The Doobie Brothers - Best of The Doobies poll

I'm not going to argue that "Black Water" is good, but I might just vote for it anyway because it's the one that comes to mind most quickly for me.

monster

listened to this album today and am still leaning "Takin' it to the Streets." so many of the earlier songs have great riffs/hooks and a great live rock sound, but kinda ride one idea a little too much for me to get invested. i bet they'd be great to see live, with some beers, just feeling the sound and the groove... like a lighter-on-their-feet Grand Funk Railroad experience.

Watch out for the farty bass on “takin it”- once you hear it you can’t undo

"It Keeps You Running" is kind of an amazing choice for a single and for a "Best of" album - something about its unhurried presentation really screams "album track." But it's such a great statement of McDonald's sensibility and how quickly Templeman locked in with it - so much space and echo, just clearing out room for the keyboard chords and a slow-burn, bob-along experience. I always kind of forget about it and then when it comes on I'm like oh hell yeah.

found it and you can see why i got a bit mixed up and misremembered. From Wikipedia:

In 1974, Steely Dan co-lead guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter learned that his band was retiring from the road and that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker intended to work almost exclusively with session players in the future. In need of a steady gig, he joined the Doobie Brothers as third lead guitarist in the middle of their current tour. He had previously worked with the band in the studio, adding pedal steel guitar to both Captain ("South City Midnight Lady") and Vices ("Black Water", "Tell Me What You Want") and was already playing with the band as a special guest during that year's tour.

By the start of the Spring 1975 promotional tour for Stampede, Johnston's condition was so precarious that he required emergency hospitalization for a bleeding ulcer. With Johnston convalescing and the tour already underway, Baxter proposed recruiting a fellow Steely Dan alum to fill the hole: singer, songwriter and keyboardist Michael McDonald. Simmons, Knudsen, Porter and McDonald divvied up and sang Johnston's parts on tour while Simmons and Baxter shared lead guitar chores.

Mr. Baxter received his nickname due to urinating on a friend's doorstep. Decades in the war business have not erased it!

predictably, both the nearly-goofy groove and the big vocal moments of "It Keeps You Running" have been stuck in my head all fucking day. at lunch i was in the kitchen making a peanut butter sandwich and going "FOR THE RHEST OF YOAAR LAAAAAHF" and probably driving my partner crazy.

hmm "goofy" maybe not quite the right word. just if i booted up an RPG and that was the theme music for the one town that has kind of a quirky weird gimmick, like a magic spell turned everybody into mushroom robots, i would buy it.

These guys just sound like the '70s. "Listen to the Music." I mean really.

― Josefa,

yet few people say OH THIS SOUNDS DATED MAAAHHN b/c no synths

The Doobies are what the Eagles could've been if a) they were capable of ever having fun and b) owned some Dr. John records.

LOL

I'm not really a fan, but this LP (along with volume two) do a pretty fine job. Put both volumes on one disc and it's kind of a perfect Doobies compilation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSEcWbQqHAc

few people say OH THIS SOUNDS DATED MAAAHHN

I don't think this is a very uncommon thing for people to say about the Doobie Brothers?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

We'll discuss it further!

I only wish there was a track called "Which Doobie Do You Be" that we could vote on.

― henry s

When this episode aired my answer was definitely Black Water, so I gotta be true to my adolescent self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09mU7uSdfA

I mean, Doobs are about as 70s as it gets

can you imagine doobie in your funk?

'Another Park, Another Sunday.' Where is it? Why is it not on this record? Who did this? I want to speak to their parents. Well, 'China Grove' then. But why?

