46 Fun Facts About Yacht Rock

What did Steely Dan give up in 1974 and not take up again until 1993?

Touring ended with a Santa Monica show in July 1974: Becker and Fagen let the band go and hired session players track by track, and Steely Dan stayed off the road for 19 years.

Before the term yacht rock existed, what was the same music known as?

The West Coast sound was the original name, and it fit: the records came out of Los Angeles studios, where one small pool of elite session players kept turning up on each other's albums.

Which 1980 number one is often held up as yacht rock's anthem?

Sailing grew out of Christopher Cross's teenage escapes on an older friend's boat, and he never expected so inward a song to be a hit, let alone a number one.

Christopher Cross was the first artist to do what at a single Grammy ceremony?

Win all four general-field awards: Record, Album and Song of the Year plus Best New Artist, with his debut beating Pink Floyd's The Wall to the album prize; nobody matched the sweep until Billie Eilish in 2020.

Which Kenny Loggins album track became a Doobie Brothers number one months later?

What a Fool Believes appeared on Loggins's 1978 album Nightwatch five months before the Doobies' version; he wrote it with Michael McDonald after arriving at McDonald's house and hearing him play an unfinished fragment at the piano.

At the 1980 Grammys, 'What a Fool Believes' won Song of the Year and which other award?

Record of the Year went to the Doobie Brothers' single, which beat Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem 'I Will Survive' in both top song categories; Michael McDonald also won an arranging Grammy for the track.

What did the Yacht Rock creators call the genre's hallmark upbeat rhythm?

The Doobie Bounce, named for the Doobie Brothers' syncopated groove, matters more to the creators than subject matter: they insist a song about boats or the sea is not yacht rock unless it sounds the part.

What term did the Yacht Rock creators invent in 2016 for songs wrongly labelled as part of the genre?

Nyacht is their verdict on songs filed under the genre by mistake, and it reaches some big names: by the creators' rules the Eagles, a fixture of yacht rock playlists, do not qualify at all.

Christopher Cross shared an Oscar for the theme song to which 1981 comedy?

Arthur: Cross wrote its theme with Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, and its best-known line came from Peter Allen, who had thought of it years earlier while his plane circled New York waiting to land at JFK.

Steely Dan is named after an object in which William S. Burroughs novel?

Naked Lunch features a sex toy called Steely Dan; Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who met at Bard College in 1967, borrowed the name when they formed their own band while working as staff songwriters for ABC Records.

Which 2000 Steely Dan comeback album won the Album of the Year Grammy?

Two Against Nature, the duo's first studio album in 20 years, took the 2001 prize ahead of Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Radiohead's Kid A and albums by Beck and Paul Simon.

Jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter solos on the title track of which 1977 Steely Dan album?

Aja's title track pairs Shorter's tenor solo with Steve Gadd's drumming, but its multitrack master tape later went missing, so a planned surround-sound remix of the album had to be scrapped.

Michael McDonald's multi-tracked backing vocals are heard on which Steely Dan song?

Peg carries McDonald's stacked harmonies; its guitar solo defeated a string of top session players before Jay Graydon spent about six hours getting a take Becker and Fagen would keep.

Which Toto song was the band's first and only Billboard Hot 100 number one?

'Africa' reached number one on the Hot 100 in February 1983, Toto's only chart-topper; 'Rosanna' had stalled at number two for five weeks but won Record of the Year.

Which Toto album won Album of the Year at the 1983 Grammys?

Toto IV won for a band of Los Angeles session players whom rock critics had largely dismissed, beating Donald Fagen's The Nightfly and Paul McCartney's Tug of War to the top album prize.

Toto's Grammy-winning 1982 hit borrowed the first name of which actress, then dating keyboardist Steve Porcaro?

Rosanna Arquette gave the song its name, yet its writer was not her boyfriend but bandmate David Paich, who has said the lyric draws on girls he had known years earlier.

