The Doobie Brothers’ reunion with Michael McDonald opens tour with two Florida dates
Can’t say we didn’t see a Doobie Brothers-Michael McDonald reunion happening sooner or later. There have been teases.
Now, it’s official.
McDonald, the blue-eyed soul vocalist who gave the band some of its biggest hits in the Grammy-winning “What a Fool Believes,” along with “Takin’ It to the Streets” and “Real Love,” is back on vocals and keyboards for his first tour with the band in nearly a quarter century.
The reunion 50th Anniversary Tour opens June 9, 2020, at Coral Sky Amphitheatre near West Palm Beach, and is followed by a second Florida date, June 10, at Tampa’s MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre. The 30-date tour closes Oct. 10 in Houston.
“We’re truly excited about our 50th Anniversary Tour, as it’s a celebration of the band’s entire history. We’ll be performing songs from our full catalog, as well as new music,” singer-guitarist Tom Johnston, 71, said in a statement.
In addition to Johnston, McDonald, 67, joins fellow Doobies Patrick Simmons, 71, a co-founder and singer-guitarist, and guitarist, fiddle player John McFee, 69.
McFee’s the one who will bring that sweet ol’ fiddle sound to the group’s pre-McDonald-era classic, “Black Water.”
The Doobie’s 50th Anniversary Tour dates to the group’s 1970 founding in San Jose as a dual lead guitar, three-part harmony rock band that quickly became favorites with the Hells Angels motorcycle club.
That’s the incarnation that gave us favorites like “Long Train Running,” “China Grove” and “Listen to the Music.”
When McDonald left his supporting role in Steely Dan’s touring band to join the Doobie Brothers in 1976 for the “Takin’ It to the Streets” album and its single, “It Keeps You Running,” his sophisticated keyboard-driven pop/R&B style marked a seismic shift in the band’s sound that split the camps.
Johnston left for awhile, starting with the 1977 LP, “Livin’ on the Fault Line” until “Cycles” in 1989.
You couldn’t avoid McDonald’s sound, which not only gave the Doobie Brothers its most commercially successful studio album — “Minute by Minute” in 1978 — but was all over the radio in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s on recordings by Christopher Cross, Nicolette Larson, Toto and Carly Simon (with whom he cowrote the Top 10 hit, “You Belong to Me.”)
McDonald has popped up on the Doobies’ stage for various concerts over the years and on the group’s “World Gone Wrong” and “Southbound” albums in 2010 and 2014, respectively.
But this tour is McDonald’s most serious commitment to the Doobies since he left for a solo career after the group temporarily disbanded in 1982.
He still identifies as one of the Brothers, though.
“With the Doobies, everybody in the band was proud to be a Doobie Brother. And to this day, I think of myself as a Doobie Brother — all these years later,” McDonald said on NPR’s “Ask Me Another” on Oct. 25.
Tickets for the 50th Anniversary reunion tour go on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 6 through Live Nation.
This story was originally published November 19, 2019 at 1:13 PM.
