What is yacht rock?

Yacht rock is the smooth, polished soft rock of roughly the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, much of it made in Los Angeles recording studios. The artists most often named are Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Toto, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, and Hall and Oates. It sounds like electric piano over a relaxed groove that comes from R&B, with jazz chords under a pop melody and a lead vocal that has close harmonies behind it. When a solo comes, it usually goes to a saxophone or a clean, bright electric guitar.

Today the name also covers a party theme built on those records, and the cover bands that play the songs.

The name is about twenty-five years younger than the music. It comes from a comedy web series called Yacht Rock, which began in 2005 and told invented stories about the making of these records, with Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins as its main characters. Fans took the show’s title as the name for the whole sound, and it’s what streaming playlists and a satellite radio channel call it today.

The joke in the title is the music’s image. These are easygoing, expensive-sounding records, the kind you’d picture playing on a sailboat off the California coast, and Christopher Cross even had a number one hit in 1980 called Sailing.

Yacht rock is one part of soft rock. Soft rock is the whole mellow side of seventies and early-eighties pop radio, from acoustic singer-songwriters to big orchestral ballads, and yacht rock is its slickest, most studio-made end. The playing on those records came from a circle of Los Angeles session musicians, the studio players hired onto one hit record after another, so the same names turn up in the credits across the genre. Michael McDonald sings backing vocals on Steely Dan’s Peg and on Christopher Cross’s Ride Like the Wind. Toto was a band formed by a group of those session players.

These are the songs the genre is known for, grouped by artist.

• The Doobie Brothers from the years Michael McDonald sang lead: What a Fool Believes, Minute by Minute, Takin’ It to the Streets.
• Steely Dan: Peg, Hey Nineteen.
• Toto: Africa, Rosanna.
• Christopher Cross: Sailing, Ride Like the Wind.
• Hall and Oates: Rich Girl, I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).
• Boz Scaggs: Lowdown, Lido Shuffle.
• Other singles from the same years: Kenny Loggins’s This Is It, Michael McDonald’s I Keep Forgettin’, Ambrosia’s Biggest Part of Me, Player’s Baby Come Back and Robbie Dupree’s Steal Away.

If it’s the saxophone you’re after, Steely Dan’s Deacon Blues and Hall and Oates’s Maneater both have a saxophone solo. Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street and Grover Washington Jr.’s Just the Two of Us, with Bill Withers singing, sit at the edge of the genre and get added to yacht rock playlists for their horn lines.

Settle the music first, since the party is named after it, whether that’s a playlist built from the songs above or a live band.

Yacht rock attire is what you’d wear to a marina in 1979. That means white and navy, stripes, linen shirts and polos, and boat shoes, with a light sweater tied over the shoulders, aviator sunglasses and a captain’s hat to finish it. Loud floral shirts and white sundresses fit the theme too. Put “yacht rock attire” on the invitation, and keep a box of captain’s hats by the door for guests who arrive without a hat.

Decorate in the same white and navy. Denver is short on harbors, so a patio, a rooftop or a lawn stands in for the dock, with string lights overhead and a coil of rope and a life ring by the bar.

A playlist on a good speaker is plenty for a backyard gathering where the music stays in the background. For a party built around the music, where the crowd is meant to sing the choruses and dance, book a band. A band can also change its volume as the night goes, playing the ballads quietly enough for the tables to talk across while people eat, and playing like a party band once the floor opens.

On this roster that’s the yacht rock band. The four-piece is keys, guitar, bass and drums with three of the musicians singing, so the harmonies are there at every size. The full band of five or six adds the saxophone, for a ballroom or a crowd past two hundred, and it’s the version that sounds most like the records. The set comes from the same artists, from the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan to Ambrosia and Player, with the Fleetwood Mac ballads alongside. The band learns one song you choose for every booking.

It books for a summer company party, a client evening on a terrace, the after-party once a gala or holiday party program is over, a fortieth or fiftieth birthday, and a wedding reception. The market’s figures for a band across Colorado, each with its source, are in the guide to what live music costs in Colorado.