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A new Doobie Brothers album might not be a surprise in itself, since core members Tom Johnston, John McFee and Patrick Simmons have been chugging along merrily this century, releasing four well-crafted albums. What is a surprise – and a very pleasant one – is the return of vocalist Michael McDonald, an intermittent guest of late but now a full participant for the first time since 1980’s fractious One Step Closer.
The format, though, echoes 2021’s Liberté, for which songwriters Johnston and Simmons collaborated individually with producer John Shanks before taking the finished product to the group. McDonald has submitted to the same regime. And while it sounds awkward, at their best the Doobies were a church sufficiently broad to accommodate disparate talents.
McDonald initially exited after his introduction in 1975 gave the band their most sustained burst of mainstream success, albeit at the cost of surrendering their rougher, rocky edge. These days there’s less tension, and the musical equivalent of separate beds brings its own rewards. Gritty and blues-tinged, Here To Stay, Angels And Mercy – with guitar playing reminiscent of Peter Green’s on Oh Well - and New Orleans are throwbacks to the pre-McDonald era, when the Doobies were the darlings of the North California biker bar scene more than half a century ago.
With McDonald the youngest Doobie at 73 there’s a sense of reflection too, especially on Lahaina, the closing comfort ballad titled after a town in Hawaii, which features Mick Fleetwood and Hawaiian ukulele wizard Jake Shimabukuru. The languid Speed Of Pain is a showcase for McDonald’s ruminating vocals and his stentorian piano, while Learn To Let Go could have graced Minute By Minute.
Elsewhere there’s a gospel undercurrent to both the title track, on which vocalist Mavis Staples guests, and the outstanding State Of Grace, in which the line ‘I’ve wasted all of my life living on memories’ might be tad melodramatic, but the song itself is desperately moving. Call Me is a reminder that Dave Matthews is not without influence, Here To Stay begins with a burst of a cappella vocals before it gallops like Steely Dan’s Reelin’ In The Years, and The Kind That Lasts brings tough, swampy funk.
None of this should really work in 2025, but the fact the Doobie Brothers don’t have to exist makes their actual existence all the more worthwhile, and Walk This Road is an album as full of joy as it is of craft. Sixteen albums in, they’re still not letting themselves down.
