Own,” composed as a tribute to the profound influence of his father, was interpreted by Nashville artists the Kendalls and Joe Stampley before Boy George recorded it as well. Gates’ songwriting consistently demonstrates range across multiple styles. Maintaining a studio at his California ranch, he has persisted in composing and producing, releasing Love Is Always Seventeen on Discovery Records in 1994 and, in 2002, the Elektra compilation The David Gates Songbook, which gathered Bread hits, solo recordings, and four newly written tracks.