The Doobie Brothers: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2020 Inductees

Pat Simmons relayed how the Doobie Brothers came up with their band name: “Some of us were sitting around the breakfast table of [our] house one morning, sprinkling pot on our cornflakes, smokin’ joints and bein’ crazy." 

At that time, whenever anybody said, ‘I wanna smoke a joint,’ they always said, ‘Let’s smoke a doobie.’ And [our roommate] Keith Rosen … said something like, ‘Hey, you guys smoke so many joints, why don’t you just call yourselves the Doobie Brothers?'” [Reproduction]

Bassist and vocalist Tiran Porter was a member of the Doobie Brothers from 1971 to 1980 and 1987 to 1992. He released a solo album, Playing to an Empty House, in 1995. Porter wore this jacket from 1989, when the Doobie Brothers LP Cycles came out, until about 1995.

Porter recalled that the band was initially overlooked by critics: “After the first LP [The Doobie Brothers, 1971], the only people who seemed to accept us were beer-crazed bikers."

"By the time our second album, Toulouse Street, was released [in 1972], we got a lot of attention because of the single [‘Listen to the Music’], but we were dismissed as hippie hard rockers."

"Then we hit in 1973 with a couple of singles [‘Long Train Runnin'’ and ‘China Grove’] and critics called us Top Forty rock bubble-gum.” 

Guitarist and vocalist Tom Johnston first used this guitar during early Doobies jam sessions and during gigs as house band at the Chateau Liberte, a rowdy biker bar in the Santa Cruz mountains. Johnston played the guitar last on the 1972 Toulouse Street Tour.

Johnston recalls, “My early musical influences were wide and varied: Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed. That morphed into the ‘three Kings’: Freddie, B.B. and Albert [and] eventually…Hendrix and Clapton and Cream, Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, etc."

Johnston wore this suit on the Doobie Brothers’ 1973 tours in support of The Captain and Me LP. Johnston wrote the Doobies’ first big hit, “Listen to the Music,” released in 1972.

“['Listen to the Music'] is one song, probably the only song, that I didn’t change at all once we got it in the studio...I called Ted [Templeman, producer] up...and said, 'You gotta hear this. This song is a hit.' It's the only one I've ever been right about."

Simmons, the only consistent member of the Doobie Brothers throughout numerous lineup changes, reflected on the band’s longevity -- they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2020 – saying, “It’s not anything you can forecast or predict."

"It’s just, ‘If we can hold it together long enough to do these gigs we have, maybe we can rethink it down the line.’ That’s been the story of this band: continually rethinking it, reinventing it, recommitting ourselves to it."

Vocalist and keyboardist Michael McDonald initially joined the Doobie Brothers in 1975 as a temporary replacement for Tom Johnston, who left the group to deal with medical issues.

McDonald used this gear on tour and in the studio while recording the hits “ Minute by Minute” and “What a Fool Believes,” the latter of which won GRAMMY awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year in 1980.

In 1978, the Doobies made a two-part guest appearance on the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!! “I'd watched the show a few times,” Simmons recalled. " I thought it was hilarious and really liked the character of ‘Rerun’ [Fred Berry]."

"…Because it was a Black situation comedy, I thought it would be an adventurous thing for us to do because our music had always been laced with R&B and soul. Not only would our fans tune in, but it would also expose us to a new audience of people..."

This Stradivarius-configured violin was used by multi-instrumentalist John McFee starting around the time he joined the Doobie Brothers, through the band’s 1982 Farewell Tour, and then again when the band reunited in the late 1980s. 

The song “Black Water” has been played on this appropriately-tinted instrument many times.

Speaking of the role music has played in his life, McFee said, “I had a difficult childhood and music really saved my life – it was my refuge, the place where I could make my own world."

"I started [playing music] really young, and music is what carried me through some very trying circumstances."

This Stratocaster-type guitar was custom made for John McFee by Mark Brown. Brown worked as Pat Simmons’ guitar technician, and also made instruments and repaired guitars for the legendary Fred Walecki’s Westwood Musical Instruments in Los Angeles.

McFee, who joined the Doobies in 1979 after Skunk Baxter left the group, played this guitar extensively on tours and recordings with the Doobie Brothers.

In 2020, McDonald was set to rejoin the Doobie Brothers for the band’s 50th Anniversary Tour, which was postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus. 

McDonald was excited when he learned the group was being inducted, telling Rolling Stone, “It’s the culmination of a lot of years of traveling together and working together.”

"We are fortunate that our friendship has remained the most important thing to us through all the various incarnations of the band.”