The Doobie Brothers “Brotherhood”
It’s very possible that culture is dead. Well, at least American culture. Even if it does still exist, it has devolved into something so fragmented, so relative and so divided as to be inaccessible. So, maybe it’s dead. Or maybe it’s irretrievably split. Whatever the case is today, however, it was not always this way.
In 1983, more than half of America tuned in to watch the finale of “M*A*S*H.” The year before, “Thriller” began its historic domination of the radio and MTV, ultimately outselling every album ever released. In 1980, “Back in Black” was shot out from a cannon and has not left the airwaves since. In 1977, The Bee Gees could not escape the ubiquity of Disco or the inevitable backlash. That same year, The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and Boston were absolutely everywhere. Back in 1973, every teenager and young adult in the English speaking world resided on the “Dark Side of the Moon.” There were, of course, many cultures and many more subcultures back then. But, between 1973 and 1983, there was also a super-culture that we all recognized. Retrospectively, we called it the “monoculture.”
The monoculture was a product of unprecedented media reach combined with the limitation of choice. Whereas in 1950, only 9% of American households owned a television, by the end of the 70s, the figure was closer to 100%. Meanwhile, FM radio, with its greater bandwidth and frequency, had eclipsed its lower frequency dial. By the early 70s, more Americans were seeing and hearing the same things than ever before. Cable TV was still in its infancy and the internet was just a hobby for the government. The rest of us were trapped, bored and depressed.
“Thriller,” which begot the success of MTV, which begot the success of cable television, however, was not the death of the monoculture. Nor was the monoculture born with Michael Jackson. It wasn’t born with Alan Alda, either. Or with Glen Frey and Don Henley or Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham or Barry and Robin Gibb. No. The monoculture was born with The Doobie Brothers.
Rock and Roll, of course, was not supposed to take place on yachts. The Doobie Brothers, to my knowledge, never performed on a yacht — at least not during the 1970s. For most of their peak, America was economically depressed — rather short on yachts. And yet, here we are — post-Yacht Rock. Today, The Doobie Brothers signify a hard to explain amalgam of 1970s idealism, kitsch and grooviness alongside an early 80s cool, coked up excess. Because of four albums the band released between 1976 and 1980, and because of Michael McDonald’s proximity to Steely Dan, Christopher Cross and Kenny Loggins, The Doobies are something of a punchline. In reality, though, they were the opposite of any one thing. For the better part of a decade, they were everything.
Born in Northern California, they started out chasing the legend of Moby Grape near the intersection of psychedelic Rock and Folk music. As they grew, however, they accumulated influences. More Blues. Some Country. Some Funk. Southern Rock. A little Gospel. A dose of Heavy Metal. Eventually, and especially with the arrival of McDonald in 1976, they would lean hard into Jazz and Fusion. But, even before that time, they seemingly consumed, digested and metabolized every variety of mainstream, radio-friendly Rock and Roll.
In the great musical genome, The Doobies are somehow near CSNY and Jefferson Airplane and Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers Band and Aerosmith and Little Feat and AC/DC. They held both sides of the “Hippie Biker” dichotomy -- free loving but maybe also dangerous. They did almost everything well -- the three singers, three guitars, bassist and two drummers. They could sing the shit out of a lead. They could shred. They could harmonize. They were the musical monoculture. Not Michael. Not The Eagles or The Mac. Those were outliers enabled by the power of media. The Doobies were the actual monoculture. If you self-identified as “American” during the years between 1972 and 1981, and you were under the age of forty, you were a Doobie Brother.
Following their modest, self-titled debut in 1971, The Doobies released eight consecutive albums which were certified either “Gold” or “Platinum.” Fans (and critics) frequently talk about the sharp turn that separated the first five Doobie albums -- fronted mostly by Tom Johnstone -- from the four that followed. The shift was unmistakable. On the other hand, it somewhat obscured the diversity of those pre-McDonald records. The distance from “Listen to the Music” to “Black Water” is vast. Other than perhaps Chicago, there was no other major band (as opposed to a solo artist like Bowie) that shape-shifted so effectively as The Doobie Brothers. First, they convinced us that they were Hell’s Angels and buds with Jesus. Then, just two years after the folksy harmonies of “Black Water,” they were pumping out R&B and “Takin’ It to the Streets.” Jump ahead two years, and the band that once could have been mistaken for the world’s best Southern Rock band (they were not Southern) could just as easily been mistaken for Earth Wind & Fire. It was a breakneck ten years, with nonstop twists and turns.
