In a Nashville rehearsal studio, the Doobie Brothers are getting ready for another summer tour, playing “Long Train Runnin’.” More than 50 years in, and 48 million albums sold, they still want to be sure they sound sharp, even on hits they’ve played thousands of times.
It was 1973, when co-founder Tom Johnston wrote down words for a riff they’d been jamming to for years in bars and clubs.
Down around the corner
Half a mile from here
See them long trains runnin’
And you watch ’em disappear
Without love
Where would you be now?
(Without lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ve)
How long did it take for him to come up with the words? “I would like to say it was a labor of love, but it wasn’t; it was about 20 minutes in the bathroom using the tile to sing with,” Johnston said.
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Which tells us something when it comes to the Doobie Brothers’ songwriting: As much as their hits are a triumph of technique and theory (as Michael McDonald shared with “Sunday Morning” a few years back, detailing the writing of “Takin’ It to the Streets”), sometimes, says Patrick Simmons (who wrote the band’s first #1 hit, “Black Water”), it’s a lot less complicated.
“Accidents happened,” Simmons laughed. “A lot of things kind of fall out of the sky and hit you on the head, you know?”
The Doobie Brothers sing “Long Train Runnin'”:
But you can’t argue with their methods. This week, Johnston, McDonald and Simmons will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
John McFee has been a member of the Doobies for the last 38 years. Asked about Johnston, McDonald and Simmons’ songwriting, McFee laughed, “There’s a reason for the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction. I’m a writer, and I’ve had songs nominated for Grammys. I’m a member of the band. I’m not included in the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction. That’s how good these guys are!”
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The Doobie members are joining such legendary songwriting teams as Lennon and McCartney, John and Taupin, and Holland-Dozier-Holland. “I think we all feel honored by it,” said Johnston. “When we started doing this many years ago, nobody was thinking about anything like that.”
Does recognition like this matter? “To be in the company of those people,” said McDonald, “is what matters. To think that you would ever, you know, be counted among them in any category is just too much to wish for.”
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is a long way from the house on 12th Street in San Jose, California, where Simmons and Johnston started the band. “When we started out doing this, we were just trying to pay rent and put gas in your Volkswagen and get around, you know?” said Johnston.
At biker bars like the Chateau Liberté, they honed their hard-driving Southern rock sound … a style that softened when Johnston left the band in the late ’70s, and McDonald joined, bringing with him a more mellow feel that propelled the band to their multi-platinum selling album “Minute By Minute” in 1978.
“What a Fool Believes,” from the Doobie Brothers’ album “Minute By Minute”:
If the changes in personnel, sound and style created strains and rifts among some of the Doobies as younger men, a historic 50th anniversary tour in 2021, when these four united to play together for the first time, seemed to melt them away. Simmons said, “Michael came to do a few shows with us, and stuck around!”
I asked, “Somebody told me … ‘They’re getting along as well as ever. They’re enjoying being together as much as they ever have.'”
“I think they said they were getting along in age or something!” Simmons laughed.
McFee said, “We all appreciate it more as time goes by, how lucky we are and all the good things that are a part of the band, you know?”
“And you suddenly realize, ‘I just gotta keep doing this as long as I can keep doing this,'” McDonald added.
Because it’s still the most joyful thing you can do? “Absolutely,” Johnston said.
“And it’s that hour or two hours that we get on stage where we actually feel like we’re in our 20s again,” McDonald said. “The rest of the day, we pretty much feel 75!”
That feeling sparked a new studio album, “Walk This Road,” and another Doobies milestone: Simmons, Johnston and McDonald all recording together in the studio for the first time ever.
McDonald said, “Originally it was kind of like, ‘Hey, you guys are doing this first album together in a long time. You’ve been together over the years, 50 years. And you’ve walked this road together, you know? Let’s write a song about that.'”
‘We’ve all made mistakes,” Simmons laughed. “We all have things that we wish we’d made some different choices at times. And the choices we made, and you look back on that, and you go, ‘Oh gosh, hopefully I learned something!'”
Redemption, unity, cohesion – not just good themes, but Hall-of-Fame-worthy ones, relevant for the Doobie Brothers, and for all of us.
McDonald said, “We all live on this one tiny, little blue ball. We’re all walking down the same road. Just by virtue of that, you know? And we’re gonna have to learn to get along with each other and listen to each other, you know?”
Simmons, 76 years young remarked, “This could be the start of something really great!”
Worth a chuckle perhaps – as the Doobie Brothers ponder more than 50 years together.
Asked how long this will go on, McDonald replied, “That’s anybody’s guess.”
“We’re a Seventies band in a whole different sense now!” laughed McFee.
WEB EXTRA: Extended interview – The Doobie Brothers (Video)
To hear the title track “Walk This Road” by the Doobie Brothers (featuring Mavis Staples), click on the video player below:
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Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
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