The Doobie Brothers – ‘The Captain and Me’
It was a crowded rock and roll scene in the early 1970s. A new strain of AOR radio was beginning to emerge as the gap between AM and FM became more pronounced. Suddenly, genres were starting to blend together in new and exciting ways. There was no reason why your band couldn’t look like the Allman Brothers while playing a mix of country, hard rock, and pop. With two drummers, a rock lead singer, a country-folk guitarist, and an R&B bass player, The Doobie Brothers sought to link all of those genres together on their album, 1973’s The Captain and Me.
Opening track ‘Natural Thing’ does a serviceable job setting the album’s tone: sunny, bright, and harmonious. Johnston’s voice is in top form, spinning some hippie-dippie nonsense about world peace and happiness. It’s perfectly fine, but ‘Natural Thing’ is notably slight and incredibly hammy, especially compared to the rest of side one.
It doesn’t take long for The Doobies to kick things into high gear. With some iconic chicken scratch guitar leading off a parade of instruments, ‘Long Train Runnin’ bursts at the seams with joy. When you think of expertly crafted classic rock, you have to cite ‘Long Train Runnin’ by name. Templeman’s production shines and the song’s composition is ingenious: harmonica solos, stop-start verses, and a false ending all wring the maximum amount of interest from what would have otherwise been a catchy and basic pop song. Instead, ‘Long Train Runnin’ is instantly memorable from the first time you hear it.
But the band isn’t done. Just as ‘Long Train Runnin’ fades, the album’s other major single, ‘China Grove’, comes roaring in. More muscular and rock focused than ‘Long Train Runnin’, ‘China Grove’ is a foot-stomping and high-energy track that keeps the good times rolling. Johnston’s vitality as one of the band’s lead singers shines brightest on The Captain and Me, not least because of the one-two punch of ‘Long Train Runnin’ and ‘China Grove’. When he was forced to step back from his role due to stomach ulcers in the late 1970s, The Doobie Brothers had to fully reinvent themselves to survive.
After that, The Captain and Me can’t help but lose some of its momentum. None of the other songs on the album even come close to the catchiness and impact of ‘Long Train Runnin’ and ‘China Grove’, but there are still some hidden gems and solid tracks throughout the rest of the LP. Especially once fellow lead singer/guitarist Patrick Simmons steps up to the mic, The Captain and Me begins to take on a different flavour.
Simmons was still a year away from landing the band their first number one hit with the delta folk sing-along ‘Black Water’. His main role was as the band’s high harmony singer, but Simmons also acted as the main voice on the tracks ‘Clear As the Driven Snow’, South City Midnight Lady’, and ‘Evil Woman’. Simmons brought a more pronounced country feeling to The Doobie Brothers: the delicate finger-picking in ‘Driven Snow’ and almost John Denver-like lilt of ‘Midnight Lady’ being the best examples.
Even though they’re doing it at a high level, The Doobies do tend to get caught up in the listless love songs from time to time. ‘Dark Eyed Cajun Woman’ and ‘South City Midnight Lady’ are practically the same song, right down to the rhythm of their titles. ‘Ukiah’ is a fairly uninspired shuffle that gets lifted thanks to some fascinating early synthesiser work. ‘Evil Woman’ is standard “done-me-wrong” stuff. When The Doobie Brothers were on their game, they could easily stand out among the hordes of ’70s rock acts. When they weren’t, they were just a more limp Grand Funk Railroad or a less rollicking Lynyrd Skynyrd.
As the final strains of ‘Ukiah’ blend into the beginning of ‘The Captain and Me’, Johnston gives universal unity one final go. More contemplative and cosmic than most of the material on the album, ‘The Captain and Me’ is the album’s most successful blend of ’70s rock, hippie folk, country balladry, jug band music, and barbershop harmonies. It’s not one of the two killer rock singles, but it’s a wonderfully hazy and trippy way to close the album, with Simmons’ banjo work adding one last bit of bluegrass that would foreshadow his own writing on the band’s follow-up, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.
Alternating between wild highs and relatively boring lows, The Captain and Me is a classic case of early 1970s rock music containing multitudes. The record sounds immaculate, with instruments and voices shimmering in crystal-clear stereo. The material isn’t always rising to the same level, but when it does, it practically jumps right out of the speaker and permanently into your subconscious. For most, it won’t be worth listening to the full album: sticking with the singles is all you really need. But for a particularly dedicated brand of classic rock fan, the smoother genre-blending sounds that would make up ’70s radio had its origins in the deeper cuts and stranger corners of The Captain and Me, for better or worse.