It sure seemed like a lot of fun -- the long hair, the mustaches, the denim, the cowbell. But equally, and probably more so, it sure seemed like a hell of a lot of work. Most tellings of the story suggest that there are three versions of the band: the Tom Johnston version, the Michael McDonald version and, then, everything after 1989. In truth, however, there have been twenty-eight permutations of the line-up, featuring fourteen actual “Brothers” and a couple dozen touring musicians. At least four official Doobies have died, a couple tragically. Tom Johnston spent years addicted, coughing up blood, before he got out and got clean. And, of course, the second version of the group -- McDonald’s jazzier, funkier, easier, Grammy award winning version -- nearly killed the band. By 1982, and for about half a decade, The Doobie Brothers were dead.
It could be chance that the end of The Doobies coincided with the end of the monoculture. I guess it’s possible that McDonald’s coked up Soul — more is more, perfect is better — variation of The Doobies was something of a canary in the coal mine for the end of an era. Some say that the 70s officially ended in early 1981 when Ronald Regan was inaugurated as President. Others say it was August 1st of that year, when MTV played The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Personally, I think it was September 11, 1982 at The Greek Theater in Berkeley, California, when Tom Johnston joined Michael McDonald’s Doobies for what they presumed would be the band’s final performance. “M*A*S*H” still had another bunch of episodes. “Thriller” was still a few months away. But, I think the monoculture died with The Doobie Brothers that late summer night in 1982.
Amazingly, the world went on without them. Rock music was completely eclipsed by Pop and New Wave -- MJ, Prince, Madonna, Duran Duran and everyone else.The bell bottoms and longhairs and Laurel Canyons of the 70s were replaced with Polo shirts, hair gel and formica. The former Doobie Brothers went formed new bands, released solo albums and sat in on prestigious sessions. Michael McDonald had a couple of modest hits on his own and became something of a potent voice for hire, assisting Patti Labelle on “On My Own” and James Ingram on the unforgettable (mostly for its title) “Yah Mo B There.” By the middle of the 1980s, though, The Doobie Brothers existed mostly in the past, remembered through greatest hits compilations and Classic Rock radio. There was a zeitgeist, but no monoculture. And The Doobies were far from the zeitgeist.
But then, this weird thing happened. In the late 80s, middle-aged men made a comeback. Some of this unexpected wave came on the shoulders of “Amnesty Rock” -- serious music from serious artists like Sting, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Don Henley and the like. Simultaneously, though, “aging white guy Blues” began its own ascent. In 1988, Steve Winwood was feted for “Roll With It.” The next year, Clapton dusted himself and won a Grammy for “Journeyman.” Around the same time, Aerosmith continued their resurgence with “Pump.” And, just before the decade ended, after a couple of years flirting with the idea, The Doobie Brothers — featuring Tom Johnston back on lead vocals — released “Cycles.”
With considerable help from, “The Doctor,” which cruised up the Rock charts, The Doobie Brothers scored an unlikely Gold record. “The Doctor” was part throwback -- a little “China Grove” with a little more piano -- but also completely in line with the music that Clapton, Winwood and Aerosmith were making. It was excellent grist for FM radio dials. And though the rest of “Cycles” was far less enthralling, the album confirmed for Johnston, Patrick Simmons, Tom Hartman, Michael Hossack and Tiran Porter that America still wanted their Doobies.
For about a year, they were right. But then came 1991, which was, culturally, many years away from 1989. Whereas, mainstream Rock was still a dominant form at the end of the Eighties, just two years later, the germs of Alt Rock and Hip Hop and the flames of Hair Metal threatened to render “Album Oriented Rock” obsolete. The U.S. had invaded Iraq in 1990. 1991 was the year of U2, R.E.M. and Guns ‘N Roses. 1992 would become the year of Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Reagan was gone. Bush was on his way out. The Doobie Brothers, meanwhile, dug out the old denim and leather and tried to look like very serious rockers for “Brotherhood,” the 1991 follow up to “Cycles.”
