![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-Doobie-Brothers-1980-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Far Out \/ Warner Brothers)<\/p>\n
Mon 24 November 2025 0:00, UK <\/p>\n
While perhaps enjoying less presence in the rock and pop memory of today, San Jose\u2019s boogie outfit, The Doobie Brothers<\/a>, for a moment looked set to join the ranks of Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Band, or even the Eagles in their early country and folk rock stomp during the first half of the 1970s.<\/p>\n Much of their former rootsiness was owed to founding frontman and principal songwriter Tom Johnston. Beginning a series of on-off appearances with The Doobie Brothers, Johnston\u2019s membership in the band would waver precariously following 1975\u2019s Stampede, recurring health issues forcing Johnston away from live shows and full commitment to studio sessions.<\/p>\n In need of a replacement, the band looked to Steely Dan\u2019s regular backing vocalist, Michael McDonald<\/a>, to prop up the struggling band and chart a new creative course.<\/p>\n With McDonald\u2019s entry into The Doobie Brothers\u2019 fold came a distinctly new sound. A blue-eyed soul boy at heart, his LP debut on 1976\u2019s Takin\u2019 It to the Streets immersed in a smoother pool of soft rock sunshine, caramel vocal harmonies, and glittering brass blasts. For better or worse, the yacht genre was forged there and then, coasting the rejuvenated Doobies toward their second pop resurrection.<\/p>\n 1978\u2019s Minute by Minute would yield the most success they\u2019d enjoyed in years, topping the Billboard 200 largely off the back of its lead single. Equally topping the US singles charts, the canonical \u2018What a Fool Believes\u2019 would sail straight to the affections of their new fanbase, if alienating the old \u2018biker rockers\u2019, delivering a relaxed languor of loose Oberheim synth ripples and stirring strings providing the perfect score to relax by the pool, sipping a Blue Hawaii or Pi\u00f1a colada for good measure.<\/p>\n Such a seemingly effortless soft rock jam was anything but chill when cutting in Hollywood\u2019s Warner Bros Recording Studios, however. Having worked out \u2018What a Fool Believes\u2019 basic hook with co-writer Kenny Loggins, who would release his own version five months before, the sessions would prove a nightmare; the Doobie team never quite nailing a version they were happy with.<\/p>\n Desperate times call for desperate measures. In a moment of creative exasperation, and just after he had joined Keith Knudsen on drums to shake the sessions up, producer Ted Templeman strode into the control room and began cutting the boxes of tapes stacked as high as the ceiling to assemble their individual tracks, a risky move back in the pre-digital days.<\/p>\n They needn\u2019t have worried. Finishing the single with McDonald\u2019s final arrangements, the \u2018What a Fool Believes\u2019 experience was so stressful that Templeman still wasn\u2019t entirely convinced of the smash he held in his hands. \u201cI went over to Warner Bros and into a meeting with all these hitmakers and old pros,\u201d he recalled to The Guardian in 2022. \u201c\u2019This thing is a piece of crap,\u2019 I said, \u2018but I\u2019ll play it for you anyway\u2019\u201d. I was just about ready to throw it away. And they said: \u2018Are you crazy? That\u2019s great!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Doobie Brothers had won a global chart topper and an even greater degree of fame all off the back of \u2018What a Fool Believes\u2019, standing as a live staple from then on and enduring as one of the key numbers of the LA songbook. Through it all, Templeman was never quite able to believe it: \u201cEven when we went to collect the Grammy<\/a> for \u2018Song of the Year\u2019 in 1980, I was thinking: \u2018How did this happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Warner Brothers) Mon 24 November 2025 0:00, UK While perhaps enjoying less presence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,98275,216,141418],"class_list":{"0":"post-310032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-michael-mcdonald","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-doobie-brothers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}