You know how long I have had my next pick on my lists? Since the moment CCR was taken, which happened way back in Rnd 3. My immediate response was, well maybe I can pick these other guys up in a few rounds. Well a few rounds became a few more rounds, then a few more. They were one of the 5 bands I was considering when I took BTO at 21 (along with BTO, The Byrds, Steve Miller Band and 1 group yet to be taken), but still I went another way. And now finally they get the call:
The Doobie Brothers
And so now maybe I get to be the first drafter to draft only half of a band's catalog. The reason? I love what these guys were in the first half of the 70s. They started out as biker rock, became a complex roots rock crew infusing funk bass lines along with harmonicas, banjos, in some lineups trotting out three guitarists or two drum kits. Lots of guys on stage making some great clasic rock music. And then disaster struck in a development that I just HATED and has kept me from taking them for 25 rounds now. After years as one of the biggest rock bands around lead singer/songwriter Tom Johnston succumbed to exhaustion and ulcers and had to leave the band, and the remaining Doobies were betrayed from within in a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions.
They imported a keyboardist that one of the guys knew, and the keyboardist then proceeded to usurp the entire band, singlehandledly wiping out its entire sound and turning the whole thing into a pathetic adult contemprary wannabe motown disco outfit. Just night and day so that you would never even know it was the same band. And that led not only to the tragic decline and eventual dissolution of the Doobies, but also to my losing respect for basically all of them except Johnston. What kind of spineless glorified session players do you have to be to be a top classic rock group, and then have some wannabe Lionel Richie blue eyed soul crooner walk in from the outside and say, ok now we are are going to change absolutely everything? And you do it?? If they had had one ounce of musical integrity somebody would have walked up behind McDonald the first show he started crooning and brained him with a guitar. And the resulting incarcerations would still have killed the Doobies, but at least I could have respected the way it happened.
Anyway, years after they disbanded Johnston got them back together and they turned out some decent, if derivative, songs in their late career. But this pick is mostly about 71-75 for me, continuing my bit by bit classic rock recovery. I'll take everything Johnston was involved in. And as for all the smooth crooning crap of the Mike McDonald years from the late 70s to early 80s? That I pass onto webbfan, or possibly to dukeswh to help him continue his evolution from metalhead to Manilow.
GREAT live band too:
