The Doobie Brothers Reunion years and beyond
 By the end of 1974, Johnston's health was suffering from the rigors of the road. He was absent when the band joined the Beach Boys, Chicago and Olivia Newton-John on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve that December. By then, the western-themed Stampede had been completed for release in 1975 . It featured yet another hit single, Johnston's cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland-written Motown hit Take Me in Your Arms (also covered by Blood, Sweat, and Tears). The song included a distinctive Baxter guitar solo. Simmons contributed the atmospheric I Cheat the Hangman, as well as Neal's Fandango, an ode to Santa Cruz, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Ry Cooder added his slinky slide guitar to Johnston's cowboy song, Rainy Day Crossroad Blues.
By the start of the 1975 promotional tour for Stampede, Johnston's condition was so precarious that he required emergency hospitalization. With Johnston convalescing and the tour already booked, Baxter proposed recruiting a fellow Steely Dan alum to fill the hole: singer, songwriter and keyboardist Michael McDonald. Simmons, Knudsen, Porter and McDonald divvied up and sang Johnston's parts on tour, while Simmons and Baxter shared lead guitar chores.
Under contract to release another album in 1976, the Doobies were at a crossroads. Their primary songwriter and singer remained unavailable, so they turned to McDonald and Porter for material to supplement that of Simmons. The resulting LP, Takin' It to the Streets, debuted a radical change in their sound. Electric guitar-based rock and roll gave way to blue-eyed soul and soft rock emphasizing keyboards and horns. Baxter contributed jazz-inflected guitar stylings reminiscent of Steely Dan. Above all, McDonald's voice became the band's new signature sound. Takin' It featured McDonald's title track and It Keeps You Runnin', both hits (It Keeps You Runnin' was later covered by Carly Simon on her album Another Passenger). Bassist Porter wrote and sang a tribute to the absent Johnston, entitled For Someone Special. A greatest hits compilation, Best of the Doobies, followed before year's end. (In 1996, the Recording Industry Association of America certified Best of the Doobies Diamond for sales in excess of ten million.)
Their new sound was further refined and McDonald's dominant role cemented with their 1977 album, Livin' on the Fault Line. It featured a cover of the Motown classic Little Darlin' (I Need You), Echoes Of Love (a Simmons composition written for, but not recorded by Al Green), and You Belong To Me (later a hit for McDonald's co-songwriter Carly Simon). To help promote Fault Line, the band performed live on the PBS show Soundstage and even appeared (as themselves) in a classic, two-part episode of the series What's Happening!! The episode decried the evils of bootlegging live concerts, depicting the bootleggers as hoodlums who pressure Rerun to surreptitiously record a Doobies show under threat of violence. The band performed several tunes, mixing live vocals and instrumentation with prerecorded backing tracks. The Season 2 DVD presents the episode at its original length, preserving a live vocal performance of Take Me in Your Arms (featuring McDonald) that is often omitted when the show airs in syndication.
Restored to fitness and briefly back in the fold, Johnston contributed one original song to Streets and also added a vocal cameo to Simmons' tune Wheels of Fortune. Johnston also made limited live appearances with the band in 1976, documented in a concert filmed that year at the Winterland in San Francisco (excerpts from which appear occasionally on VH1 Classic). None of Johnston's songs appeared on Fault Line, although he received credit for guitars and vocals and was pictured on the album sleeve. Before the Fault Line tour began, Johnston departed the band that he co-founded for a solo career that eventually yielded two modestly successful Warner Bros. albums: Everything You've Heard is True and Still Feels Good.
After almost a decade on the road, and with seven albums under their belts, the Doobies' career unexpectedly soared with the success of their next album, 1978's Minute by Minute. It spent five weeks at the top of the music charts and dominated several radio formats for the better part of two years. McDonald's song What a Fool Believes, written with Kenny Loggins, was the band's second #1 single and earned the songwriting duo a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The breezy, McDonald-penned title song received the Grammy for Pop Vocal Performance by a Group and the album was honored with an Album of the Year nod. Among the other memorable songs on the album were Here to Love You, Dependin' On You (co-written by McDonald and Simmons), Steamer Lane Breakdown (a Simmons bluegrass instrumental workout) and McDonald's How Do the Fools Survive? (featuring an epic, career-defining guitar lead by Jeff Baxter). Nicolette Larson (whose best-known hit was Lotta Love) and departed former bandleader Johnston contributed guest vocals on the album.
The triumph of Minute by Minute was bittersweet, however, because it coincided with the near-dissolution of the band. The pressure of touring while recording and releasing an album each year had worn the members down. Before Minute by Minute's monumental success had become apparent, founding drummer Hartman and longtime guitarist Baxter exited through the revolving door. A two-song set on the January 27, 1979 broadcast of Saturday Night Live with guest host Michael Palin marked the final television appearance, and one of the last live performances, of the band in its middle-period configuration. (Hartman subsequently joined Johnston's touring band in time to tape an appearance on Soundstage.)
With the surprise smash album embedded in the charts and more money to be earned on the road, the remaining Doobies (Simmons, Knudsen, McDonald and Porter) decided to forge ahead. In 1979, Hartman was replaced by session drummer and vibraphonist Chet McCracken, and Baxter by multi-instrumental string player John McFee (late of Huey Lewis' early band Clover); Cornelius Bumpus was also recruited to add vocals, keyboards and saxophone to the line-up. In addition, they elevated their former roadie turned vocalist, songwriter and percussionist Bobby LaKind from sideman to full member of the band. This line-up toured throughout 1979, including stops at Madison Square Garden and New York City's Central Park for the No Nukes benefit shows with like-minded artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Crosby, Stills & Nash, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen and John Hall.
In 1980 the Doobies released their ninth studio album, entitled One Step Closer. The LP featured the Top Ten hit Real Love (not to be confused with the John Lennon composition), but did not dominate the charts and the radio as Minute by Minute had two years earlier. Long frustrated with the realities of relentless touring and yearning for a stable home life, Porter left the band during the recording of Closer. Renowned session bassist Willie Weeks stepped in and the Doobies continued touring throughout 1980 and 1981 . (Post-Doobies, Weeks has performed with the Gregg Allman Band, Eric Clapton and many others.)
By 1982, even Simmons had resigned from the band. Now faced with the prospect of calling themselves The Doobie Brothers with no remaining original members, the group elected instead to disband. The reluctant Simmons, already hard at work on his first solo album, was drafted for a farewell tour on the promise that this truly would be the end. At their last concert at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, they were joined onstage by founder Tom Johnston for what was presumed to be the final rendition of his staple, China Grove. Former members Porter, Hossack and Hartman subsequently took the stage for an extended version of Listen to the Music. Knudsen sang while Simmons, Johnston and McFee traded licks on guitar. Of all the members through the years, only Baxter and Shogren were absent when the group took its final bow. A live album, Farewell Tour, followed in 1983.
The breakup of the band is referenced in the Michael Douglas film, Romancing the Stone, when his character finds an old copy of Rolling Stone Magazine. Aw, man! The Doobie Brothers broke up! When did that happen?
|
