This one popped up in my feeds over the weekend. The first video seems to be in promotion of a new (in 2021) recording from the Doobies (minus Michael McDonald) called “Liberté.” The second longer, more recent video seems to be connected to the induction of several members of the band into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Relatively early in the band’s history one of the founding members, Tom Johnston, had to take a step away from the band for over a year to recover from an ulcer, at which time Michael McDonald stepped in. When the vibe and sound of the band changed Johnston quit. Now all these decades later Johnston and the other bandmates are thankful to be making music together and don’t know or actually can’t remember what the big deal was back in the 70s. They’re more anxious about remembering the chords and lyrics, joking to be happy to be rocking in their 70s. 

The second video is a bit long, but I’m intrigued by their different song writing processes, most of them beginning with a guitar or piano lick and then doing the lyrics later. I imagine the process has to change some what over the decades… I don’t know. I stopped trying to pull music and lyrics together decades ago, but still have many pages of lyric ideas, wondering if they’ll ever see the light of day. Something to think about while I listen to these hall of fame songwriters.

One thing, after hearing all these stories and watching the clips of songs, I wanted to listen to a concert of their tunes. Enjoy. JBB 

Sources:

Tags: 1970s Rock, live music, songwriting, The Doobie Brothers, video Mondays

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