Celebrating Tom Johnston, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.
I saw the Doobie Brothers live a long, long, time ago. It was an afternoon show at a suburban amphitheater, and I smoked a shitload of what I thought was pot but turned out to be PCP. And before long all the Doobies were 9-feet-tall and changing colors like chameleons, and played every single song at about 300 mph, in effect inventing hardcore. Or at least that’s how I remember it. That PCP was some good shit. I recommend it to everybody.
Nobody pays much attention to the Doobies nowadays, except to laugh at them. I know I laugh at them; I can’t even hear their name without cracking up. They were, even during their heyday, the least hip and most faceless big-name act in rock, and since then they’ve become the punch line to a joke that goes something like, “Why did the Doobie Brothers cross the road? To get away from the Doobie Brothers.”
Unhip and faceless the Doobs may have been, but back in the day they were big—scary big, in fact—with rock’s protletarian audiences (i.e., the same folks who loved BTO, Grand Funk, etc.). This can be attributed to one of two things. Either The Doobie Brothers were a pretty decent rock’n’roll band, or the musical wasteland of the early to mid-seventies left rock fans so hard up they were reduced to lapping up all manner of crapulous corporate swill, including the Dööbiemeisters.
I may be the only one, but I think it’s high time for a reassessment of the Doobie Brothers. And since their career was so neatly bifurcated into pre- and post-Michael McDonald periods, I decided it would be only fair to review 1976’s Best of the Doobies, which while skewed toward the band’s earlier work includes two McDonald-era songs, although it omits (because they were, duh, released later) such McDonald hits as “What a Fool Believes” and “Minute by Minute.”
But first, a very brief bio: the Doobs began their career at the tail end of the sixties as a kind of unofficial bar band for Northern California’s Hell’s Angels, this despite the fact that Patrick Simmons was known to play the flute. The Hells Angels listening to flute solos? Why that’s enough in itself to make me love the Doobie Brothers, although it’s quite possible that every time Simmons picked up said instrument he was unceremoniously dragged outside by guys with monikers like Scumdog and Freewheelin’ Frank, who proceeded to happily jump on their chopped hogs and use both “Pat” and flute as a kind of improvised speed bump.
From 1971 to 1974—during which the Simmons and guitarist/vocalist Tom Johnston manned the stern—the Doobies released five albums boasting an eclectic mix of rock, swampy R&B, good-time bong-and-tube top boogie, hippie country, and funk. And unlike other proletarian arena acts they added such exotic touches as three-part vocal harmonies, flute, congas, banjo, and the occasional horn section, not to mention the frequent studio contributions of Little Feat pianist Bill Payne.
In 1975 the Doobies abruptly shifted gears when vocalist Michael McDonald—who like Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, who had joined the Doobs in 1974, was a former member of the Steely Dan camp—came aboard to replace the ailing Johnston. The result was a move away from the band’s bewildering amalgam of styles towards a more sophisticated R&B that highlighted McDonald’s blue-eyed soul and Baxter’s jazzier predilections. And while the Hell’s Angels may have grumbled (“Where did the fucking flute go?”), the band’s transformation into a low-brow Steely Dan (similar sound, sans the brainy and irony-laden lyrics) brought it a more cosmopolitan audience, while disaffecting the “China Grove” crowd.
And speaking of “China Grove,” it’s the lead-off track to Best of the Doobies. Say what you will about the Doobsters, “China Grove” is a hard-charging rocker with real punch, from its hard-as-nails guitars to Bill Payne’s very pneumatic piano. Throw in one very cool guitar solo, and what you have would be a great song except if it weren’t for Johnston’s vocals, which were better-suited for the band’s swampier, funkier material than for a hard rocker like this one. What the Doobs really needed, given their tendency to dabble in any genre the dog happened to drag in, were a couple of lead singers, like 40 maybe.
Johnston’s vocals are much better suited to “Long Train Runnin’,” which is one frenetic slice of syncopated funk, complete with some really cool congas and Johnston’s rhythmic guitar strum, not to mention some nice (if a touch too smooth) backing vocals. I would prefer the song be a bit rawer sounding—the Doobs were, like Steely Dan, always a bit too smooth for their own good—but I’m willing to forgive a lot for Johnston’s harmonica solo, to say nothing of his funky ad-libbing towards the song’s close. Bananarama covered this baby in 1991 and the Doobies’ version kicks it ass—strike one up for one the least hip band in rock history!
Best of the Doobies isn’t big on chronology, which is why the Michael McDonald-era “Takin’ It to the Streets” is next. I’ve always wondered just what it was the Doobs were taking to the streets: the garbage? Because “Takin’ It to the Streets” is about as exciting as taking out the trash, from McDonald’s dour and lifeless vocals to its rather bland saxophone solo. Not even Payne’s organ, some snazzy (but not prominent enough) congas by Bobby LaKind, or Tiran Porter’s funky bass can save it. Only towards the end does the pace pick up and McDonald wake up, underscoring both how enervated what came before was and what the song—kicked up a notch or three—might have been.
“Listen to the Music” is corporate rock at its blandest, and its title must be ironic because after one listen you’re likely to say, “Sure. Where is it?” A lowest-common-denominator slice of AOR schlock, this aural lobotomy must have been the song running through rock crit Robert Christgau’s head when he wrote, “You can lead a Doobie to the studio, but you can’t make him think.” And it makes me wonder whether everybody back then was on thorazine (I know I was: took it to see Devo), because “Listen to the Music” was a bona fide hit that people actually listened to with their ears instead of plugging them with pencils and praying for the end of the world.
