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Legends of Songwriting: David Gates of Bread

Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, December 2003

REMEMBER "soft rock?" You don't hear the term much anymore, but in the early 1970s, this musical genre floated onto the AM airwaves in the form of melodic songs with yearning lyrics and a surplus of major 7th chords. Though maligned by critics at the time, soft rock has aged more gracefully than a lot of its harder counterparts of the era. Carpenters or Canned Heat? Bread or Black Oak Arkansas? You decide.

Total word count of piece: 1143

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