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The Doobie Brothers – Minute By Minute (1978) [Japan 2017]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 36:52 minutes | Scans included | 1,49 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 754 MB

With Tom Johnston gone from the lineup because of health problems, this is where the “new” Doobie Brothers really make their debut, with a richly soulful sound throughout and emphasis on horns and Michael McDonald’s piano more than on Patrick Simmons’ or Jeff Baxter’s guitars. Not that they were absent entirely, or weren’t sometimes right up front in the mix, as the rocking, slashing “Don’t Stop to Watch the Wheels” and the bluegrass-influenced “Steamer Lane Breakdown” demonstrate. But given the keyboards, the funky rhythms, and McDonald’s soaring tenor (showcased best on “What a Fool Believes”), it’s almost difficult to believe that this is the hippie bar band that came out of California in 1970. There’s less virtuosity here than on the group’s first half-dozen albums, but overall a more commercial sound steeped in white funk. It’s still all pretty compelling even if its appeal couldn’t be more different from the group’s earlier work (i.e., The Captain and Me, etc.). The public loved it, buying something like three million copies, and the recording establishment gave Minute by Minute four Grammy Awards, propelling the group to its biggest success ever.

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The Doobie Brothers – Livin’ On The Fault Line (1977) [Japan 2017]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 35:18 minutes | Scans included | 1,43 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 721 MB

Livin’ on the Fault Line fell between two of the Doobie Brothers’ biggest-selling records. The album had no hit singles, and one-time leader Tom Johnston kept a markedly low profile (this would be his last record with the group, not including a later reunion). Despite this, Livin’ on the Fault Line contains some of the most challenging and well-developed music of the band’s career, with Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald really stepping to the fore. There’s a vague mood of melancholia running through the songs, as well as a definite jazz influence. This is most obvious on the title track, which has several instrumental passages that showcase the guitar abilities of Simmons and Jeff Baxter. Similarly, “Chinatown” is a spooky mood piece not unlike the smooth fusion of late-period Steely Dan or Little Feat. But “Echoes of Love” and “Nothin’ But a Heartache” are both intelligent, glistening pop songs that confirm Simmons and McDonald as first-rate tunesmiths. The record slips a little at the end, with a plodding R&B song and a Piedmont guitar instrumental thrown in as filler. Overall, though, this is a chapter in the Doobie Brothers’ history that deserves a second look.

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The Doobie Brothers – Farewell Tour (1983) [Japan 2017]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 65:17 minutes | Scans included | 2,64 GB
or FLAC (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 1,39 GB

Farewell Tour is the first live album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers. It documents the group’s 1982 Farewell Tour and is a double LP set. By the early 1980s, the Doobie Brothers had evolved from the guitar-boogie sound under original band frontman Tom Johnston to a soulful keyboard-driven AOR sound under Michael McDonald. Despite the many personnel changes in the group, Patrick Simmons remained from the original incarnation of the group. The front cover shows Keith Knudsen cutting the strings on John McFee’s guitar as a symbolic gesture. The last two songs on the album were recorded at the final concert of the tour in Berkeley, California, on September 11, 1982 with vocals by original lead vocalist and guitarist Tom Johnston. For a long time the album was available on CD only in Japan.

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