Robb Royer

Robert Wilson Royer (born December 6, 1942, in Los Angeles) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the soft rock band Bread from 1968 to 1971.

While he was with the band, they had a #5 UK/#1 US hit single with "Make It With You".

The group called themselves by various names, the most notable being "The Pleasure Fair" and by 1966 they managed to obtain a recording contract for a single with Hanna Barbera Records under the name "The Rainy Day People".

"Junior Executive" was the "A" side, backed with "I'm Telling It To You" (both songs written by Cohn, Hallinan and Royer)

Before co-founding Bread, Royer had been a member of the band The Pleasure Fair, whose only album in 1967 was produced and arranged by David Gates, Royer's future bandmate in Bread.

Now living and working in Nashville, his songwriting credits include works for Jimmy Griffin, Ray Charles, The Remingtons, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Michael Montgomery, Randy Travis, Billy Burnette, The Finnigan Brothers (Mike Finnigan) and others.

Robb Royer was exposed to recordings of classical music from early childhood and in Junior High school he pursued playing clarinet in the band.

He attended and graduated from Sierra High School in Tollhouse, CA. While there he briefly participated in marching band but preferred to focus on the music rather than the marching.

During his senior year he participated in concert band playing alto saxophone.

Royer obtained his first guitar when he was a 19-year-old sophomore at San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge).

He met Tim Hallinan at the school.

"Finally, when I began playing guitar, the scales tipped and Tim saw reason to talk to me. He liked to sing and I liked to play."

The two began to perform together as "Robb & Tim" and then later added the talent of Michele Cochrane.

Hallinan recalled "What I remember best about Michele was, first, that she could actually sing. I was just faking it, doing what I've done since I was born, an approach to life that begins with the words, 'Act like you can –' In this case, it was sing. But Michele actually could; she had a glorious voice."

Soon the trio became a quartet with the addition of Stephen Cohn, who had previously graduated from Valley State's music department, giving a senior recital in classical guitar.

A year later the group signed a recording contract with Uni Records in 1967 David Gates was hired as the arranger and conductor for the Pleasure Fair's self-titled album.

Griffin soon forced the issue with Viva when he asked if they wanted only half of the publishing rights or all of the rights, resulting in Viva hiring Royer by 1967.

Griffin earned $75 a week (US$0 in dollars) and Royer received $50 a week (US$0 in dollars), but those salaries were sufficient to pay the rent at that time (Royer's rent for his L.A. apartment was $80 a month in 1967).

Royer and Griffin, using the pseudonyms Robb Wilson and Arthur James, wrote the lyrics for "For All We Know", featured in the film Lovers and Other Strangers, which won the Academy Award for Best Song.

Royer's song "Say What You See" (co-written with Tim Hallinan) would end up in 1968 being produced by Jimmy Griffin and arranged by David Gates.

It was sung by a trio calling themselves "The Curtain Calls".

Soon afterward in the same year the three founding members of Bread (Royer, Griffin and Gates) would combine forces as their own group.

Robb Royer met Jimmy Griffin through a mutual friend, Maria Yolanda Aguayo, who would later become Griffin's wife.

Initially Griffin asked Royer to help with writing horn parts for a music course that Griffin was taking.

Soon Royer and Griffin were working together as staff songwriters for Viva Publishing.

Jimmy Griffin had been hired by Viva first and was originally supposed to write with another Viva writer, but preferred working with Royer.

Robb Royer and Jimmy Griffin co-founded Bread with David Gates in 1968.

Maria Yolanda Aguayo once again contributed to the band's history when she revealed a trend she noticed as (Record Producer) Gary Usher's desk girl at CBS Records – band managers generally waited in the lobby but attorneys generally had immediate access to the executives at CBS.

The trio quickly hired Al Schlesinger to represent them and he pitched their group to three labels in their search of a recording contract: Elektra Records, The Beatles' Apple Records and Atlantic Records, but Apple did not have clear leadership and was quickly eliminated from the process while Atlantic had recently signed two supergroups – Crosby Stills & Nash and Led Zeppelin – and they were based on the East Coast.

Elektra was the label for The Doors, but were becoming embroiled in Jim Morrison's legal battles.

When both Atlantic and Elektra offered recording deals to Bread, the group chose the Elektra deal because they had a local headquarters in Los Angeles and the group felt Elektra would more actively promote them, given Atlantic's other recent signings.

The first album made use of Jimmy Gordon's drumming and Gordon also performed drums with the group during their initial gigs, but due to Gordon's high demand among multiple recording artists and his participation with the artists that eventually became Derek and the Dominos, he was replaced with Mike Botts as the group's regular drummer, thus expanding the band to a quartet.

In 1970, Royer and Jimmy Griffin, under the pseudonyms Robb Wilson and Arthur James, wrote the lyrics for "For All We Know", featured in the film Lovers and Other Strangers.

He was replaced by Larry Knechtel in 1971.

It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was a Top Ten hit for The Carpenters in March and April 1971.

The song has charted three times: The Carpenters (1971) reached number one on the Adult Contemporary charts (#3 in the Billboard Hot 100); Shirley Bassey (1971) reached number six on the UK charts; Nicki French (1995) reached number 42 on the UK charts.

After three years, Robb Royer and David Gates came to a breaking point because Gates wanted more control of the group, so Royer left the group in 1971 after its third album Manna and was replaced with famous session keyboardist/bassist/guitarist Larry Knechtel, who had previously contributed the piano performance on Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water".

Royer continued to write with Griffin and Bread continued to record Royer/Griffin collaborations.

Bread disbanded in 1973 and Jimmy, Larry and Robb ended up working together, releasing one album with Polydor records in 1973 under the name "James Griffin & Co."

Royer and Griffin would continue to write and collaborate on various projects until Griffin's death in 2005.