The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
The Doobie Brothers Blossom-bound with Steely Dan
Tour with Steely Dan takes another rock staple way back in time
Doobie Brothers singer-guitarist Tom Johnston said early in the group’s career it toured with Steely Dan. However, the two acts haven’t shared a stage since the mid-1970s. ¶ That all changed last year with a few one-off gigs on the coasts and in the United Kingdom. The positive response led to the two platinum acts, armed with dozens of classicrock favorites between them, joining forces for a co-headlining tour this summer. It includes a show June 23 at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls.
“Having already played with them and gotten a good response in both the U.K. and stateside, it seemed like a natural thing to do,” said Johnston, calling from Austin, Texas. “The cool thing about it is you’ve got a real wide spectrum of music here.
“Steely Dan put on an incredible show — it’s just topnotch and it’s pretty far away from what we do musically. That’s one of the things that makes it interesting is that doesn’t bump up against each other. One band’s music complements the other, but they are different.”
Exactly 45 years have passed since the Doobie Brother’s released what most fans call the act’s definitive album, “The Captain and Me,” which included massive hits “Long Train Runnin’” and “China Grove.”
Even though on this tour the Doobie Brothers are playing nearly half the album, including deep cuts “Dark Eyed Cajun Woman” and “South City Midnight Lady,” the move wasn’t intentional to mark the anniversary.
“When the band got to ‘The Captain and Me,’ we took it up a couple of notches,” Johnston said. “We had studio players come in and play on various things. We really did start to grow. Looking at our setlist now, we do have a lot of stuff from that album. It wasn’t intended — that’s just the way it ended up.”
There’s a reason why the Doobie Brothers are a classic-rock staple: Over the past five decades, the fourtime Grammy Award-winning band sold more than 48 million albums and scored 16 top-40 hits.
The list includes No. 1 singles “Black Water” and “What a Fool Believes,” as well as popular tunes “Listen to the Music,” “China Grove,” “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” “Long Train Runnin’,” “Takin’ It to the Streets,” “Minute by Minute” and “The Doctor.”
If The Doobie Brothers have anything left to achieve, it’s perhaps induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. For the past two decades, the odds appeared to be against the band’s inclusion in the pantheon of greats located on the Lake Erie shore.
However, over the past few years peer groups such as Journey and The Steve Miller Band have been inducted.
No offense to those acts, but if you’re going to give them the honor, then the Doobie Brothers probably deserve a hard consideration. When noting the group’s chances going forward, Johnston exudes the calmness of a patient man who knows “The Long Train Runnin’” will soon pull into the station.
“Nothing is cast in stone, but I’ve been led to believe that’s going to happen in the not-so-distant future,” Johnston said. “There have been whisperings in my ear, little stuff I hear on the grapevine. We’re kind of wondering why we haven’t been inducted before now, if you want to know the truth, but I think it’s going to happen.”