“Brotherhood” is an easy target. It’s first single, “Dangerous” was featured on the soundtrack of the famously terribly Brian Bosworth vehicle, “Stone Cold.” “The Boz” was among the most hyped college football players of the late 80s, remembered equally for his blonde mullet-hawk as he is for his professional flameout. Upon leaving the NFL, he began a slightly more successful career as an actor. “Stone Cold” was The Boz’s debut film, aimed to establish the former athlete as the inheritor to the throne of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Predictably, the movie flopped, echoing Bosworth’s own sports career, and portending doom for the past prime Doobie Brothers.
Around this same time, FM radio was being divided and then subdivided into an increasingly narrow set of micro-formats. Whereas ten years earlier, Rock and Roll was simply “Rock and Roll,” by 1991, there was “Mainstream Rock,” “Modern Rock,” “Classic Rock” and a series of other formats for aging Boomers, including Adult Contemporary and Adult Alternative. This narrowcasting meant that The Doobies were still able to achieve chart success on Mainstream Rock radio charts, but it also followed that their success was necessarily limited. Whereas in the 1970s, The Doobies were for everyone under the age of forty, in 1991, they were for white men, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-four, who lived in the middle of America.
So much had changed since the collapse of the monoculture. And yet, given the relative success of “Cycles,” it was natural for the band to stay their ground. After all, nearly every choice they made between 1972 and 1980 (and then again in 1989) had worked for them, both musically and commercially. The early move from more psychedelic Folk Rock towards harder, stadium sized album-oriented Rock worked perfectly. Then, in 1976, just two years removed from the first number one hit, came the sharp turn towards Jazz and R&B. That worked just as well — possibly better. In spite of the drugs and line-up changes and the transition from Nixon to Ford to Carter and, eventually, Reagan, The Doobie Brothers had continuously thrived. And miraculously, in 1989, after years of dormancy and tectonic shifts in the zeitgeist, they had succeeded again. In 1991, it would have been only natural for them to trust their instincts. For two decades, and in spite of the personal toll, they seemed to have had either some magnetic pull on the culture or some uncanny capacity to tap into it.
Until they didn’t. When The Doobie Brothers returned in 1991, after a triumphant album and tour, they did not see the writing on the wall. They did not see that their promotional photos, full of denim, leather and goatees, might seem like the opposite of contemporary. They did not intuit that the muscular, bluesy Rock that had worked for Clapton, Winwood and Stevie Ray Vaughan just a couple years earlier, was no longer en vogue; that the kids had moved on and that MTV had followed. They did not understand that the sonic mastery of groups like Toto, Journey, REO Speedwagon and Foreigner was being rejected for something noisier and grungier.
And so, as a result of their perfectly understandable, but flawed assumptions, The Doobie Brothers’ made a record full of hot blooded, hard charging rockers that could have soundtracked action sequences in “Karate Kid II” or “Rocky IV” or “Die Hard 2” or (ahem) “Stone Cold.” On the one hand, it was easy to giggle at the image of The Boz running and flexing to “Dangerous.” On the other hand, “Dangerous” is a heck of a Rock song. Patrick Simmons picks at a steel guitar while an AC/DC worthy riff emerges. The synth horns pump better than anything from Jan Hammer. And hell if Tom Johnston couldn’t still belt out a song -- especially when that song was about motorcycles. In the same way that those action sequences are a little silly but still get your blood pumping, “Dangerous” does what it was built to do. By comparison, it’s absolutely better than most of Aerosmith’s “Pump,” which was certified seven times platinum and filled the airwaves for most of 1989 and 1990.
In fact, most of “Brotherhood” is rock solid. It’s dated only in that its fast paced, hard but not heavy, classic but not old style was out of favor in 1991. It’s only silly to the extent that goatees and 80s action movies are silly. But, if you set aside the meta-text and just listen, The Doobie Brothers’ eleventh studio album is actually quite a treat. That it’s well made is not a surprise. All five of the men in this -- the tenth -- version of the band, were crack musicians. They had most of Toto’s chops, but with seemingly less interest in Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti River. In 1991, “Brotherhood” was miles away from “cool.” But, even then, and perhaps more so now, it sounds kind of “hot.”
