Credit Where Credit's Overdue Dept. - Michael McDonald

Carly relaxes poolside, yestiddy. "My biggest regret?" she sighs, "Not being Farquhar Throckmorton III's love slave."

Confused? Why is Carly Simon [for it is she - Ed.] heading up what is basically a Doobies piece? Apart from acting as clickbait? You'll have to read the screed to find out, and as you probably bailed right into the comments after leering at the pitcher you'll never know, and it's your loss, ya bum!

Come back with me now - back - back! - as we take a musical journey to those wonderful, whacked-out mid 'seventies! (FX HARP GLISSANDO, CALENDAR PAGES FLYING OFF IN REVERSE, MONTAGE OF CHARLES MANSON, NAKED HIPPIES, BRA-BURNING ETC. TO CHEESY GO-GO MUSIC SOUNDTRACK) The Dubes had peaked the previous year with the chart-topping What Were Once Vices but found themselves sadly bereft of inspiration for the follow-up Stampede. It's nowhere near shit, but the rockin' good-timey formula is getting old, and the epic I Cheat The Hangman sounds nothing like the Doobies, suggesting they were as tired of getting us to clap our hands above our heads as we were. Tom Johnston's health problems (people had problems back then, before they upgraded to issues) meant him stepping back for a while, and McDonald got the call to fill in on vox and keys. McDonald had been singing backup with Steely Dan, "because I could sing like a girl". Previous to that, living in somebody's garage with a yard sale keyboard and no money.

Put A Pin In This: why did Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, two of the most successful bands in the sentient humanoid world, hire him? On account which they wus dumbasses? Or he was?

1976 was the keynote year, and here's where Hall O' Foamer® Ted Templeman steps into the spotlight. He produced Carly Simon's Another Passenger album, which we should talk about, so here it is [below, left - Ed.].

Critically regarded as her "best" album (critics are harsh on Simon; being rich, talented, beautiful, sexy, and smart makes her an easy target for reviewers who are none of the above), Templeman's production pulls in the Doobie Brothers and Little Feat and Van Dyke Parks and Dr. John and Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne and James Taylor and a bunch of the most expensive musicians in L.A. [Los Angeles, a suburb of America - Ed.]. You might of thunk the result would be a bloated mess, and you'd of bin way wrong. Templeman's as skilled with people as he is with studio facilities (a rarity in record producers), and the album sounds at once organic and a little bit lush, which is Carly all over, you ax me. McDonald contributes a song, sings backup, plays keys. I'm betting that, even as a Doobie and/or Feat fan, you probably don't have this. Because *shrug* Carly, right?

Put A Pin In This: why did Ted Templeman and Carly Simon, two of the most successfulest people in the sentient humanoid music business, hire him? On account which they wus dumbasses? Or he was?

Which brings us to the watershed bellwether Doobie album, Takin' It To The Streets [left, Ed.]. Embraced by everybody, especially their accountants, it finessed a radical musical shift without alienating the True Doobie fan. Somehow they sloughed off the headbanging boogie and emerged as a non-elitist, non-ironic Steely Dan (Jeff Baxter migrated with McDonald). One of the album's biggest supporters was Lowell George, who admired the band's brave change of direction. With Johnston largely absent, McDonald was at the heart of the new sound. Suddenly the Doobies were all over the radio with the hit single title track, a song perfect for the times, and McDonald, his immediately identifiable vox and Brill Building pop smarts already fully-formed, was yet to become snot-rocketed by the True Fan.

We took it for granted back then, but the level of musicality is astonishing. Virtuosic, life-affirming, joyous. A seamless mix of blues, back porch picking, jazz, soul, pop, funk, and rock, this is Americana. Today the term means miserablist lo-fi meditations on isolation, grief and loss with a legacy guitar and Mennonite fiddle. Uh, okay. Fuck today. All the best stuff is yesterday. If I have this wrong, and you can point me to a contemporary album (and band) the equal to this, please do.

Put A Pin In This: why did the great unwashed American music lover pull this out of the racks in Platinum quantities? On account which they wus dumbasses? Or he was?

The following year's Livin' On The Fault Line [left - Ed.] was a more confident expression of the Doobie Dan, with achingly gorgeous jazz changes, chilled funk, and slippery soloing. McDonald and a re-invigorated Patrick Simmons more than make up for Johnston's absence, but the hit single, incredibly, eluded them. You Belong To Me was a hit for co-writer Carly in '78, the same year as -

Minute By Minute (Doobie albums appearing year by year) had the Magnum force singles, and the album sales that hemorrhaged from them, but Simmons' contributions tend to the generic, and McDonald is clearly the front man (front n' center on the album sleeve, too). The True Doobie fan was now in open revolt. This wasn't his Doobie Brothers, goddamn it! His air guitar skills weren't called upon, and he felt his bros had forgotten him, and it was all this McDonald guy's fault and BEW FUKEN' HEW DEWD!

Minute By Minute is the most popular album the band ever recorded, which is of course unforgivable, and something must be wrong with it, or at least with the millions of jus' plain folks out there who don't give even a picture of a shit for what critics say, or fans either. But everyone seemed to agree they'd peaked with this one, and the bland followup One Step Closer was two steps back two years too late, with Hartman and Baxter gone, and just the shadow of Patrick Simmons. It's not the stinking wreckage the fans and the critics say - nothing ever is - but yup - nope. We had to wait ten years for the band to reassemble with something like the original spark. Even if it was only something like.

Put A Pin In This: Some people nurture an irrational dislike for Michael McDonald. Some people are weird.