{"id":800,"date":"2017-07-23T10:55:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T14:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=800"},"modified":"2017-07-23T10:55:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T14:55:47","slug":"doobie-brothers-still-rockin-down-the-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/doobie-brothers-still-rockin-down-the-highway\/","title":{"rendered":"Doobie Brothers still rockin’ down the highway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pat<\/a>

Pat Simmons, left, and Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers rock the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, N.J., on July 21, 2017.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

First things first: Let\u2019s just put the Doobie Brothers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right now. It\u2019s long overdue. Waive whatever rules there all and just pencil the band in to accept the designation and perform at the next induction ceremony.<\/p>\n

This is not a new thought, but it certainly was reinforced Saturday, July 21, when the Doobies shared the bill with Chicago (2016 R&RHOF inductees).<\/p>\n

Simply put, the Doobie Brothers rocked the roof off the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey. They\u2019re just that good. The 15-song set was heavy on the early Doobies, with 13 of the songs coming from albums recorded between 1972 and 1975 – Toulouse Street, The Captain and Me, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits and Stampede<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That was fine with me. Those were the years that I listened to a lot of Doobie Brothers. I was a sophomore in high school in 1975 in central Illinois and every day during lunch period, I\u2019d pop a quarter in the school\u2019s juke box and play two songs: \u201cMy Maria\u201d by B.W. Stevenson, the title cut from his 1973 album; and \u201cChina Grove\u201d by the Doobie Brothers, off the 1973 album The Captain and Me<\/em>, the making of which was featured in the first volume of The Vinyl Dialogues<\/em> based on interviews with the Doobies\u2019 Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons.<\/p>\n

\"Pat<\/a>

Pat Simmons
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Johnston famously had to leave the Doobie Brothers at the end of 1974 because of health issues associated with the rigors of a band that was on the road quite a bit. Because of that, Johnston was unable to join the tour in the spring of 1975 to promote the Stampede<\/em> album. Steely Dan guitarist Jeff \u201cSkunk\u201d Baxter, who had joined the Doobie Brothers after Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan retired from the road in 1974, proposed that songwriter and vocalist Michael McDonald, a fellow Steely Dan alum, fill in for Johnston on the tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I joined, I thought it was going be like a two to six-month gig,\u201d said McDonald in a recent interview. \u201cI thought I\u2019d better save my money because I wasn\u2019t going to make this much money for a while. That\u2019s how I lived as a musician back then. If I was making a good payday for a while, I didn\u2019t spend it all. I was living pretty much hand-to-mouth. I had no idea what was next and I don\u2019t think any of us did.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was next was that the Doobie Brothers had come to a crossroads. To that point, Johnston had been the band\u2019s primary songwriter and now he was unavailable. So the band turned to McDonald for material to supplement what Simmons was writing. The result was the 1976 album, Takin\u2019 It to the Streets<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>

Tom Johnston and John McFee
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

And it marked a radical change in sound for the Doobie Brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA door opened rather suddenly with the Doobies. Those guys were so open to anything I had to offer and it caught me by surprise, really,\u201d said McDonald. \u201cI did not expect that having come from another situation with Steely Dan, where Don (Fagen) and Walter (Becker) were the sole source of all the material. I had learned a great deal from them, however. That was probably my whole songwriting education in a way. I grew up writing songs, but it was a real crash course to learn a different approach to arrangement, chords, melody, that I got from working with Donald and Walter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I came to the Doobies, it was very fortuitous for me to have come from that gig, with all these kind of fresh ideas on how to write a song, what a song\u2019s structure could be,\u201d said McDonald. \u201cAnd then all of a sudden to be surprised at how open – everybody from the producer (Ted Templeman) to the band members – and generous they were in allowing me to participate in the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>

Tom Johnston
(Photo By Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some factions of the listening public – real or perceived – that are divided about the different versions of the band. There is the Tom Johnston Doobies and the Michael McDonald Doobies. What we saw Saturday night in Camden was definitely the Johnston Doobies, as they have been for a while now, with a nod to the McDonald years. McDonald\u2019s \u201cTakin\u2019 it to The Streets\u201d was included in the setlist.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people have thrown credit to me for the evolution of the band and changing the complexion of the Doobies’ music. Although I had a part in that, it wasn\u2019t totally me,\u201d said McDonald. \u201cIt was really a lot of things that happened. One, Jeff Baxter was a big part of the music changing and bringing me into the band even. The arrangements of our songs and his guitar style and jazz influences brought a lot to the band and to my songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPat and all the other guys were on board. And one of the biggest components in all this was really the absence of Tommy because Tommy was such a huge influence in the direction of the the band up to that point,\u201d said McDonald. \u201cJust by the virtue of him taking a hiatus and being gone from the next recording, that left a huge hole, for better or for worse. But it was the collective effort to try fill that void that was responsible for the band changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I actually like both sounds that the Doobie Brothers have employed. I like the early Doobies because of my fondness for the songs \u201cChina Grove,\u201d \u201cListen to the Music,\u201d \u201cSouth City Midnight Lady\u201d and \u201cTake Me in Your Arms\u201d; and I like the late-1970s Doobies songs – written or co-written by McDonald – including \u201cMinute by Minute,\u201d \u201cIt Keeps You Runnin\u2019\u201d and \u201cWhat A Fool Believes,\u201d which was the second No. 1 single for the band on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. (The first was \u201cBlack Water,\u201d written by Simmons and released in 1974.)<\/p>\n

The contributions of Pat Simmons to the band also have been significant and shouldn\u2019t be overlooked or downplayed in the least. He\u2019s been the only constant from the band\u2019s inception through the transition and back again. He and longtime bandmate John McFee co-wrote another of my favorite Doobies\u2019 songs, \u201cFar From Home\u201d from the 2010 World Gone Crazy<\/em> album.<\/p>\n

Through it all, the Doobie Brothers are still rockin\u2019 down the highway. And it\u2019s time they get the proper recognition. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should take note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First things first: Let\u2019s just put the Doobie Brothers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right now. It\u2019s long overdue. Waive whatever rules there all and just pencil the band in to accept the designation and perform at the next induction ceremony. This is not a new thought, but it certainly was reinforced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[83,172],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-doobie-brothers","tag-michael-mcdonald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}