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Telegraph
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Michael McDonald's high times with The Doobie Brothers: ‘I'd done a pretty good job of screwing up'
Fifty years ago this spring, the 23-year-old known to everyone on the Los Angeles recording session scene as Mike McDonald got the call that would change his life. And the listening pleasure of two, maybe three, generations. The instantly-recognisable vocalist who would become the de facto captain of the good ship Yacht Rock was about to set sail on a musical journey that, as a member of The Doobie Brothers and a solo artist, would net him five Grammys; an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; another induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame; and a truly beloved status as the writer and/or singer of stone-cold classics such as What a Fool Believes, I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near), Ya Mo Be There (with James Ingram) and, with Patti Labelle, On My Own. Not to mention, in another AOR staple, Christopher Cross's Ride Like the Wind, a walk-on part – well, single lyrical line – that's still shouted at him to this day. But half a century ago, all that was a long way off. Only a fool would have believed that, in 2025, The Doobie Brothers – McDonald, Patrick Simmons, Tom Johnston, John McFee – would be playing a 50th anniversary tour (it reaches the UK in July) and releasing a rocking new album, Walk This Road (out in June), the first by the foursome in 40 years. The offer in April 1975 from an LA muso mate was simple if challenging. Did McDonald fancy filling in on vocals and keyboards with a California boogie band who'd outgrown their roots in the biker bars in the hills of Santa Cruz and San Jose and were now, courtesy of monster hits Listen to the Music and Long Train Runnin', one of the biggest touring outfits in the world? It was, to be clear, a temporary gig with a multi-vocalist band promoting their fifth album, Stampede. And he'd have to fly to New Orleans. Tomorrow. And go straight into two days of rehearsals to learn the set-list. Then, at Shreveport, hit the road. Still, it might have more prospects than his other current gig, as a studio backing vocalist for Steely Dan. 'I felt like I'd just been thrown out of a window – and hadn't hit the ground yet,' McDonald remembers of the minutes before curtain-up on his opening night in Louisiana with The Doobie Brothers. His piano was festooned with Post-Its, reminders of the notes, chords and lyrics he had to perform. 'I realised that I didn't remember the songs nearly as well as I thought I had.' But as soon as the house lights went down and the audience roar went up, for the newbie – who'd been drafted in to make up for the absence of guitarist/lead singer Johnston, out after five gigs on the tour through excess and illness – the rush was immediate. 'It felt like I was strapped to the hood of a Fifties vintage Buick going down the highway at 80 miles an hour. it was a thrill and a terror all at once,' says McDonald with a chuckle. 'Somewhere in the middle of the show, it was becoming a blur.' Eventually, guitarist/co-vocalist Simmons introduced him to the audience. 'It was a tepid response, because they had no idea who the hell I was. 'On piano, Michael McDonald!' And so, from that night on, my name became Michael McDonald.' Later that year, he made his presence felt in the studio. With McDonald now a full-time member, The Doobie Brothers recorded his composition Takin' It to the Streets, a jazzy, soft-rock groover blessed with the creamy, soulful R&B vocals of the white kid from St. Louis. In that moment The Doobie Brothers were reborn. McDonald became fundamental to their sound, a change that reached its peak in 1978 when they recorded What a Fool Believes, a co-write from McDonald and his friend Kenny Loggins. It became an American Number One and would go on to win the Grammys for Song and Record of the Year. The Doobies gig was a much-needed break for McDonald. He'd come to LA from the Midwest in August 1970 in time-honoured fashion: to make it in music. And, certainly, eventually, after an abortive solo album project, the big-ish time beckoned. In 1973 he went from playing Wurlitzer for teen idol David Cassidy on his single Daydreamer (a British number one) to auditioning for Steely Dan, the East Coast intellectuals and proper musos who were busy reinventing what Seventies rock could be. It was a ridiculous-to-the-sublime moment. But for the jobbing musician, that was the MO: a gig's a gig. 'Yeah,' nods McDonald as he Zooms in from his long-term home in Santa Barbara, California, that career-long beard now a Christmassy white but that soul-man charisma very much undimmed at age 73. 'I always marvel at the fact that Stephen Stills tried out for The Monkees! And didn't pass the audition! I guess he was a little too rough around the edges or something. But for the grace of God go all of us…' McDonald, however, did pass his audition for Steely Dan, the band centred on Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. He wound up singing backing vocals on Bad Sneakers, Peg and many more, and joining them on tour. In fact, Fagan revealed last year, McDonald was almost too good. 'There was a serious discussion about whether Mike should replace me as a lead singer in Steely Dan, which would have been my personal preference,' Fagan said in a contribution to a profile of McDonald tied to the publication of his memoir, also titled What a Fool Believes. 'But for some dumb reason, I was voted down. I didn't insist, and have regretted it ever since. I mean, here's this monster singer, a musician, and he's also really funny and a sweetheart of a guy. What's not to like?' Was he aware of that backroom plotting to enthrone him as the face of Steely Dan? 'No, I wasn't!' he replies, laughing. 'Donald is one of my favourite people on earth… Him and Walter were hysterical, you know? But to this day, whenever I work with Donald, I become that 19-year-old kid on stage. If he looks up and glances in my direction, I'm all but sure I'm getting fired in that moment. I tense up in all the wrong places.' Equally, he can't believe that we're all still talking like this. 