Doobie Brothers Biography

The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band, best known for hit singles like "Black Water", "China Grove", "Listen to the Music" and "What a Fool Believes". They sold millions of records throughout the 1970s.

By the end of 1974, Johnston's health was suffering from the rigors of the road. He was absent when the band gamely performed in formal wear on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve that December. By then, Stampede had been completed for release in 1975. It featured yet another hit single, Johnston's rollicking 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 blazing, idiosyncratic Baxter guitar solo. Simmons contributed the haunting "I Cheat the Hangman" as well as "Neal's Fandango," a rousing ode to Santa Cruz, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Ry Cooder added his slinky slide guitar to Johnston's bluesy 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 for another album, 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 album, Takin' It to the Streets, announced a radical change in their sound. Hard-charging, guitar-based rock and roll gave way to blue-eyed soul/soft rock highlighted with keyboards and horns. Baxter contributed jazzy guitar stylings reminiscent of Steely Dan. Above all, McDonald's distinctive 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 heartfelt tribute to the absent Johnston, entitled "For Someone Special."

Their new sound was further refined with their next album, Livin' on the Fault Line, which featured "Little Darlin' (I Need You)," "Echoes Of Love" (written by Simmons with Al Green in mind), and "You Belong To Me" (later a hit for McDonald's collaborator 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 figures of organized crime 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 performance of "Take Me in Your Arms" that is often omitted when the show airs in syndication.

Restored to fitness and briefly back in the fold, Johnston contributed one song to Streets. He also made limited live appearances with the band in 1975 and 1976, documented in a concert filmed 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 Brothers albums: Everything You've Heard is True and Still Feels Good. (Johnston's underrated albums were recently reissued on compact disc by Wounded Bird Records.)

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 Will 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 possibly last live performance, of the band in its middle-period configuration.

Once again, the band was at a crossroads. As the album began to climb the charts and more touring was demanded, 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 guitarist John McFee (late of Huey Lewis' early band Clover); Cornelius Bumpus was also recruited to add vocals, keyboards and saxophone to the line-up. They also 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 and released the album One Step Closer in 1980. 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.)

By 1982, even Simmons had run out of steam and resigned from the band. Fewer of his tunes had graced the recent albums and he did not appear to relish the role of session musician for the Michael McDonald 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 final concert in San Francisco, they were joined onstage by founder Tom Johnston for a raunchy and triumphant rendition of his staple, "China Grove." Porter, Hossack and Hartman subsequently found their way to the stage for an extended version of "Listen to the Music." Knudsen sang while Simmons, Johnston and McFee traded licks in a free-form guitar jam. 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 Doobies hibernated for the next five years, reuniting in different configurations only for annual Christmas season performances for the patients and staff at the Stanford Children's Hospital. Simmons released a fine but commercially disappointing solo album, Arcade, in 1983. Knudsen and McFee formed Southern Pacific with bassist Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater Revival and recorded four albums that found success in the country charts. McDonald became established as a solo artist. His voice dominated adult contemporary radio throughout the eighties, though his star faded in the nineties. (He has experienced a renaissance of popularity over the last several years as an interpreter of Motown classics.)

The reformation of the Doobies was scarcely premeditated. On a personal quest for a worthy cause, Knudsen had become active in Vietnam veterans' affairs. Early in 1987, he persuaded eleven of the thirteen other Doobie alumni to join him for a concert to benefit veterans' causes. Answering the call were Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, Jeff Baxter and John McFee (vocals, guitars and strings), John Hartman, Michael Hossack and Chet McCracken (joining organizer Knudsen on drums), Michael McDonald (keyboards and vocals), Cornelius Bumpus (keyboards, vocals, saxophone and flute), Bobby LaKind (vocals and percussion), and Tiran Porter (bass and vocals). There were no surplus bass players, as Weeks had other commitments and long-absent Shogren reportedly was not invited. They soon discovered that tickets were in great demand, so the "one concert" quickly evolved into a brief tour. This uber-Doobie lineup was able to perform selections from every album using a smorgasbord of instrumentation that they could not have previously duplicated onstage. Baxter and McFee played pedal steel and fiddle, respectively, during "Black Water" and "Steamer Lane Breakdown." Porter got to play selections from One Step Closer, his favorite Doobies album, before a live audience for the first time. During "Without You," no fewer than four drummers and four lead guitarists created a magnificent noise. Producer Templeman, a musician in his own right, banged percussion and LaKind sometimes played Knudsen's trap set while the latter came to the front of the stage to join the chorus. The tour culminated, sans McDonald, McFee and Knudsen (who had to fulfill previous commitments), with a performance in Moscow on July 4 before a huge and enthusiastic crowd of music-starved Soviet subjects.