Happy Throwback Thursday! Are you craving some nostalgic classic-rock tunes heading into the weekend?
The Doobie Brothers bring countless hits to Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, on Sunday night, featuring both powerful lead singers Tom Johnston and Michael McDonald for their own version of an “Eras Tour.”
“It’s the ‘Coalition Collection,’ that’s what I call it,” Johnston told WTOP. “We’ve got Mike with us, he does his songs that he was famous for when he was in the group. I do the ones that I did when I was in the group. Then we do a couple together, and Pat (Simmons) of course does his songs. … Here we all are and we’re playing everything from basically all eras of the band and people have been loving the show. It’s been going really great.”
Born in 1948 in Visalia, California, Johnston formed The Doobie Brothers in 1970 in San Jose, California.
“Everything just sort of happened,” Johnston said. “I was going to college at San Jose State. I think Pat was taking some classes there as well. John Hartman came out because he wanted to meet anybody from Moby Grape. … We started playing in all different formats. We had horns, we did hard rock. Then we went and listened to Pat at The Gaslight Theatre in Cupertino and dug what he was doing with the finger picking.”
Signed by Warner Bros., The Doobie Brothers released a self-titled debut album in 1971. Next came “Toulouse Street” (1972) with “Jesus is Just Alright” and “Listen to the Music,” with the lyrics, “What the people need is a way to make ‘em smile, it ain’t so hard to do if you know how, gotta get a message, get it on through.”
“I just wrote whatever I was thinking,” Johnston said. “It was influenced by the times, the Vietnam War. I was still going to college when I wrote that. … I got drafted and all that stuff came into play. But it was that time in the United States — it was that era all that was going on. My whole idea was that if the world leaders could get together and do their conversing and interacting with music instead of harsh rhetoric, we’d all be better off.”
Their third album “The Captain and Me” (1973) was even bigger with hits like “Long Train Runnin’,” featuring a complex guitar style of strumming and playing accent rhythm at the same time on the same instrument.
“I was into doing that percussive kind of strumming early on,” Johnston said. “It was a jam initially. … We’d been playing that since 1970 and I’d change the words every night, so finally I sat down and wrote the words at the studio in L.A. and it became something. … The percussive rhythm and the whole idea of being without love, etc., ‘where would you be by now,’ kind of resonated with people I guess and it took off.”
The same album featured arguably the biggest song of their career in “China Grove.”
“I started on an acoustic. Then I grabbed John Hartman and we went down to the basement and I said, ‘We’ve gotta make this electric,’ so we did at probably 2 in the morning driving everyone around us nuts,” Johnston said. “As far as the words, they’re kind of nonsensical, off the top of your head stuff, and the title, there actually is a China Grove, Texas. … We had been on tour driving by China Grove on our way to San Antonio.”
Their fourth album “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits” (1974) delivered the classic singalong tune “Black Water,” written by Simmons, who delivered lead vocals and created the catchy breakdown epilogue.
“It’s his baby,” Johnston said. “All I did was sing some scat stuff at the end. Most of that was recorded without me in the room. It was all acoustic, a lot of finger picking and a lot of the answer, call and response thing in there, you know, ‘Take me by the hand, pretty mama.’ It was all created right there in the studio and Pat had already kind of finished it up. He did a really good job, it was a really good song.”
By that point, Johnston was suffering through a painful stomach ulcer and temporarily left the band. This allowed Steely Dan alum Michael McDonald to take over lead vocals on the Doobie Brothers’ sixth album “Takin’ It to the Streets” (1976), featuring a smash title track, as well as other hits like “It Keeps You Runnin’.”
“I had a bad stomach ulcer. It was bleeding and I had to come off the road — and it’s a good thing I did, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now,” Johnston said. “I was out about a year getting over that. They brought Mike in just to fill in vocals, they didn’t know he had songs written like ‘Takin’ it to the Streets’ and that’s when they started going in that direction musically. Why not? The guy is talented, he had some great songs. It makes sense.”
Without Johnston, the band dropped its eighth album “Minute by Minute” (1978) with hits like “What a Fool Believes” as the band embraced techno sounds as the ’70s evolved into the ’80s
“It went from the rocking and finger picking and whatever from the earlier version of the band and then transferred over to Mike’s style of music,” Johnston said.
Since then, their music has been featured in countless movies, from Kevin Costner driving to “China Grove” in “Field of Dreams” (1989) to Tom Hanks running to “It Keeps You Running” in “Forrest Gump” (1994).
“The one that I noticed most was ‘Field of Dreams,'” Johnston said. “It was pretty cool.”
In 2004, The Doobie Brothers entered the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, followed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
“The way I look at it is: everybody that I listened to growing up and was influenced by heavily musically are all in there from Little Richard to Bo Diddley to Cream,” Johnston said. “A lot of people that I grew up listening to and fashioned my music after and influenced how I played are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, so I think it’s a big deal. That’s why I look at it as an honor.”
When it’s all said and done, how does he want the band to be remembered in rock ‘n roll history?
“I would hope that people look at this band as having said some things that mattered in, say, ‘Listen to the Music,’ but also just a good-time band,” Johnston said. “We try to interact with the audience as much as possible because we want everybody to have a good time. The more the fans are enjoying what you’re doing, singing back at you and enjoying the song, the better the show gets. That’s pretty much what it’s all about.”
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
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