"Long Train Runnin': Our Story of The Doobie Brothers" isn't loaded with the tales of debauchery you'd get from books about, say, the Stones, Led Zeppelin or Mötley Crüe.
More than most bands, the Doobies, as depicted by frontmen Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, were all just down-to-earth dudes who wrote a bunch of beloved boogie-rock songs and went about their business without an excess of drama.
A director looking to thrust people into the action with a dramatic first scene might go to chapter 18, where the Doobie Brothers were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the Stampede tour in April 1975. Just before showtime, Johnston, the guitarist and singer on most of the band's hits, was rushed back to Los Angeles on the Doobies' plane with a bleeding ulcer.
While bassist Tiran Porter was walking out to inform the crowd that they wouldn't be playing, Simmons was having a change of heart and ran out and stopped him. "Look," he told the crowd, "Tommy isn't here tonight, and we are not sure what to do. We want to play for you, but only if you want us."
Of course, the show went on, and it went extremely well, by Simmons' account, demonstrating that the well-traveled Doobies, who cut their teeth playing biker bars in the Bay Area, were more about the music than the celebrity, more about the collective than the individual.
Baton Rouge became a key turning point in Doobies history, as guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter suggested they call his former Steely Dan buddy Michael McDonald to cover vocals on that tour. He would go on to replace Johnston, taking the Doobies in a new direction and to greater commercial success.
The current tour, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the band, reunites McDonald with Johnston and Simmons, who reignited the Doobies in 1987, after the 1982 breakup, and have kept it going ever since. McDonald's first trip with them was scheduled for 2020, then bumped to 2021 because of the pandemic and then, for Pittsburgh, bumped another year (to July 9), after McDonald got COVID in September.
With all three singer-songwriters on board, the Doobies are able to unlock the whole catalog, from early hits such as "Listen to the Music," "Long Train Runnin'" and "China Grove" to the McDonald years, when they hit the charts in the more contemporary R&B vein of "What a Fool Believes" and "Minute by Minute."
One of the head-scratchers in the autobiography, and in the Doobies timeline, is why Johnston no longer felt like he belonged in the band he co-founded when he was fit to return around 1976.
"To be honest with you," Simmons said in a phone interview last week, "I think there are some unsaid things in the book. I think Tom saw an opportunity to do a solo project and he felt that it was a good jumping off point for him, to go do his own thing without the guilt of having to abandon everyone. That's my interpretation, and I don't blame him for that. I think it was something that had been in the back of his mind that he wanted to do a solo project, and I think he felt he was shouldering too much weight to do both things at the same time."
Johnston had some modest success with the two solo albums, while the Doobies rocketed to the top of the charts and won three Grammys between the "Minute by Minute" album and single "What a Fool Believes." The band's more polished R&B sound in the late '70s, which has gotten them onto Yacht Rock playlists, won them a whole new audience while perhaps alienating some of the hardcore fans of their more classic rock sound.
One would think they would lose the biker crowd for sure. But, no, Simmons said.
"The Harley crowd liked [McDonald] so much that they got him to buy a motorcycle! He went out and bought a Harley. We just talked about it the other day. He loves riding. Living in LA, it's not as friendly to bikes down there, although he did ride. He had a Harley for quite a while.
"I don't think there is any big deal about Mike. We weren't the darlings of the motorcycle crowd. We were just another band that showed up to play at events. Early on, when we had the band, we used to play the roadhouses where the bikers showed up. That was a different era. But later on, it was just another bunch of guys showing up to entertain. They were just as happy to see Mike as anybody."
One of the things breezed over pretty quickly in the book is the breakup in 1982, one album after topping the charts and winning the Grammys. That same year, McDonald went Top 10 with his first solo album, "If That's What It Takes."
"I think Mike had it in his mind that he wanted to pursue a solo career," Simmons said. "I didn't feel like he could do that and shoulder that pressure of working with the band. But, really, at the point that he did that, we had all kind of reconciled ourselves to the fact that we needed a break. I know, speaking for myself, at that point, I pretty much had called everybody and told them I needed to take a break from this thing to do something else. I was kind of tired of touring and so on.
"And so that's kind of where things changed, and Mike had a successful solo career, so even when the band got back and reformed, he was pretty busy fulfilling commitments that he already made, making a good living. And I think there's something to be said with, you know, being the driver in that regard. I think he enjoyed — still enjoys — being in charge of his career and what he's doing."
One of the concepts hammered home in "Long Train Runnin'" is the impact of Ted Templeman, the Warner Bros. A&R man who signed them and produced their first nine albums (before turning his attention to Van Halen in the '80s). In the studio, Templeman acted as an additional member of the Doobies in the creation of the songs, and they fully embraced his input.
"Ted was a brilliant producer," Simmons said. "He still could be doing it if he wanted to. He's pretty much retired now but, yeah, he has such a deep knowledge of music and production techniques, which he really studied, at some point realizing that that was something he wanted to do. He started checking out other great producers, George Martin being one of the big influences on him.
"He had such a broad background of musical taste — everything from great R&B to jazz to more modern music at that time, like the Beatles and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young. He knew a lot about obscure musical talents and genres that we were able to incorporate. I could mention to him, say, Gabor Szabo, and he'd go, 'Yeah, why don't you do something like he played on this or that album' and the next day he would come in with the record. Really smart way of doing things. It allows you to get really far into the recording process without going around in circles. It made making records an adventure and, at the same time, we were getting things done."
A notable part in the book is the little back and forth between Johnston, Simmons and Porter about who came up with the idea of singing "Whoa-oh-oh, listen to the music" on "Listen to the Music," their first hit, in 1972. Porter tries to claim the line, while Johnston (the songwriter) and Simmons disagree.
"I think Tommy did, but there's no way of knowing," Simmons said in the interview. "It was over 50 years ago. That's one of those crazy things. I know for a fact there are certain things that each of us as writers probably didn't come up with. Other people said, 'Hey, why don't you try this?' and then you do it and then you forget where the idea came from.
"So, in that regard, I would say everybody in the band probably helped each of us write songs one way or another. And, certainly, Ted Templeman deserves writer's credit on a lot of songs that he never got credit for, because he oftentime came up with the melodies and the way to present something."
Templeman was not on board, and neither was McDonald, for the band's 2021 album, "Liberte," which was produced and co-written with John Shanks (Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Miley Cyrus). They touch upon three songs from the album on the current tour.
What happens next with the Doobies remains to be seen.
"I don't know where this will end up, with this contingent of the band the way it is now," Simmons said. "I know Mike is really enjoying it. In some respects, there's something to be said for having a bunch of guys that you enjoy playing with and are bearing some of the burden, as it were, when you're up there entertaining — having other people singing songs and talking to the audience. You don't have to do it all yourself.
"I know he's enjoying that part. And you know we've always had a great friendship, especially Mike and I. We stayed in touch over the years so this is a real reunion in terms of having an opportunity to play together again and have some fun. And that's really what it's all about — having fun."
