Billy Carlucci and
Reid Whitelaw were a pair of New York-based songwriters who, after kicking around the business for several years, hit paydirt in 1968 when they wrote the tune "Goody Goody Gumdrops" for
the 1910 Fruitgum Company. It was the first of a string of pop songs the team would write for the Kasenetz-Katz bubblegum empire, and they formed a bubblegum act of their own, Marshmallow Way, who cut an album for United Artists. But by 1970, Carlucci and
Whitelaw had ambitions to make music that was classier and more mature, and they signed a deal with Audio Fidelity Records for their new project.
The Golden Gate combined polished pop tunes and a production that matched the well-crafted pop/rock of acts like
the Buckinghams with horn-based arrangements in the manner of
Chicago and
Blood, Sweat & Tears.
The Golden Gate's one and only album,
Year One, is a notably more ambitious and less gimmicky work than Carlucci and
Whitelaw had delivered in the past; with a handful of top studio musicians backing them up and the vocal group the Tradewinds adding background harmonies,
Year One's craft is impeccable (beyond a few shaky vocal moments that reveal these guys were songwriters first), and the production and arrangements are a canny reflection of both the style of the day and the studio-centered pop background of the composers/bandleaders. But the catch is that the songs on
Year One may have been smarter and more carefully crafted than Carlucci and
Whitelaw's previous hits, but they weren't as catchy or as fun to listen to, and while this LP is popular among avid enthusiasts of studio-bound pop, for all its ambitions and imagination
Year One lacks the hum-along hooks that separate an OK pop album from a great one.
The Golden Gate deserved to be congratulated for their ambitions, but on the evidence of
Year One, they should have remembered to write some stronger melodies at the same time. ~ Mark Deming