David Ashworth Gates (born December 11, 1940) is a retired American singer-songwriter, guitarist, musician and producer, frontman and co-lead singer (with Jimmy Griffin) of the group Bread, which reached the top of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s. The band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
Life and early career
Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, 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. At Oklahoma he became a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.
In 1961, he and his family moved to Los Angeles, where Gates continued writing songs, and he worked as a music copyist, as a studio musician, and as a producer for many artists – including Pat Boone. Success soon followed. His composition "Popsicles and Icicles" hit No. 3 on the US Hot 100 for The Murmaids in January 1964. The Monkees recorded another of his songs, "Saturday's Child". By the end of the 1960s, he had worked with many leading artists, including Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Merle Haggard, Duane Eddy and Brian Wilson. In 1965, Gates arranged the Glenn Yarbrough hit, "Baby the Rain Must Fall". In 1966, he produced two singles on A&M Records for Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band.
Gates scored his first motion picture Journey to Shiloh in 1967.
In the meantime, Gates had been releasing singles of his own on several labels in the early 1960s. On Mala Records, he released "There's a Heaven" / "She Don't Cry", "You'll Be My Baby" / "What's This I Hear", "The Happiest Man Alive" / "A Road That Leads to Love", and "Jo Baby" / "Teardrops in My Heart". On Planetary, he released "Little Miss Stuck Up" / "The Brighter Side", and "Let You Go" / "Once upon a Time" under the pseudonym of "Del Ashley" in 1965. On Del-Fi, he released "No One Really Loves a Clown" / "You Had It Comin' to Ya". He also released a single under the name of "The Manchesters" in 1965 on the Vee-Jay label.
Bread and fame
In 1967, Gates produced and arranged the debut album from a band called The Pleasure Fair, of which Robb Royer was a member. A little over a year later, Gates and Royer got together with Jimmy Griffin to form Bread. The group was signed by the Elektra record company, where it would remain for the eight years of its existence. Elektra released Bread's first album, Bread, in 1969, which peaked at No. 127 on the Billboard 200. The first single, "Dismal Day", written by Gates, was released in June 1969 but did not sell well.
Bread's second album, On the Waters (the title a wordplay on Ecclesiastes 11:1; "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."), with a new drummer, Mike Botts, was released in 1970, and became a breakout success. It contained the No. 1 single "Make It with You" and was the first of seven consecutive Bread albums to go gold in the US. Bread's next three albums, Manna (1971), Baby I'm-a Want You (1972) (featuring Larry Knechtel as a new member of the band, replacing Royer) and Guitar Man (1972) were also successful, with more chart singles and gold records. From 1970 to 1973, Bread charted 11 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, all of which were written and sung by Gates. That caused some antagonism between Gates and Griffin, who was also a significant contributor to Bread's albums as a singer and songwriter. Bread disbanded in 1973. Their last concert was performed at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 19, 1973.