Which Michael Jackson hit did Toto's Steve Porcaro co-write?

Human Nature reached Quincy Jones by accident: short of blank cassettes, Porcaro taped bandmate David Paich's song pitches on the back of his own rough demo, and Jones played the other side too.

Which Doobie Brothers hit came out before Michael McDonald joined the band?

Black Water began as a B-side the label never saw as a single; a station in Roanoke, Virginia, put it in heavy rotation, others followed, and it reached number one in March 1975, shortly before McDonald arrived.

Michael McDonald's 'Yah Mo B There' won a Grammy as a duet with which singer?

James Ingram's duet with McDonald lived on as a punchline: in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, a salesman stuck beside a McDonald concert DVD in an electronics store threatens to burn the place down if he hears it once more.

Which 1994 rap hit is built on a sample of Michael McDonald's 'I Keep Forgettin''?

'Regulate', Warren G and Nate Dogg's 1994 hit, is built on McDonald's 1982 single 'I Keep Forgettin''; Leiber and Stoller share McDonald's writing credit because it resembled their 1962 Chuck Jackson song.

Before going solo, Kenny Loggins was half of a duo with which musician?

Jim Messina, late of Buffalo Springfield and Poco, was only meant to produce Loggins's 1971 solo debut; he sang and played on so much of it that the album carried both names, and the pair stayed together until 1976.

Which Kenny Loggins song spent three weeks at number one on the Hot 100 in spring 1984?

Footloose was co-written with the film's screenwriter, Dean Pitchford, who took the plot from Elmore City, Oklahoma, a real town whose old ban on dancing fell only when its high-school students asked to hold a prom.

Kenny Loggins's run of soundtrack hits began with 'I'm Alright' from which film?

Caddyshack ends with its gopher, unharmed after the groundskeeper dynamites the golf course to kill it, dancing to the song, which reached number seven in 1980 and features a guest vocal from Eddie Money.

Daryl Hall and John Oates first met in 1967 in which city?

Philadelphia is where the pair first met as rivals rather than partners: each was leading his own vocal group on the same bill at a 1967 dance, and only afterwards did they find they were both Temple students.

Which Hall & Oates single stalled at number 60 on first release, then reached the top ten when reissued in 1976?

She's Gone was put out again by the duo's old label, Atlantic, only after they had left for RCA and scored with Sara Smile; the song that had flopped then climbed to number seven.

Which 1979 Rupert Holmes number one is better known by its bracketed subtitle, The Piña Colada Song?

Escape topped the chart in December 1979 and again in January 1980, and Holmes says the drink was a last-minute swap: his draft chorus named Humphrey Bogart until he decided he had used enough film references.

In Rupert Holmes's Piña Colada Song, where does the bored narrator find the woman's ad?

In the newspaper personals, which he reads while his partner sleeps; he answers the ad, and the twist is that the woman who walks into the bar to meet him is that same partner, as restless as he was.

Session man Raphael Ravenscroft played the famous saxophone riff on which late-1970s hit?

Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty's 1978 single, earned Ravenscroft a reported £27 for the session, and the riff came to irritate him: in 2011 he said he could hear that his playing was slightly flat.

Gerry Rafferty had earlier co-founded which band, of 'Stuck in the Middle with You' fame?

Stealers Wheel's hit began as a joke: Rafferty wrote it as a Bob Dylan parody mocking a music-industry cocktail party, and to the band's surprise it sold over a million copies and reached number six in America in 1973.

Boz Scaggs's 1976 breakthrough album Silk Degrees produced which two hit singles?

'Lowdown' and 'Lido Shuffle' were both co-written by the album's keyboard player, David Paich, who then formed Toto with its drummer, Jeff Porcaro, and bassist, David Hungate; 'Lowdown' reached number three.

Which 1978 single from Bobby Caldwell's debut album became his signature song?

