When contemplating recording a new album, the question most classic rock bands still active in 2025 have to ask themselves is: why? It can\u2019t be for the money, since streaming has removed any financial incentive for making new music, and realistically, most fans who attend their concerts come to hear the old, familiar hits, not the new stuff. For an act like the Doobie Brothers, a new album in 2025 has to have a larger purpose driving it\u2014something like artistic fulfillment, or maybe even novelty.<\/p>\n
Both of these considerations feel relevant to Walk This Road<\/i>, the 16th studio album from the Doobies, and only the fifth the band has issued in the last 34 years. Novelty, because while Patrick Simmons, Tom Johnston and Michael McDonald all made their marks as singer-songwriters within the framework of the Doobies\u2019 long history, they have rarely done so in unison. McDonald joined the band more or less as Johnston\u2019s replacement when the latter\u2019s health issues forced him to step back from the band in the mid \u201970s. While Takin\u2019 It To The Streets<\/i> (1976) and Livin\u2019 On The Fault Line<\/i> (1977) both feature all three men, they are essentially McDonald\/Simmons albums, featuring only one Johnston song between them.<\/p>\n
After Johnston\u2019s 1977 departure, the McDonald-led band would go on to dominate both the charts and the Grammys with the soul-inflected What A Fool Believes<\/i> (1978), follow it with One Step Closer<\/i> (1980), and then break up, making way for the 1989 return of the Johnston-led unit, without McDonald. Almost fifty years after they first played together, the three singer-songwriters, along with longtime Doobies guitarist John McFee, have reunited for what is effectively their first real collaboration on an album of entirely new material.<\/p>\n
Even then, it\u2019s a bit of a patchwork, a series of songs where the writer takes the lead vocal and the others stay mostly in the background or are absent entirely, with the title track\u2014a McDonald tune where the three trade and share lead vocals\u2014the lone exception. The rest of the album is an even split of three songs apiece for the three writers, with producer \/ guitarist John Shanks (Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Van Halen, Bon Jovi) also taking a co-writing credit on every track, as he did on 2021\u2019s Libert<\/i>\u00e9<\/i>. Shanks\u2019 role helps give the diverse proceedings a certain consistency of sound and feel, though the contemporary sheen he favors isn\u2019t particularly complementary to the Doobies\u2019 typically more rootsy and organic sound.<\/p>\n
The leadoff title track is a clear highlight, embracing a steady-on, gospel-flavored rhythm and blues feel that fits McDonald like a glove and works almost as well when Johnston takes the mic. Already riding a wave of good feeling, the track achieves liftoff once the guesting Mavis Staples enters to deliver a powerful third verse and engage in a spirited call and answer with the other three vocalists while McFee\u2019s slide and a tasty horn section keep the music pumping.<\/p>\n
Simmons follows with the driving guitar-and-violin workout \u201cAngels & Mercy,\u201d and then it\u2019s Johnston\u2019s turn with the soulful, horn-accented friendship anthem \u201cCall Me.\u201d Up fourth, \u201cLearn To Let Go\u201d is classic McDonald, a smoldering blue-eyed funk message song with Johnston on harmony vocals, and then they circle back to Simmons for \u201cState Of Grace,\u201d an acoustic-based mid-tempo slice of self-reflection.<\/p>\n
Second-half opener \u201cHere To Stay\u201d is a firm Johnston anthem to rock and roll itself, a touch light on substance, but muscular and affectionate. The funky, steamy \u201cThe Kind That Lasts\u201d is a McDonald tune in the truest sense; he\u2019s the only Doobie to appear on it at all, supported by Shanks on guitar, Victor Indrizzo on drums, and session bassist extraordinaire Pino Palladino. Up next, Johnston\u2019s \u201cNew Orleans\u201d feels like classic Doobies, mixing cajun-flavored r&b with electric rock and roll.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeed Of Pain\u201d is the one place on the album where Shanks\u2019 role grows intrusive, as his electric guitars prove to be both unnecessary and a distraction from McDonald\u2019s thoughtful lyric. Album-closer \u201cLahaina\u201d is an affectionate tribute to the fire-ravaged town, featuring contributions from Mick Fleetwood, Jake Shimabukuro and Henry Kapono. Interestingly, the title track and \u201cLahaina\u201d are the only two tracks on this album where all four current Doobies appear; in fact, McFee plays on only four tracks.<\/p>\n
Those anomalies aside, Walk This Road<\/i> is an enjoyable, if not exactly fiery, late-career album from one of America\u2019s more durable and accomplished bands. You may ask if, in 2025, a new Doobie Brothers record is truly necessary, and one could argue either side of that question\u2014but there\u2019s no question at all that it\u2019s a pleasure to hear these old pros continuing to do what they do best with passion, sincerity, and joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6972],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-47166","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-doobie-brothers","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47166"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}