Theoretically Speaking: S6:E4 – What Makes Soft Rock Soft Rock ?

The softest form of rock is lava. It’s hot and fiery and dangerous.

Soft Rock, the music genre, is none of those things.

It’s catchy, though.

And those earworm melodies will fill your brain and stay there until the end of your days. 

Given the chance, lava would do the same thing. Just ask the Pompeiians.

There has always been “soft” music.

There was softer music even in the heady Rock & Roll of the British Invasion. Even on their first album, The Beatles got mellow with songs like “Anna (Go To Him)” and “P.S. I Love You.”  Sometimes you’ve just got to rock, but softly.

So gentle music was nothing new. However, though The Beatles, Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones, and all the other Rock & Rollers had the occasional ballad, the early 1970s saw a wave of musicians specializing in soft pop music, and nothing else.

The Beatles graceful “Here, There And Everywhere” and The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” aren’t all that different from Bob Dylan’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” or Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Leaving On A Jet Plane.” This intersection of Rock & Roll’s softer side with the Folk revival is the origin of Soft Rock.

With its mellow melodies, smooth vocals, and gentle instrumentation, Soft Rock appealed to a young and old alike.

Even fans of the widely popular, instrumental Easy Listening caught on to this soft vocal Pop music.

The Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles became ground zero for the late 60s counterculture.

Carole King was already an established musician. She had released her first single, “The Right Girl,” in 1958, but was better known as part of a songwriting team with her husband, Gerry Goffin.

Following their divorce, King moved to Laurel Canyon to pursue a solo career. Her first album, Writer, got to #84 on the album chart, which is respectable but not fantastic. The 1971 follow up album was, indeed, fantastic.

Tapestry was #1 for fifteen weeks.

A second single, “So Far Away,” got to #14. The album and singles won four Grammys, and to date Tapestry has sold over 25 million copies.

One of the session guitar players on the Tapestry sessions was singer/songwriter James Taylor. He liked a song he played on, “You’ve Got A Friend,” so much that he recorded his own version. It reached #1 in the same month that “It’s Too Late” slipped out of that spot.

Taylor came from a musical family.

James met guitarist Danny Kortchmar (who would become a LA session musician and part of the Laurel Canyon scene) in Massachusetts,and the two moved to New York City to form a band.

Taylor then moved to London to work as a solo act, and his friend Kortchmar connected him with Peter Asher at Apple Records. Asher liked Taylor’s demo tape and played it for The Beatles. They liked it, too, and released his self-titled debut album as 1968 turned into 1969.

After release, he began playing shows again, but then broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident. Broken hands can be the end of a guitarist’s career, but he fully recovered. While recuperating, he wrote a lot of the songs for his second album, Sweet Baby James.

The popularity of its two singles, “Fire And Rain” and “Country Road,” was enough that a single from the first album, “Carolina In My Mind,” reappeared on the charts and made it to #67, fifty-one positions higher than on its first release.

As influential as these Laurel Canyon singer/songwriters were, they weren’t really Soft Rock yet.

With the gradual evolution of Rock & Roll, Folk and Easy Listening into a single new genre, it’s hard to say who the first real Soft Rock artist was.

A lot of people think it’s The Carpenters: A brother and sister duo with keyboardist/composer Richard Carpenter and singer/drummer Karen Carpenter.

The Carpenters were from the Los Angeles area but weren’t part of the Laurel Canyon scene. After starting out as a Jazz instrumental trio with bassist Wes Jacobs, they discovered Karen could sing – and sing well.

Several record deals fell through, but they finally signed with A&M.

Richard Carpenter’s arrangement is a great example of the Soft Rock sound with its lush orchestration, gentle vocals, and romantic tone. The song spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Its success helped propel The Carpenters to global fame and established them as pioneers of the genre. Their influence can be heard in the work of countless artists and bands that followed, making them early trailblazers of Soft Rock.

The Carpenters had another sixteen Top 40 hits and six platinum albums. Their clean-cut image, which A&M had a lot to do with, was part of their success, as it differentiated them from the long haired rockers of the day.

Both Richard and Karen disliked the lily white personas A&M gave them. As with Nixon, things were different behind the image. Richard became addicted to the Quaaludes and Karen developed an eating disorder. Both sought treatment.

The success of these artists gelled Soft Rock into a distinct genre.

While it’s almost always pristinely recorded, sometimes a little grit comes through. You can hear this in some Fleetwood Mac songs.

Bands like Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, and Bread blended Rock, Folk, and even Jazz with the mellow singer-songwriter approach.

Throughout the 1970s, Soft Rock continued to flourish, with artists like Taylor, King, and Cat Stevens dominating the airwaves. At their best, singer-songwriters crafted introspective and emotionally empathetic songs about love and heartbreak with sensitivity and depth. There were a fair number of cheesy copycats, but the best Soft Rock songs are the ones we remember.

Soft Rock’s success attracted artists from other genres.

• Lionel Richie came from The Commodores, a Funk band, but his solo material was significantly less funky.

• Eric Clapton was the god of guitarists, having been in Cream, the first power trio, and Derek & The Dominos, a heavy Blues band.

• Christopher Cross had been known in the Austin scene as a guitarist.

Cross once joked that he wasn’t good looking enough to be on MTV. But MTV didn’t play much Soft Rock anyway. By the time they hit cable TV in the 1980s, Soft Rock was seen as your parents’ music.

That wasn’t the end of Soft Rock, of course. Rock bands who could lighten their sound and still look good in videos did well. REO Speedwagon, Toto, and Journey all had Soft Rock hits that weren’t much like their earlier material. It’s a long way from “Riding The Storm Out” to “Keep On Loving You.”

Having said that, Soft Rock took up fewer spaces in the Top 40, starting in about 1983.

Its influence continues into the 90s and 2000s.

The genre may have evolved over time, but its core elements of accessibility, emotion, and craftsmanship are still there.

It’s easy to dismiss Soft Rock musicians as milquetoast, or even craven hucksters. Some probably are, but the best are every bit as artistic as the great American Songbook composers.

As long as listeners seek solace, intimacy, and good melodies, there will be Soft Rock.

Or at least there will be whatever shape the Soft Rock takes as it flows like lava into the future of music.

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