LONG TRAIN STILL RUNNIN’

With vocalist Michael McDonald on board again and a new album, more than 50 years down the tracks The Doobie Brothers have still got what it takes. They tell us to just listen to the music...

- Dave Ling

Apart from a five-year hiatus during the mid-80s, The Doobie Brothers have been rockin’ on down the highway for more than half a century. With 10 US Top 10 hits to their name, including two No.1s, the multiple-Grammy-winning Californian band also made some of the most popular albums of the 70s. Their 1976 greatest hits collection, Best Of The Doobies, has achieved diamond status, selling 10 million copies in the United States alone.

Yet as staples of an FM Radio scene that critics joyfully eviscerated as the epitome of blandness, probably few could identify a member of the Doobies – except perhaps for keyboard player and vocalist Michael McDonald, who also carved a hugely successful R&B/crossover career of his own – should they pass them on the street.

“When I meet people on flights and they ask whether I’m in a band, I tell them the songs that we’re known for. They recognise those, but not me,” co-founding guitarist Patrick Simmons told Classic Rock back in 2010, adding: “I kinda like that.”

Their hit list speaks for itself. Peppered with immaculate vocal harmonies, What A Fool Believes, Listen To The Music, Black Water, Long Train Runnin’, China Grove and Takin’ It To The Streets all trod the lines between rock, blues and soul. The Doobies refused to become stuck in one particular genre, but the first verse and chorus of just about any of their tracks was all it took for recognition.

Debuting on the 1976 album Takin’ It To The Streets (their sixth studio LP), Michael McDonald injected the melody X-factor that would propel the Doobies to new heights, his immaculate soulful voice complementing a more keyboard-friendly accessibility. Although McDonald wasn’t there every step of the way, except for that aforementioned 1980s break the band never stopped touring and recording.