In one of the odder developments in the rock era, an entire sub genre of music was named decades after the fact by a comedy team in the mid-2000s. In turn, it evolved into a wholly unlikely phenomenon.
Garret Price explores the history and key players in “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary,” now on Max. Price homes in on the acts that are most connected with the R&B and jazz-inflected rock music, largely from the 1970s in the Los Angeles area: Donald Fagen’s Steely Dan, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross and Toto.
He spoke to all of them, though the reaction from Fagen ― the man behind complex songs like “Peg” and “Reelin’ in the Years” ― became arguably the most memorable moment of the film. Fagen cursed out Price, then hung up the phone after Price asked him about his role in the world of yacht rock.
Price took it all in stride because Fagen’s manager told Price afterward that Fagen cleared him to use Steely Dan’s music in the documentary.
“He gets it,” said Price in a Zoom interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He has a sense of humor. Listen to the lyrics of Steely Dan songs. There’s a persona he has to keep up in his eyes. I think he was having fun with it.”
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Price said the biggest challenge putting the documentary together was “finding the balance and reverence. Getting people in the door with the ironic aspects of the phrase yacht rock, then falling in love with the music as I did while making this. Based on the response so far, many people are rediscovering this music they had taken for granted or abandoned years ago or they’re finding it for the first time.”
He said he left a lot on the cutting floor including an entire segment about how much rock critics at the time hated most of the yacht rock acts: “Rolling Stone was awful to Toto. Awful. And awful to Christopher Cross and the Doobies after they shifted to the jazzier Michael McDonald era.”
In 2005, the same year the movie “The-40-Year-Old-Virgin” made fun of McDonald, a group of friends created a series of mockumentary video shorts for a comedy festival, inventing the phrase “yacht rock.” They had scanned the liner notes of 1970s vinyl they had purchased for $1 apiece and noticed how so many studio musicians in L.A. overlapped with acts such as Kenny Loggins, Toto, Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.
So they created a fake “origin” story that was loaded onto a new site called YouTube. Much to their surprise, the series went viral and the music began to find a second life.
“Those guys are now the scholars of this music,” Price said. “They were my spirit guides of telling this story along with Questlove” of the Roots.
Indeed, Price said he deliberately sought contemporary artists influenced by yacht rock and generously used sound bites from Questlove and fellow musician Thundercat, who recorded a song in 2017 with McDonald and Loggins called “Show You the Way.”
“You can see the passion and the love for this music spewing out of their mouths. Wow, I hit the jackpot here!” Price said. “They know how to talk about this music and it shows in their own work.”
The four members of that original comedy series even have a website ranking songs on their “yachtyski” level and landed on “What a Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers as the ultimate yacht rock song with a top score of 100. The smooth “Doobie bounce” sound from that song became so influential, Price played a dozen examples of other tunes using a similar beat.
Many fans of yacht rock on social media, after watching the documentary, quickly complained about acts or songs that were omitted or barely mentioned. Where was Little River Band? Orleans? Or “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty? But Price accepted that was going to happen.
“I tried to keep it as close to the Los Angeles scene as possible,” Price said. “The beauty of this arbitrary phrase is the debate on what is or what is not yacht rock.”
In the web series, Hall & Oates were conveyed as the “east coast” bad guys so Price decided to downplay them in the doc. “Same with the Eagles,” he said. “They were the bullies in L.A. in the series. And they were more country music as opposed to jazz-infused music. I wanted this to be fun but not make fun of this music.”
He also gleaned some delightful tidbits from the musicians. Cross, for instance, wrote “Ride Like the Wind” while on an acid trip in Texas. And members of Toto were active contributors to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album, including the hit song “Human Nature.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“It’s ironic that Toto was on the album that in a way caused the downfall of this type of music,” Price said.
Price also left out interviews with some of the yacht rock cover bands such as Atlanta’s own Yacht Rock Revue.
“It was an embarrassment of riches in the end,” Price said. “I wanted to do a section on tribute bands and how they’ve taken the sound and made original music. But in the end, you pick a lane for a narrative. I just wanted the artists themselves to talk about making music and give them that platform.”
When he recently screened the film with several of the artists and the “Yacht Rock” web series creators, it felt like a reunion party. “It played like gangbusters,” he said. “Hugs all around. I felt like I tore the walls down.”
Price said he’s now an even bigger fan of this genre.
“This music feels cool again,” he said, “and I hope it stays cool.”
IF YOU WATCH
“Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary,” available on Max
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