Doobie Brothers

[fragger]

We were discussing Supertramp in another topic and I mentioned the Doobie Brothers, so I thought I'd post this here so as not to get too off-topic in the other thread.

I never got to see Supertramp live because (as far as I know) they never toured in Australia :-( I almost got to see the classic Doobie Brothers in the 70s but some of them got sick in Hawaii before they got here and they scrubbed the Aussie leg of the tour. That was a serious bummer for me, I was so looking forward to seeing those guys and I already had the tickets (refunded, natch). The Doobies were among my favourite bands in the 70s, and among the very few from that time that I still like to listen to today :-X Their biker-related origins have nothing to do with their appeal for me, honest :-()

I guess it's true of many top bands, especially from the pre-internet era, that their best material was the stuff that never got played on the radio. In the case of the Doobies, a lot of people think of stuff like China Grove and Listen To The Music, but those songs were intended for release as commercial singles, deliberately designed to be middle-of-the-road and kind of watered-down. I call those the "contractual obligation" numbers, and I usually skip over them when I play any of their albums.

I came across this recently, "Clear As The Driven Snow" from "The Captain And Me" album. I think this was recorded at a reunion concert in the late 90s, with Pat Simmons and Tom Johnston reinstalled. The heart of the band is back :-() They're still going strong, they actually toured here last year but I wasn't able to get to see them :-(

"The Captain" is probably my fave of all their albums.

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From the same show, "Neal's Fandango" from "Stampede", the last Doobies album to feature Johnston (seen here with the red vest) before he left for health reasons. Simmons (seen at left in the thumbnail above) stuck with the band for a while after Stampede but continued to play a kind of diminished role when Michael McDonald took over for Johnston and their whole sound changed. I never liked the direction they took from then on. They used to be such a heavily guitar-oriented outfit, but after McDonald assumed the leadership the guitars all got relegated to the rhythm section and you barely ever heard them.

This is the sound of the Doobies I know and love.

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[PZ]

Nice post fragger,

It has been a long time since I thought about those groups that were premier when I was a kid  :-X

[fragger]

Cheers PZ :) I've always thought the Doobies were quite underrated. I really like their vocals as well as their musicianship, they're top-notch. So many singers can be made to sound good in a studio, but when they try to sing live they sound terrible. These guys sound great either way.