DOOBIE BROS: The Reward Of Facelessness

Who were they? Just a bunch of street people who “looked like bikers and said they wanted to be rock ‘n’ roll stars” — with precious little indication that they had the chops to back up that fantasy. The only asset: a chunky, innocuous rhythm guitar sound, with colorless singing that epitomized the amateur musician/fulltime doper acoustic sound that pervaded hip enclaves from Santa Fe to San Mateo.

One wonders now, how that first album got made at all. They were just hanging around San Mateo’s Pacific Recorders, Tom Johnston and John Hartman and Patrick Simmons and some other friend who’s since long wandered away. None of them were named Doobie; neither were they brothers, except in the zit-faced way street hippies used to address each other way back in the 1960’s. They made a tape. The guys who ran Pacific

Recorders sent it down to Warner Brothers in El Lay. Ted Templeman and Lenny Waronker produced them, The album stunk. It didn’t sell. They were virtually dropped from the label, or at least benevolently ignored. They attempted to record some more tunes, most of which were useless. Templeman came up to San Mateo, helped tighten things up. One new song stood out from the pack: a train rhythm marvel of effortless energy called “Listen to the Music.” The rest, as they say, is history. Or rather, economics. Hardly four years later, the Doobie Brothers and their Doobro Corporation:

•Employ 23 people full-time, not counting lawyers and accountants. •Own the Pacific Telephone Building in San Rafael.

•Own the 8 acres of Oakland waterWnt where all thd Volkswagens, Porsche’s and Audi’s sold in northern California are imported.

•Own a shopping center near Sonoma, California.

• Own and travel with 2 jet planes: one for passengers, the other equipment,

* Sell about 1.5 million copies of each album they make.

•Earn in the neighborhood of $90,000 per gig in majorarenas qr stadiums.

In spite of’ this massive accumulation of, American dream points: wealth, success , stardom — most fans probably couldn’t name more than two of the Doobies, if that. The more successful they became, the more faceless they remained.

“The group has come to grips with putting together musicians in a band, rpaintaining an anonymous personality within a structure,” says guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, a relatively new number of the team. “You don’t know who the fuck the Doobie Brothers are, but we all know. People are always aware of 'other people. They bend when it gets heavy — they don’t Snap at you. When it does happen if I yell at somebody, or somebody yells at me, we take it from the point of view of the sociologist or the psychologist. This is my buddy, my friend. Everybody seems to understand the principal concepts of environmental living together.”

That understanding is fortuitous, because the Doobie Brothers are no longer a quartet of California-style hippie-billies. The road band consists of ten members, only two of whom were in the band originally (guitarist Pat Simmons, and first drummer Hartman). The others: Keith Knudsen, a Peter Wolfish-looking second drummer who began his career with the somewhat legendary Madison cult band called Mendlebaum, which later became a somewhat legendary Berkeley cult band. Skunk Baxter, who began touring and recording the Doobies even while a full-time member of Steely Dan, and whose panorama of supporting credits ranges from Johnny Rodriguez to Elton John, who called on Skunk to help punch up the sound for last summer’s massive gig at Wembley. (“I had to learn 27 songs in 4 days,” Skunk said. “I just do my job. I take it with the same attitude as when I was a studio musician.”)

Like Baxter, keyboardist-vocalist Michael McDonald is another veteran of Steely Dan, a beneficiary and victim of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s quirky perfectionism. Tiran Porter, bass player, and “radio freak,” is an old friend from the South Bay folk circuit, who joined the band on their second album. And there are the Memphis Horns, who decided to break up their overdub routine by joining the

band for the entire 50 city tour. Missing, of course, is Tom Johnston, Doobie founder, songwriter, singer. The last tour found Johnston riding a wild edge that left him seriously ill with pancreatis; the tour was briefly interrupted, and McDonald and the Memphis Horns were drafted into action.

The result: a different, more versatile Doobies sound. When I tell Tiran that I always thought of the Doobies as a “one riff band,” he says, “That riff was Tom’s staple. That’s his riff, that’s his signature. It’s aggressive, that choochoo kinda thing.” That riff, of course, identifies the Doobies’ most memorable moments: “Long Train Runnin’,” “Listen to the Music,” “China Grove.” But Johnston’s illness, and uncertain relationship with the band has allowed them to move on from that base into a sound that embodies many different strains of American music. Simmons’ “Black Water” was pastoral ^and soothing, and relatively sophisticated; their version of Kim Weston’s Motown classic “Take Me in Your Arms” was power packed and direct.

That directness — and the ability to maintain that hit’s r&b energy in concert — can be credited to the Memphis Horns, two white/two black Southern musicians who attained the status of legends by backing Otis Redding, A1 Green, and countless others who’ve benefited from their unique arrangements.

