August 12, 2022     —–     Chart #156

Hello Music Friends,

Have you seen us on Facebook? CLICK HERE to like our page. I probably should have featured this song long ago since I am a guitar player and this one speaks to me. “The Guitar Man” is a song written by David Gates and originally recorded by the rock group Bread. It first appeared on Bread’s 1972 album, Guitar Man. It is a mixture of the sounds of soft rock, including strings and acoustic guitar, and the addition of a wah-wah effect electric guitar, played by Larry Knechtel. It peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States and their third No. 1 hit on the easy listening chart, (following “If” and “Baby I’m-a Want You”).

David Ashworth Gates (born December 11, 1940) is now a retired American singer-songwriter, guitarist, musician and producer, frontman and co-lead singer (with Jimmy Griffin) of the group Bread, which reached the tops of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s.

Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, Gates was surrounded by music from infancy, as the son of Clarence Gates, a band director, and Wanda Rollins, a piano teacher. He became proficient in piano, violin, bass and guitar by the time he enrolled in Tulsa’s Will Rogers High School. Gates formed his first band, The Accents, with other high school musicians which included a piano player, Claude Russell Bridges, who later in life changed his name to Leon Russell. During a concert in 1957, the Accents backed Chuck Berry. In 1957, David Gates and the Accents released the 45 “Jo-Baby” / “Lovin’ at Night” on Robbins record label. The A-side was written for his sweetheart, Jo Rita, whom he married in 1959 while enrolled at the University of Oklahoma studying law and pre-med. Who knew?  – Gates was a Sooner!

Live on BBC in 1978:  https://youtu.be/BN8mn2aAGtI 

Keep rockin my friends,

Stan Bradshaw