What You Won't Do for Love was pitched to R&B radio by a label that tried to hide that Caldwell was white, fearing its listeners would turn away; the single reached number nine on the Hot 100 regardless.

Which L.A. band had top-five hits with 'How Much I Feel' and 'Biggest Part of Me'?

Ambrosia began as a progressive rock act, and Alan Parsons mixed their debut album; the hits came once they turned to soft rock, and both of these reached number three.

'Baby Come Back' was a 1978 number one for which band?

Player's founders, Peter Beckett and J.C. Crowley, wrote it while both were getting over breakups, and the plea paid off: it spent three weeks at number one in January 1978.

Little River Band, whose 'Reminiscing' reached number three in the US, formed in which country?

Australia barely noticed the song: Reminiscing stalled at number 35 at home while climbing to number three in America, where the Melbourne band, formed in 1975, were surprised their label had made it a single.

Which 1976 single was England Dan & John Ford Coley's biggest hit?

I'd Really Love to See You Tonight was turned down by an Atlantic executive, but Big Tree's Doug Morris heard the demo through his office wall, walked in and signed the duo; it peaked at number two.

George Benson's 1976 breakthrough album, home to the hit 'This Masquerade', was called what?

Breezin' made a pop star of a jazz guitarist: This Masquerade, its sung Leon Russell cover, was cut from eight minutes to about three for radio, became Benson's first big hit and won Record of the Year.

Al Jarreau sang the theme song for which 1980s TV series?

Jarreau sang the theme for Moonlighting, the 1985-89 ABC series starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis; the song reached the Hot 100 in 1987. He won seven Grammys in all.

Bill Champlin shared the lead vocal on 'Hard Habit to Break' after joining which horn band in 1981?

Chicago leaned on Cetera's voice until he left in 1985; Champlin then stepped forward, and his lead vocal on Look Away took the band back to number one in December 1988.

Michael McDonald reached number one in 1986 with 'On My Own', a duet with which singer?

Patti LaBelle and McDonald never shared a studio for it: each sang in a different city, the two parts were joined in the mix, and the video kept them apart as well, on a split screen.

Nicolette Larson's 1978 soft-rock hit 'Lotta Love' was written by which rock star?

Neil Young had the song on a tape lying on the floor of his car; Larson, then one of his backing singers, played it and praised it, and by her account he told her it was hers.

Which musician credited the Yacht Rock web series with starting his duo's comeback?

John Oates thanked a show that makes him a villain: it casts Hall & Oates as the enemies of smooth music, with Oates as the foul-mouthed boss of a meek Daryl Hall, yet in 2007 he said the parody began the duo's revival.

Fred Armisen and Bill Hader spoofed the genre on Documentary Now! as which fictional band?

The Blue Jean Committee outgrew the joke: after the 2015 send-up of 1970s soft rock, the label Drag City issued the fake band's Catalina Breeze as a real 12-inch record that November.

What is the title of HBO's 2024 film about the genre?

Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary is Garret Price's film for HBO's Music Box series; Steely Dan's Donald Fagen refused to be interviewed for it, yet the band's songs were still licensed to the soundtrack.

The touring tribute band Yacht Rock Revue began as a one-night club gag in which Georgia city?

Atlanta is where the indie band Y-O-U, for a gag, filled one night of its weekly club residency with 1970s soft rock; the crowd loved it, the joke took over the residency, and the original band faded away.

Which singer co-wrote Captain & Tennille's 1975 number one 'Love Will Keep Us Together'?

Neil Sedaka wrote it with Howard Greenfield as their long partnership was ending, and Toni Tennille salutes his comeback by name in the fade-out; the single spent four weeks at number one and won Record of the Year.

Which piano instrumental by Canadian Frank Mills reached number three on the Hot 100 in 1979?

Music Box Dancer sat on a mid-1970s album for years until an Ottawa pop station began playing it in 1978; the album went gold in Canada, and the single then sold a million copies in America.