In the end decided to vote for "Listen To The Music."

didn't realize they were like the hells angels house band for a while. interesting history - kinda confused why i never knew much about them whereas ccr has a lot more visibility. they kind of have a knuckledragger thing going on maybe, their songs are workmanlike. they were given the gift of discovering the best riff of all time with "long train runnin" though...

there's a surprisingly good house version of it that comes up as the first result on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tJSn0QtME

And lest we forget that one time Bananarama went all Gipsy Kings meets Doobie Brothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVPqlVOeh8s

lol wow, i had no idea that existed and now i'm considerably richer

To me the Doobies are the McD years. I never need to hear 'Long Train' or 'China Grove' or 'Black Water' again. Those songs are fine blueprints and examples of 70s rock but have none of the emotion that McD brought to the group.

I have distinct memories of my father complaining numerous times about Johnson being replaced by McDonald.
"They don't sound like rock and roll any more."

Your dad otm.

Also if I'm not mistaken he liked C,S,N,Y but not C,S,N

i stand w pj’s dad

sounds like a good dude, where did he stand on Pink Floyd?

THIS IS IMPORTANT

lol Veg

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Listen to the f’in music? Srsly?

that's wild wow

it is their best song

now its proven, no need to fight me

eat shit michael mcdonald
jk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRdLWbOAUEY

On the other hand, The 45 Greatest Doobie Brothers Songs of All Time

voted for black water just to be difficult; the objective correct answer is china grove

china grove is cool

black water is the devil

keep on shinin' your light

“Like a lazy flowin’ river” ...zzzzzzzz

Pretty Mama Take Me By The Hand

hai remember their last top ten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8uCryLHnt4

interesting results and a fun poll. i didn't know about a Vol 2, until this thread, so maybe need to do that one in the near future.

I voted China Grove, but in hindsight I feel like the most iconic Doobie hit of the 70s won. I’m at peace with the results.

Listen to the Music would have been my second choice before Long Train Runnin. When I was little I just thought "Doobie" referred to like just a funky music word, like Oooby Dooby Shooby.

When I die, bury me with my dad's copy
of The Captain and Me --
Then watch the skunk weed grow
from the seeds stuck inside the sleeve

very dissatisfied with these results, brb, gonna take it to the streets

it was nice of them to put all the songs people like on side 1

It keeps you runnin' (to the turntable to put the needle at the start of side 1 again)

This album and Best of BTO (so far) were both released in 1976. We should make them battle.

I was just planning to create a Best of BTO poll! I have the CD here to remind me!

I've been thinking about the poll today. Another Park, Another Sunday may be my fave. And I still remember being impressed seeing them live with two drummers. Maybe they were the gateway drug that led me to then go on to listen to the Allman Brothers Band ever since.

It's hard to say if I prefer the Doobie Brothers or Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I do prefer San Jose to Canada, though.

rong

yeah san jose doesnt have much to recommend it

San Jose is good for at least weather, jobs, and Streetlight Records...

I don't think city vs country is a reasonable comparison.

True, B.T.O. only really represent Winnipeg.

Ok, that's fair. If the Bachmans and Burton Cummings are all from Winnipeg, then maybe Winnipeg > San Jose. Well, except for weather.

listening to this again the other night, i was struck for the first time at just HOW lugubrious and aimless the slow blues-rock section of "Jesus is Just Alright" really is. like if i just think of the song, it's the peppy opening section, which is repetitious as hell but at least energetic. then the bottom dropped out and i found myself listening to the absolute dead end of a genre, and possibly the dreariest thing to ever get regular classic rock radio airplay, for what seemed like hours. it was an indescribable relief when the clean, bright, chords of "It Keeps You Running" came parping in afterwards.

had a similar but far less intense reaction to the infamous "Black Water" coda, which has always kind of sailed by me harmlessly. headphone listening really heightens the cheesiness of the effort and especially the dopeyness of the fade out/fade back in of the band.

Take me by the hand (hand)

Probably voted "It Keeps You Runnin" but add me to the pro-"Black Water" contingent

I was in high school marching band and China Grove was a song we’d get out for pep rallies. This was 1987 or 88 and I felt very not cool in the moment. Now I can really appreciate the memory.

Black Water is good

The end of it ain’t

should i poll part 2?