The sui generis “Black Water” was a can’t-lose show ender amongst the bad covers bands I used to go see at the CYO-sponsored dances on Saturday night at the St. Aloysius Catholic Church parish hall in Littlestown, Pennsylvania. And I liked it just as much as everybody else, which is proof positive that a life without drugs is not worth living. A vocal spectacular that opens with (the horror!) wind chimes, “Black Water” is best known for its a cappella ending, which you either like or despise depending on your hipness rating and tolerance for guys singing in circles. Me, I harbor a nostalgic liking for it; I may laugh my head off every time I hear it, but I always find myself singing along with the guy with the really low voice, and have narrowly avoided serious traffic accidents while doing so.
“Rockin’ Down the Highway” is a hard rocker in drag, which is to say it wants you to think it’s a hard rocker but isn’t, due chiefly to its lack of a bottom—which is astounding, given the fact the band had two drummers—overly lush vocals, and too wimpy guitars. What’s more, I find it every bit as faceless as “Listen to the Music.” If it’s a real seventies rocker you’re looking, for I suggest you check out BTO’s “Roll on Down the Highway” (a truly great song) or The Osmond’s “Crazy Horses,” which is crazy good and puts anything Bad Company ever did to shame.
“Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” features an opening that’s a dead ringer for the opening to Steely Dan’s “Do It Again,” as well as a decent melody. But like “Rockin’ Down the Highway” the song lacks a bottom—what were those drummers doing, anyway?—and I wish they’d toughened up the guitars some. In short it’s a featherweight that needs to put on a few pounds, although by saying that I know I’m being unfair because the Doobs were never BTO or Bad Company and never pretended to be. They lived by the doobie and died by the doobie, and the doobie lowers testosterone levels, and when all is said and done it was testosterone The Doobie Brothers lacked, as one look at the flute-playing Patrick Simmons proves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
“It Keeps You Runnin’” also boasts a Steely Dan-like opening, not to mention that patented Fagen-Becker 200-coats-of lacquer studio sheen. Unlike “Taking It to the Streets,” this one has enough going on to keep it interesting, mainly lots of funky synthesizers. What’s more, McDonald doesn’t sound all groggy and morose like somebody just awakened from a good nap. Moreover, the vocal harmonies are nice and the chorus is catchy, and I only wish Skunk Baxter had seen fit to throw in a few licks here and there. I used to hate this song, and the McDonald-period Doobies in general, because they went from being a band I could laugh at to a band I simply couldn’t stomach. But over time I’ve developed a grudging respect for them. Sure, they became a second-rate Steely Dan, but when all is said and done you could do far, far worse—like a first-rate Doobie Brothers, for instance.
“South City Midnight Lady” is a pleasant if rather lackluster mid-tempo love song, and other than some really nice pedal steel guitar by Baxter and some nice piano by Payne doesn’t have much to say for itself. It sounds more honest than the manufactured-to-be-a-hit “Listen to the Music,” which counts for something, but I’m surprised to find it on The Best of The Doobies, both because it’s nothing to write home about and makes the LP top heavy with songs from The Captain and Me. If I were The Doobie Brothers—and praise the Lord I’m not—I’d have replaced it with Takin’ It to the Streets’ “Carry Me Away,” Stampede’s “Neal’s Fandango,” or What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits’s “Road Angel,” which features an astonishing instrumental interlude that I’m pretty sure the Doobies’ bought wholesale from another, harder rocking band.
“Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” is a likeable slice of Motown, and far better than, say, Grand Funk’s insipid take on “Locomotion.” A jacked-up cover of the 1964 Holland-Dozier-Holland song recorded previously by artists including Kim Weston, the Isley Brothers, and (erk!) Jermaine Jackson, the Doobies throw everything they can at the tune, including the backing vocals of Sherlie Matthews, Venetta Fields, and Jessica Smith, the congas of Bobbye Hall Porter, the trumpets of the legendary Condoli Brothers (Conte and Pete), and the string and horn arrangements of Paul Riser. For once Tom Johnston actually sounds at home, the drums and percussion are excellent, and everything is in its proper place with the exception of the guitar solo, which seems a gratuitous touch—and a bit too “rock’n’roll—for a soul song. But aside from that caveat, the Doobs not only manage to pull this one off—their version is definitive.
Album closer “Without You” is a bona fide guitar rave-up, and features group vocals that remind me of The Edgar Winter Group’s “Free Ride.” Throw in a kick-ass guitar solo, a great Who-like bit of smash and bash—for once the Doobs actually sound like a band with two drummers—at around the 3:30 mark, and big power chords throughout, and what you’ve got is a song with real muscle, and can hold its own with the songs of BTO, Grand Funk, Bad Company, and the other hard rockers of the time. The Brothers Doobie must have taken steroids before they recorded this one, is all I can say, and they sound the better for it.
At the end of the day, The Doobie Brothers were too eclectic for their own good. They tried to cover too much ground, and the result was a band that was a jack of all trades but master of none. It’s impossible to pick a quintessential Doobie Bros. song because such a specimen does not exist. And that’s fatal for a rock and roll band. Plenty of bands have cobbled together genres to establish a definitive sound, but the Doobs were finicky and kept theirs apart like a cafeteria tray keeps the peas away from the meat loaf, only to end up sounding like inveterate dabblers. Say what you will about the insufferably dumb Bad Company, at least they had a clearly definable sound. The Doobs don’t. Which is why they’re not a great rock band, and anybody who says they are is a fool who believes what a fool believes. That or a Hell’s Angel.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C+
