Lawrence William "Larry" Knechtel (August 4, 1940 – August 20, 2009) was an American keyboard player and bassist, best known for his work as a session musician with such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Partridge Family, The Doors, and Elvis Presley, and as a member of the 1970s band, Bread.

Born in Bell, California, in 1940, Knechtel's musical education began with piano lessons. In 1957, he joined the Los Angeles based rock and roll band Kip Tyler and the Flips. In August 1959 he joined instrumentalist Duane Eddy as a member of his band The Rebels. After four years on the road with the band, and continuing to work with Eddy in the recording studio, Knechtel became part of the Hollywood session musician scene, working with Phil Spector as a pianist to help create the famous Wall of Sound effect. Knechtel became a prominent member of The Wrecking Crew, a loose collection of session musicians who performed on many songs of the period.

His most famous piano work is his 1970 Grammy Award winning contribution to "Bridge over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel. In addition to this ballad, he could also rock out on the keyboards, as evidenced by his effort on Johnny Rivers' 1972 hit "Rockin' Pneumonia - Boogie Woogie Flu", originally done by Huey "Piano" Smith.

David Gates (born December 11, 1940) is an American singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the group Bread, which reached the tops of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s. The band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.

Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Gates was surrounded by music from infancy, as the son of a band director and a piano teacher. He became proficient in piano, bass and guitar by the time he enrolled in Tulsa's Will Rogers High School. Gates joined local bands around Tulsa. During a concert in 1957, his high school band backed Chuck Berry. Later, Gates released his first local hit single, "Jo-Baby," a song he had written for his sweetheart, Jo Rita, whom he married in 1958 while enrolled at the University of Oklahoma. At Oklahoma he became a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.

In 1961, he and his family moved to Los Angeles, where Gates continued writing songs, and he worked as a music copyist, as a studio musician, and as a producer for many artists — including Pat Boone. Success soon followed. His composition "Popsicles and Icicles" hit #3 on the US Hot 100 for The Murmaids in January 1964. The Monkees recorded another of his songs, "Saturday's Child". By the end of the 1960s, he had worked with many leading artists, including Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Merle Haggard, Duane Eddy and Brian Wilson. In 1965, Gates arranged the Glenn Yarbrough hit, "Baby, the Rain Must Fall." In 1966, he produced two singles on A&M Records for Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band which were hits in the Los Angeles area.

Michael G. Botts (December 8, 1944 – December 9, 2005) was an American drummer, best known for his work with 1970s soft rock band Bread, and as a session musician.

Born in Oakland, California, Botts grew up in nearby Antioch before moving to Sacramento. While in college, he began playing with a band called The Travellers Three and working as a studio musician. Eventually, the group disbanded, but not before recording some songs with producer David Gates.

While working with Bill Medley, Botts was invited to join Gates's band, Bread, for its second album. He accepted the offer and worked as a full-time member of Bread from 1970 to 1973, when the band went on hiatus. At that point, Botts began working with Linda Ronstadt, and recorded and toured with her for over two years. Botts reunited with the other members of Bread in 1976 for one final album and tour, before disbanding in 1978.

He then worked with Karla Bonoff and Andrew Gold, playing on Gold's 1977 hit "Lonely Boy", and continued to work in the studio as a player, singer, writer, and producer. In 1989, he toured Japan with Richard Carpenter. Two years later, he began touring and recording with Dan Fogelberg while continuing his session work. In 1996, the members of Bread again reunited for a world tour that ran until the fall of 1997. Botts then recorded his only solo album, Adults Only, released in 2000.

James Arthur Griffin (August 10, 1943 – January 11, 2005) was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter with the 1970s rock band Bread.

An Academy Award winning songwriter, Griffin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His musical training began when his parents signed him up for accordion lessons. He attended Kingsbury High School in Memphis and Dorsey and Johnny Burnette were his neighbors and role models. After the Burnette brothers moved to Los Angeles, California to further their music careers, Griffin went there to visit them, and managed to secure a recording contract with Reprise Records.

His first album, Summer Holiday, was released in 1963. He had small roles in two films, For Those Who Think Young (1964) and None But the Brave (1965).

In the 1960s, Griffin teamed with fellow songwriter Michael Z. Gordon to write songs for such diverse singers as Ed Ames, Gary Lewis, Bobby Vee, Brian Hyland, The Standells, Leslie Gore, Sandy Nelson and Cher. The pair won a BMI award for "Apologize".

Todd Cerney (August 8, 1953 – March 14, 2011) was an American songwriter and musician.

He composed "Good Morning Beautiful", a 2002 five-week country number one (Billboard) hit for Steve Holy (co-written with Zack Lyle); "The Blues Is My Business" (co-written with Kevin Bowe), part of Etta James' 2003 Grammy Award winning album "Let's Roll"; and "I'll Still Be Loving You", a 1987 country number one (Billboard) hit for Restless Heart (co-written with Pam Rose, Mary Ann Kennedy, and Pat Bunch). He and his co-writers were nominated for a Grammy Award for "I'll Still Be Loving You". The song won the 1988 award for "ASCAP Country Song of the Year".

Cerney was born in Detroit, Michigan, and graduated from Zanesville High School in Zanesville, Ohio in 1971. He began his song-writing career after moving to Nashville, where he initially worked at Buzz Cason's Creative Workshop as an audio engineer. Some of the earliest artists to record his songs include Steve Carlisle ("I'll Fall in Love Again") and Levon Helm ("Blue House of Broken Hearts").