Bread are one of the most underrated bands of the 70s. They weren’t taken seriously because they made songs that were off the charts in mushiness. But all that mushiness made us undervalue the amazing story-telling in their lyrics. These were novellas of love and heartache and misery and hope. Enchanting stories, told in 3 minutes that stayed in your heart forever. Wrap them up in haunting melodies and David Gates’ incredible voice and you have magic??‍♂️. IMHO, David, who was also their lead guitarist, truly had one of the best male voices ever to record.

‘Guitar Man was their biggest hit on All India Radio. It’s really weird that their most popular song, didn’t have David, their lead guitarist playing on it. In fact, Larry Knechtel, keyboard/bass player played lead because David somehow just couldn’t get the chords right – kind of ironic on a song called “The Guitar Man” ?.  The story telling is of course brilliant – a journeyman guitar player, following his passion and not letting the hardships make him give up his craft. The guitaring is fantastic, really searing your soul with the misery of the guitar player whose craft is never truly recognised. I bet you recognise every note of that guitar solo  

My favourite Bread song though s “Diary”. The story told very simply in three verses, is heart-breaking. The big reveal at the end always gets me, no matter how many times I hear it. By the end of it, I feel a deep sadness for the singer, and a desperate urge to give him a big man-hug and to help him hold his broken heart together…with big shot of my best single malt ?. And since I hate sharing my best single-malt, I’m sure you can easily understand that this is one of my all-time favourite songs

Amazingly though, it was ‘Make It With You’ that was their only #1 hit. There’s an interesting (true?) story about “Make It With You” – when a reporter asked David’s mother how she felt about her son’s song getting to #1, apparently she said that, she was of course delighted, but couldn’t understand why he had to call his song “Naked With You”!

Bread have a reputation as purveyors of mush. But it’s nice mush, the kind that makes you want to stop and seriously listen to the lyrics. Songs like “Baby I’m A Want You”, “Everything I Own”, “Sweet Surrender”, “Lost Without Your Love” and “If” are brilliant songs and fantastic to slow dance to. So, pour a glass of wine, grab your partner’s hand and let the romancing begin.