“Otis was my idol,” Wayne Jackson says. “He taught us about horns, since he sang horn lines. He was a lyrical percussionist, and that’s just what a horn player is.” When Redding’s plane went down in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin in 1967, Jackson and the horns would’ve gone down with him. “We played on every record Otis made, and almost all the live gigs. At the very last minute, we just couldn’t make that Madison gig. The Bar-Kays did us a favor and said they’d do the trip. That’s the only reason we’re alive today.”

A key to the development of the Doobies from a one riff band to versatility across the American

spectrum is the diversity of geographic backgrounds. Jackson and the

Horns — who at this point are treated as full Doobie Brothers — grew up in small towns in Arkansas, Missisippi, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28. and Tennessee; the founders, were west coasters, while Knudson matured as a musician in Wisconsin; and Skunk Baxter grew up in a rich New York suburb, and had the best private school education money could buy.

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“I had the last of the great classical educations,” Baxter said* “You’re given the tools and rules of the game. When I was through, I was equipped to go out and earn $25,000 a year as a junior executive. But I still didn’t know how to relate to an autistic child, or why my roommate got these incredible headaches in the afternoon.”

I gather that the headaches didn’t come from Baxter’s guitar playing, •which I consider to be among the best in America. His adaptable style is both driving and meditative, spontaneous and calculated, restrained yet full of impetuous humor. During “Double Dealin’ Four Flusher,” he will ingeniously break into ■ “Baubles, Bangles and Beads”; on “Listen to the Music,” he will riff out into “Dixie” and return without missing stride. Baxter’s trade-offs with Wayne Jackson on “Long Train Runnin”’ are among the F»igh points of the Doobies’ show. Both experienced studio craftsmen understand the virtues of precision and economy in attaining the ultimate goal : impact. Baxter’s guitar playing has been called mathematical, and that is no accident. An “amateur mathematician/physicist,’’ Baxter1 likes reading scientific journals, calculating vectors, and speculating on th? state of the universe.

But unlike most rock stars, whose bogus philosophizing and cosmic rambles are more often inspired by terminal drug abuse and ego-induced psychosis, Skunk’s vision is more MIT than LSD. An initial inspiration was* his astronomy professor at Boston University, Isaac Asimov; he’s been hooked on “visionary astronomy,” based on science fact, ever since. On the plane from New Jersey to Saratoga, New York, Skunk analyzed flaws in the theory of relativity, and speculated on the theoretical possibilities of discovering other universes by passing through matter-destroying Black Holes.

After listening to Jeffrey Baxter’s involved discourse, I found myself wondering how such a substantial intellect came to be known as Skunk. According to a studio musician who claims to know, Jeffrey and a number of other musicians were finishing a rather drunken session in L.A. Baxter went outside for something, and found the door locked behind him. No amount of pounding coiild overtake the noise of the studio playback, and when nature’s way indicated that it was time to piss, Baxter relieved himself on the door. The door opened in midstream, and piss soaked the leg of the person who opened the door. “You Skunk!” the pissed-on one kept repeating. Silly story, probably not true, but the name somehow stuck.

Skunk’s historic momerit of rowdiness once typified the Doobie Brothers on the road. On their last major tour, in Chattanooga, they poured tequila down the throats of Henry Gross and his musicians, then attacked the stage and backstage area with hundreds of whipped cream pies. A Voadie (no longer with the organization) destroyed a dressing room and threw chairs at a policeman. The local law responded by opening fire on Patrick Simmons. (They missed.) Bruce Cohn, the Doobies’ manager, received a bill for $1700 with a note: “Pay this bill or we’ll come and get you.” He paid. In Buffalo, N.Y., the band was busted and their jet impounded for 24 hours when local gendarmes found a roach floating in shit in a hotel toilet. They filled a baggie with the contents of the bowl: shit, roach and all.

Such freaky activity was conspicuously absent on the early leg of this recent tour. “There’s no need to drink as much as we used to. It’s no good for the music, or the spirit. The road makes you crazy, and hangovers make you crazier,”, McDonald said. After the second show of the tour — in Jersey City — the band went directly to their trailer, where they watched a videotape replay of that night’s performance. It makes sense, however: one does not evolve from being a step above a spare changer to, owning the Pacific Telephone Building four years later without a certain commitment to responsible professionalism. But still, it seemed odd that a band with a long-haired counterculture identity chose to invest in the properties they did.

“It’s hard to do something constructive with money that also makes a profit,” said manager Cohn. “The things you’d like to do aren’t always financially advantageous. We’re investing their money, lots of it, so we have to invest it securely.”

“How about condom vending machines,” suggests Patrick Simmons.

“Doobro wine,” someone else shbuts'to Cohn , whose real estate holdings include some of California’s finest vineyards.

Just keep playing the music, fellas. We’ll talk it over with our accountants in the morning.