Three of the ten tracks on “Brotherhood” were written by Jerry Lynn Williams, who penned songs for Clapton during his late 80s comeback and for Stevie Ray and Jimmy Vaughan on 1990s “Family Style.” Williams excels at a certain smokey, bluesy rocker that falls in between ZZ Top and The Fabulous Thunderbirds. “Is Love Enough,” the first of the Williams’ trio, has a little swagger to it, but keeps things clean and classy. It’s the sort of song you’d turn up in your red, convertible Corvette a year after your hairline started to recede. “Our Love” is his next contribution, and perhaps the most delightful track on the album. Though it's slower than the Sly and Arnold fare that comprises parts of the record, it trades pace for melody and sweetness. The synth horns work. And the jangle of the guitar, alongside the harmony of the singers, evokes a bit of the Jeff Lynne / Tom Petty collaborations.
Jim Peterik, the former lead singer of Survivor, is the other non-Doobie to contribute songs on “Brotherhood.” Whereas Williams’ style was a solid fit for the both band and the times, however, Peterik’s songs are more contrived — stuck on the B-side of “Eye of the Tiger” (which he famously wrote and sang). “Divided Highway” is louder, faster and more overwrought than most of the album -- reaching for the intensity of a Rocky training montage but landing closer to a Steven Seagal soundtrack. And while it’s not as through we loved The Doobie Brothers for their lyrics, it is hard to get past the 80s goofiness of:
Two lanes - twistin' down a dusty highway
Two souls - on their way to where it leads
Tail lights - fadin' on the far horizon
But there's a detour on the road to destiny
After the push of Williams’ contemporary Blues and the pull of Peternik’s action hero turns, Tom Johnston closes the album with two tracks of his own. “Shotdown” is a solid, if unexceptional, Blues chugger. The band isn’t doing a whole lot. The song isn’t doing a whole lot. But the riff is practically flawless and the singer still howls with the best of them. “Rollin’ On” is slightly better. Between its title, its syncopated acoustic guitar, and the flavor of its vocals, the album’s closer is an older, wiser sequel to “Long Train Runnin’.”
“Long Train Runnin’,” it turned out, was not simply The Doobies’ first top ten hit. Nor was it simply a metaphor for their journey, or the title to their biography or an echo of the their syncopated guitars. That song, alongside “China Grove,” provided the basic chassis for hits from Boston, The Steve Miller Band, Kansas and, many years later, Blues Traveler, The Spin Doctors and Matchbox Twenty. The Arena Rock of the later 70s, the neo-Blues of the late 80s and the Adult Alternative jangle of the mid-90s owe as much to The Doobie Brothers as any other band.
And yet, “Brotherhood,” which was born from that same DNA, is basically a forgotten album -- a footnote in Yacht Rock history. Though it was arguably a better album than Clapton’s “Journeyman” and definitely a better record than Winwood’s “Roll With It,” it has been lost to time. It was considered such a failure, in fact, that it would be nine more years before the band released another album.
The last twenty years of the Doobie Brothers have been defined by a series of “greatest hits tours,” punctuated by Yacht Rock references, Michael McDonald jokes, anniversaries and awards. Keith Knudsen died in 2005. Michael Hossack died in 2012. And Skunk Baxter became a missile defense consultant for the government. Predictably, as the years went on, the band found themselves sharing stages and playing cruises with the likes of Chicago and Kenny Loggins. In 2020, however, subculture collided with monoculture — The Doobies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they announced a fiftieth anniversary tour, featuring both Tom Johnston and Michael McDonald. Due to the global pandemic, though, we had to wait for both. We were all forced to watch a virtual Hall of Fame induction ceremony on HBO Max and then sit at home, biding our time until conditions changed and Doobie Brothers’ tickets went on sale. Those two awful years, struggling, worrying and waiting together, might be as close as we ever get to the monoculture again.