1. 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.
18 Facts About David Gates
1. 2.
David Gates became proficient in piano, violin, bass and guitar by the time he enrolled in Tulsa's Will Rogers High School.
3.
David 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.
4.
In 1965, David Gates arranged the Glenn Yarbrough hit, "Baby the Rain Must Fall".
5.
David Gates scored his first motion picture Journey to Shiloh in 1967.
6.
David Gates released a single under the name of "The Manchesters" in 1965 on the Vee-Jay label.
7.
In 1967, David Gates produced and arranged the debut album for a band called The Pleasure Fair, of which Robb Royer was a member.
8.
The first single, "Dismal Day", written by David Gates, was released in June 1969 but did not sell well.
9.
That caused some antagonism between David Gates and Griffin, who was a significant contributor to Bread's albums as a singer and songwriter.
10.
David Gates recorded and produced his solo album First in 1973.
11.
In 1975, David Gates released the album Never Let Her Go.
12.
Botts and Knechtel from Bread, along with Warren Ham, brother Bill Ham and bassist David Miner, continued to record and tour with Gates.
13.
David Gates recorded a duet with Melissa Manchester, "Wish We Were Heroes", included in her 1982 album Hey Ricky.
14.
David Gates was less active in music during the remainder of the 1980s.
15.
David Gates concentrated on operating a cattle ranch in the Fall River Valley of Northern California, located on land he purchased in the 1970s.
16.
David Gates returned to music in 1994, when he released Love Is Always Seventeen, his first new album in thirteen years.
17.
The David Gates Songbook, containing earlier hit singles and new material, was released in 2002.
18.
David Gates, who studied the cattle ranching business while touring with Bread, purchased a 1,400-acre cattle ranch financed by royalties he earned during his time with the band.