Beech Tree News Network

Back in the ‘70’s, the Doobie Brothers turned out their fair share of hits while selling out concerts coast to coast.  The Doobie Brothers are more than a little different: selling over 50 million albums over the last 50 years.  You can count on one hand, and maybe have a few fingers left over the number of bands who have had that kind of longevity.  While other members have come and gone over the years, Michael McDonald, Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and John McPhee, the core four Doobie’s, feel fortunate to still be playing together. 

Their story begins in 1970 in San Jose, California, where Johnston and Simmons met playing guitar.  Jamming lead to booking some gigs, which then meant they needed a name.  Guitarist Patrick Simmons “this guy said “you smoke so much weed, you should call yourselves the Doobie Brothers.  Simmons said “yeah, right.  Like that’s gonna fly”.  Their hard-driving Rock appealed to a crowd of bikers and hippies in Northern California as they reeled off a string of hits: “China Grove”, “Black Water”, Rockin’ Down The Highway” among others.

Everything was going great until the mid-70’s.  They were, at that time, a bunch of guys in their 20’s and didn’t handle success well.  Co-founder Tom Johnston was the first casualty, sidelined with a bleeding ulcer as the band was on tour.  Johnston says “I had to leave the band unfortunately.  I’d had the ulcer since high school.  The Doobie’s needed to find someone fast. 

A few of them knew a keyboardist who was playing clubs in and around Los Angeles.  Michael McDonald says, “at that point I was playing the Trojan Room in Glendale”.  A few days later, he was playing with the Doobie Brothers.  Michael McDonald’s life would never be the same.  Nor would the Doobie Brothers when it came time to record their next album.  “I started to bring in songs that were at that point in varying degrees of being finished.  Takin’ It to The Streets was one of them”.  The sound of the Doobie Brothers was shifting.  McDonald was aware he was changing the sound.  “Oh yeah, hyper aware.  And not in a good way.  “Oh boy.  I’m gonna be the reason this whole thing turns to …..”What it turned to was platinum.  Their 1979 album Minute by Minute went triple platinum. 

One of the tracks, “What A Fool Believes”, became the bands all-time biggest hit, winning the Grammy for Record of the Year.  Johnston would leave the band but then return.  “Nowadays it doesn’t matter but in those days, I didn’t feel like I was in the right place at the right time”, Johnston said.  Those days are more than four decades ago.  These days, they’ve got better things to worry about like “who’s gonna sing that part” and “what’s that chord”?

Last year, the Doobie Brothers, minus McDonald, released their latest album, Liberte, their first in over a decade.  Songs not as much by artists from the ‘70’s as artists IN their 70’s.  Simmons says “at some point, John said something like “those were the better days”.  Simmons said “These are the better days”. And that was the lyric to their song “Better Days”.  McDonald says “when we get up there and Pat starts “Black Water”, “China Grove” or we start “Listen to the Music”, all the sudden we are 20 years old again and we’re doing what we always did”.  That is magic.  (CBS Sunday Morning)

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