First, David Gates "first" album away from Bread, begins with that distinctive voice and sound his band made famous when he was at the controls. On the initial track of this 1973 release, "Sailing Around the World," he sings "wish that I could start again." The problem here is that Bread had a groove, and a quick comparison is in order: Despite David Bowie's fame after splitting from the Spiders From Mars, rock & roll fans never felt the same way about that artist. So, too, with this soft rock maestro, and regardless of the on-key and in-control aspect of First, it's hard to get a handle on many of these nine original songs. It's a stellar cast behind the identifiable pop figure -- Jim Horn, Jim Gordon, Larry Carlton, Russ Kunkel, Mike Botts, and so on and so forth -- all providing a sterling foundation, but there is no knockout punch like "The Guitar Man," "Make It With You," or even his '60s hit for the Murmaids, "Popsicles, Icicles." Now an acoustic version of that gem would have brought this set to life post haste. "Sunday Rider" is restrained rock, not as defined as the Top 30 "Let Your Love Go" from 1971, the hardest of Bread's dozen hit records. "Soap" is pretty lackluster, though "Suite: Clouds, Rain" adds a nice dimension to the end of side one, nearly nine minutes of lovely, soft music that became identified with the artist. Side two has some interesting moments. "Ann" opens up with something close to the "Sweet Surrender" riff and is a soft folk number much like "Aubrey" from The Guitarman album, little touches of "Arrivederci Roma" flavor the instrumentation and melody. "Do You Believe He's Comin'" brings back the semi-heavy guitar of "Guitar Man," meaning Gates has no qualms about taking his bag of Bread tricks to his solo effort. A lyric about "the meek inheriting the earth" and the use of capital "h" on "He" make it clear this is a folk/gospel/Jesus song. "Sight & Sound" kicks in with that same "Sweet Surrender" riff used two songs ago..."the sweetest sight," "the sweetest night," "the sweetest sound," "the sweetest silence"...the man has definitely surrendered to the word "sweet," and it does get a bit redundant. "Lorilee" is the ninth and final track, continuing his tradition of writings songs with women's names, the second on First. "Lorilee" begins with a stunningly beautiful instrumental, sounding like Santana performing Marty Balin's 1981 hit "Hearts" over Carole King's "It's Too Late" riff. Nice, very nice. There's actually no need for vocals; "Lorilee" is a strong track just on the merits of the instrumentation, which begs the final question: Is it surprising that the best number on First is the song that sounds like Bread the least? This was the time for David Gates to break out a couple of cover songs to introduce himself as an interpreter, and the album suffers for lack of outside material. ~ Joe Viglione