“Make It With You” (1970) by Bread is their only song to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100

Are you David Gates, OP?

I really enjoy that mellow sound from the 70s.

England Dan & John Ford Coley had some hits in this vein.

R1 no. But he’s a genius

I'm a huge Bread fan OP. Grew up with their greatest hits CD in the car. Here's one of my favorite songs by them I found a while back:

Better song, concurrent with Bread:

R5 to you. But I disagree.

It's funny, when I was a kid in the 70s, this kind of ...stuff... was all there was on the radio, it was totally ubiquitous. The 80s couldn't come fast enough, musically speaking, for me. But now, listening to these tracks, it brings back such sweet nostalgia

I agree that Bread has always been underrated, OP.

I REALLY wanna make it, "gurl."

Mary!

I love bread, and throw caution to the wind when it comes to carbs.

I found your diary underneath a tree, OP.

R9 the line is “I really think that we can make it, girl”

I was a kid in the 70s and didn’t really get into music until I hit my teens in the 80s and then it was New Wave, and alternative music I loved. I hated that “cheesy” 70s music.

Now that I’m an old fuck, I find myself loving that 70s music…the hits of Bread, Carpenters, ONJ and other classics like “Lotta Love,” “Love is Like Oxygen”, “Magnet & Steel”, etc.

Just don’t expect me to listen to Steely Dan or Doobie Brothers. HATE.

David Gates must’ve invested his money very well, he’s been retired for 25 years.

I always thought of Bread as a low-rent version of America, which itself was a low-rent version of The Eagles, who themselves were pretty shitty.

"Everything I Own" is their true masterpiece. A song that only grows more beautiful and heartache-y the older one gets, and the more losses one endures.

"Aubrey" has a beautiful melody....

And that Diary song. Just awful.

Sounds like it was recorded in a water pipe.

David Gates used his Bread money to become a cattle rancher. He now lives in Mount Vernon, Washington. Smart man - living in God's country.

[quote]Just don’t expect me to...

R13, reminds me of another mellow 70s song:

R16, I didn't particularly care for "Everything I Own" when I first heard it, but when I realized it was about a deceased parent, not a lover, the lyrics really hit home with me.

I guess "Baby I'm A Want You" , "Make It With You" and "If" are probably the group's biggest hits, but my favorite is the haunting "It Don't Matter To Me".

On all the albums, David Gates wrote half of the songs and James Griffin wrote the other half. Every successful single was a Gates song. That must have created a lot of tension in the band. However, Griffin did have one notable success: he co-wrote "For All We Know", which was a major hit for the Carpenters and an Oscar-winning Best Song.

David Gates hair always makes me laugh. I lalso ove the theme from the Goodbye Girl that he sang.

[quote]David Gates must’ve invested his money very well, he’s been retired for 25 years.

Very succesful pop stars of the '70s if they had a good deal made the money of KINGS. Trust me he's VERY rich.

If he'd been a little more attractive the girls would have gone crazy for him and his very romantic songs - but he looked awful and had no style whatsoever.

R16 I agree that Everything I Own was their best hit. When I was a kid I wondered whether it was about a parent and not a lover. I found out recently that David Gates wrote it about his father, who had passed away.

But Jimmy Griffin was my favorite Bread member. He was as good a songwriter as Gates, and perhaps better. And he had a soulful singing voice. And one of the handsomest guys in music.

"Make It with You" did well on R&B stations.

I’m another who disdained 70s light rock as an 80s alternative teen. Now I recognize the brilliance of a lot of this music. Last year I got “It Don’t Matter to Me” and “Lost Without Your Love” stuck in my head for days. Those are my two faves.

My favorite - If

[quote]“Lost Without Your Love”

Great song - but the horrible electric guitar break sounds so dated now and almost ruins it.

So many good songs.

“Then one…by one the stars would all go out—

Then you…and I…would simply fly a—way….”

[quote][R16], I didn't particularly care for "Everything I Own" when I first heard it, but when I realized it was about a deceased parent, not a lover, the lyrics really hit home with me.

Same here, R229. Always loved the words and melody, playing it when feeling melancholy, but when my Mom was being fucked by vascular dementia over a decade; and when my Dad coded while in ICU (he eventually recovered), I couldn't hear the song without weeping.

Same with the Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain," also written about the death of a parent. And Patty Griffin's elegy to her Dad, "Go Wherever You Wanna Go."

Gorgeously poignant lyrics, melody, and vocals.

I loved Bread’s soft rock, and had a youthful crush on David Gates.

WW for R15. I loved Bread, and I still want you to come sit by me.

They were pure schlock. This may have been their very worst song.

R7- What are you talking about?

The BEST music was the 1960's. There was some decent stuff into the early 1970's. By the late seventies the choices were DISMAL

Disco

New Wave

Punk

The first two don't bother me much but Punk really gets under my skin in a BAD way. By the 1980's things were even worse musically.

OP- For you. A live Bread concert in London 1978.

The drummer was pretty hot. He was never married. I wonder if he was a connoisseur of COCK.