The Real Birth of Yacht Rock

That’s Three Dog Night performing for The Spirit of America Spectacular on July 5th, 1981. I say that’s the real birth of Yacht Rock.

Of course “Yacht Rock” was a web series, a kind of unmoored cable TV show starting in 2005. No one knows who first used the term, but that made it popular. The original musical term for mostly saccharine, overproduced, mellow music was soft rock, or the California Sound, or maybe adult-oriented rock (AOR). Music critics mostly use yacht rock as a pejorative, but that’s falling by the wayside more and more. It might be because people like it more than they like critics, so critics find ways to like it publicly and hate it in private.

This concert was part of The Spirit of America Spectacular, a nationally televised and radio broadcasted patriotic extravaganza. America used to have more than mostly peaceful arsonists roaming the land. Some people used to like it here. George Bush the elder was VP back then, and even sent in a telegram to express his approval. It’s a good format for messages from George. You could never tell what that guy was saying just by listening to him.

Anyway, that’s the permanently docked Queen Mary in Long Beach in the background, and about eleventy-zillion yachts. The lineup was The Beach Boys, Rick Springfield, Three Dog Night, and Pablo Cruise.

Now according to the intertunnel, the key nodule of Yacht Rock is something like Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, Toto, and Ambrosia. I’m at a loss to explain how anyone could think Christopher Cross and Steely Dan have anything in common.  When you get caught between the moon and New York City vs. I crawl like a viper through the suburban streets. If you think Don’t Take Me Alive is comparable to the theme from Arthur, there’s no hope for you. But I do get the drift.

Let’s run it down my idea of Yacht Rock’s adumbration. In 1981, the Beach Boys had long since morphed into the Beach Men. They were wandering aimlessly in the soft rock wilderness, until they ran aground with Kokomo, a song that makes Jimmy Buffet look like the Sex Pistols. I say they’re exhibit A in Yacht Rock pantheon.

I’ve got no beef with Three Dog Night. They can all sing and play their instruments. Shambala was a damn fine song. But they eventually hooked up with Paul Williams to write songs for them. He also wrote songs for the Carpenters, Streisand, Helen Reddy, and egad, The Sandpipers.  If your yacht was big enough to have an elevator in it, he was your man. They belong.

Next. Rick Springfield is rock music for girls, I guess. I could never tell him and Bryan Adams apart, so I’m not the guy to judge his total Sloop John B-ishness. We don’t need him, anyway, to prove our point. Because the last band on the docket, and the dock, was Pablo Cruise:

Case closed. July 5th, 1981. It’s the real birth of Yacht Rock. Fight me.