NEW YORK (AP) — Simply cue up the primary track from the brand new album by The Doobie Brothers and you will hear one thing uncommon: concord, in a brand new means.
It is not simply that soulful blast from Michael McDonald, marking his first time recording with the band in 45 years. Pay attention and you will additionally hear founding member Pat Simmons and unique vocalist Tom Johnston.
“Walk This Road” — with the always-welcome addition of Mavis Staples — is a horn-and-slide-guitar slice of bluesy, wailing rock that is additionally a celebration of a band that has endured modifications and re-formed with members now of their 70s.
“Somehow, here we are,” says McDonald. “We’ve been friends throughout the years. Our kids have all grown up together and our kids have kind of kept us in contact even at times when we might have dropped off the radar for each other.”
A number of Doobie exercise
The Doobie Brothers, who shaped in 1970 and initially broke up in 1982, have a packed 2025 deliberate: A European tour that results in a North American one, the robust new album and inclusion within the Songwriters Corridor of Fame.
“I don’t think any of us ever even really thought we’d still be on stage at this age doing this, much less together,” says McDonald. “That we’re still able to express ourselves artistically is something that’s not lost on us.”
The North American tour kicks off in Detroit on Aug. 4 and heads to such cities as New York, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Toronto. The opening act can be The Coral Reefer Band.
“Walk This Road” options 10 new songs sung by McDonald, Simmons and Johnston, who collaborated on writing the tracks and play on one another’s tunes. Longtime collaborator John McFee additionally returned for the mission.
The album, out June 6, has one thing for everybody — honky-tonk, driving nation, flirty Southern pop, moody folks and melodic rock. There are songs about New Orleans and Hawaii. Angels make the lyrics on two songs.
“One of the strengths of our live show was the fact that you couldn’t get bored with any one style of music because everything was kind of a different bag,” says McDonald, who formally reunited with the band on tour in 2019. “We like to do that. You know, I think this album is hopefully no different in that respect.”
John Shanks, who produced the band’s 2021 album “Liberté,” returned for “Walk This Road,” lending them his Los Angeles studio, with a writing room upstairs and a recording sales space downstairs the place every songwriter took turns chopping tracks.
“The band, I think, presents all of us with an opportunity to do things that we might not do just as individual songwriters,” says McDonald.
Contained in the album
Whereas the Doobies have by no means been an idea band, the album explores seizing the moments, displays on paths taken and coming to grips with the previous.
“This is a snapshot in time of where the band is and where the writers are,” says Johnston. “We didn’t consciously sit down and say, ‘Well, we’re going to try and do this.’”
One monitor, “Learn to Let Go,” is an unrequited love track that is about letting go of issues that maintain you again, whereas “Speed of Pain” is about how the worst issues in life can develop into one of the best.
“In many cases, it’s just a situation where you have to lose it all. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years who have told me that going to jail was the best thing that ever happened to them,” says McDonald. “I think total defeat in this world is the great teacher.”
The Doobie Brothers are already members of the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame — with tracks like “Takin’ It To the Streets,” “What a Fool Believes” and “Minute By Minute” — however shortly after the album comes out, they will be inducted into the Songwriters Corridor of Fame.
“I think it’s really great for this band,” says Johnston. “I think it’s great for us as individual writers, but I think it’s also great for the group, and it kind of carries on the name, if you will.”
McDonald and Johnston each expressed slightly shock that they are nonetheless making music with the oldsters they labored with of their 20s and are nonetheless a draw on the highway.
“It’s just fun to visit all these places musically. It’s fun to put that out in front of the crowd live. And to do an album now — I didn’t picture doing this, but I’m all for it,” Johnston says.
