Recording information: Blackbird Studios; House of Blues Studios; Little Big Room, Burbank, CA; Lizard Rock Studio, Santa Ynez Valley, CA; Loud Recording Studio; Morningside Studios, Marin County, CA; Q Room; Southern Ground, Atlanta, CA; Starstruck Studios; The Troutfarm.
Photographers: Greg Watermann; Jim Shea; Huey Lewis; Mike King; Ben Enos; Michael Griffith; Lawrence Boothby; James M. Rink; David Gossard.
A throwback to the golden age of star-studded tributes, the Doobie Brothers' 2014 Southbound essentially follows the same playbook as the Beach Boys' 1996 album Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1: team up a classic rock band with a bunch of contemporary country stars to sing the hits everybody knows and loves. Where Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1 was an uneasy fit -- the Beach Boys are many things but a country band is not one of them -- Southbound feels smooth and natural, possibly because nobody involved dared to mess much with the original arrangements, a move that underscores how this is very much a record where singers are sitting in with the Doobies and not the other way around. Whenever there's a flash of modernization, it is minimal, as on the light decorative rhythmic loops and mandolin samples on "Listen to the Music," where Blake Shelton takes co-lead with Tom Johnston as Hunter Hayes lays down some beefy guitar. Johnston and Patrick Simmons dominate Southbound because their songs lend themselves better to country singers; they're either driving rockers or backwoods-inflected boogie, settings that are comfortable for neo-jam bands (Zac Brown Band, "Black Water"), swaggering cowboys (Toby Keith, "Long Train Runnin'" and Chris Young, "China Grove"), modern-day strummers (Jerrod Niemann, "South City Midnight Lady"), and arena country heroes (Brad Paisley, "Rockin' Down the Highway"). That said, the three Michael McDonald tunes -- "What a Fool Believes" (Sara Evans), "Takin' It to the Streets" (Love and Theft), "You Belong to Me" (Amanda Sudano Ramirez, featuring Vince Gill on guitar) -- all feel at home because this is a Doobie Brothers album, after all, and they've long ago found a way to reconcile the two sides of their musical personality. If there isn't much reinvention to be found on Southbound, that's fine: the record was meant as an open-hearted celebration of the Doobies' biggest hits and that's precisely what it delivers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
This title is unavailable for purchase as none of our regular suppliers have stock available. If you are the publisher, author or distributor for this item, please visit
this link.