'It's amazing to me that all these years later – and I don't think any of us would have ever bet on this – that in our 70s we'd be, once in a while, still taking the stage together, the way we did when we were twentysomething years old.' McDonald has more reason than most rockers of his vintage to feel that way. His book opens like this: 'I'm getting fingerprinted and processed – for the second time this week.' It's 1971, the musician is in jail in Van Nuys, and this is his 'third or fourth interaction with LA County's finest that year. I'd lost track… This time I was pulled in after falling asleep in a booth at Du-par's pancake house following a 48-hour marathon party-for-two with a female friend, walking the tightrope between a cocaine binge and copious amounts of Jack Daniel's.' This, he acknowledges to me now, was indicative of what his life was like as a 19-year-old not long arrived in LA. 'It was becoming more of that and less of what I had gone out there to do. What had literally been laid in my lap, as far as an opportunity,' he says of the early buzz around town about the young Midwesterner's musical talents. 'I'd done a pretty good job of screwing up. I remember thinking: am I going to be one of those guys who came out here with all the best intentions, but who winds up spending a good part of the rest of his life in institutions like prison? I knew that this was not boding well for my future. And that I needed to somehow get a grip on myself.' It would take McDonald the best part of a decade-and-a-half to get that grip. His book details several misadventures, including a blackly comic moment when, sharing an apartment with Becker (who wrestled with heroin addiction), the pair attempted to make a small fortune on a cocaine deal – only to pre-squander the profits by getting very high on their own supply. McDonald would eventually go drug-free in the mid-Eighties after suffering grand mal seizures. 'I increasingly was frightened by the prospect that all the willpower in the world was not going to save me from myself,' he reflects of high old days that, to be fair, were characteristic of the LA music scene in the Seventies and Eighties. 'That I had a malady that wanted to kill me. To this day, I find that any place I sit in a chair sober, my disease is out in the parking lot doing push-ups, waiting for me to lose that much conscious state of mind about what my real problem is, and what is at the centre of my existence. Which are my addictions. My propensity to addiction. 'I had to learn that the hard way,' he continues, 'like most people do. But in the process, I was given some great fortune, in spite of myself, that has more to do with what my career [became]. I don't think I'd be here if it wasn't for sobriety. I think I would have passed away a long time ago. I'm all but sure of that.' On August 1, McDonald will be 39 years sober. 'It seems like a blur, it really does… My life is better today than it was a week ago. I don't know how that works. But I know it [is] by virtue of me not picking up a substance, one day at a time.' Not that his demons dimmed his abilities, or his work-rate. In 1979, the year What a Fool Believes topped the charts in the US, he recorded backing vocals on the title track of Elton John's Victim of Love album. And, at the behest of another LA studio contact, he also laid down, as he writes in What a Fool Believes, 'a line or two' on a new song for a new artist. Was it apparent in the studio that Ride Like the Wind and Christopher Cross were both going to be big? 'Um, you know, it was such a fast and furious thing,' replies avuncular, easygoing McDonald. 'It was like: 'Come on in, this won't take more than half an hour. You've just got to sing two parts.' But I remember thinking: 'This is a clever song.' It felt like a hit. And it piqued my interest about Christopher. We became friends in that moment and have remained friends to this day.' Interviewed together, Cross and McDonald made for an engaging double-act in HBO's brilliant 2024 Yacht Rock film. It was a, if you will, 'DOCKumentary', as it was subtitled, about the ironic-not-ironic love for the genre of easygoing, exquisitely produced, mostly West Coast American rock from the Seventies and Eighties. 'Oh, yeah, it was funny,' he cheerfully agrees of the film (Cross's daughter was one of the producers). To McDonald's credit, he takes the Yacht Rock appellation in the spirit in which it's intended. Certainly there's a whiff of satirical mockery, baked into the genre from its coinage in an online video series from 2005. But that fades next to the genuine appreciation for the songcraft, musicianship and, yes, peerless vocals that characterise the genre. 'Some of my compatriots do not like the moniker at all, and bristle,' he acknowledges, as aware as anyone of the film's last word: a curt Donald Fagen hanging up on the director with a 'Why don't you go f–– yourself?' (Fagen did nonetheless allow six Steely Dan songs to be used in the film.) 'And I get that. Everybody has a different dog in that race. But I was always a big fan of pop music, so I never bristled at the idea that I wasn't a rock god. I don't mean that disparagingly about any of my friends,' he adds, 'because they were rock gods. Toto were one of the ultimate rock bands of the '70s. The Doobies also, but the guys in Toto played on every conceivable record you could imagine,' he notes of a discography that, for guitarist Steve Lukather and drummer Jeff Porcaro, includes, amongst myriad others, appearances on Michael Jackson's Thriller. 'Just to be counted in among those artists – Toto, Steely Dan, The Eagles, whoever is considered Yacht Rock – I feel a great sense of pride. Those were the guys that I look up to no less now than I did back in the Seventies. So I'm proud to be counted among the Yacht Rock crew!' Still, the snark persists, with one take being that Yacht Rock is the preserve of old rich white guys, the Jeff Bezos set, the actual yacht-owning class. Is McDonald on board with that? He laughs gamely. 'I think that's a stretch, because I'm not so sure that those guys like us any more than anybody else! But it had great comic value,' he agrees. 'When those original viral videos came out, my kids were quick to make me sit down and watch them with them. So I had to get into the comic value of it all early on. 'I can't count how many times some drunk has stumbled out of a bar as I walked by, singing [Ride Like The Wind line] 'got such a long way to go', doing his Michael McDonald imitation!' he adds, laughing again. 'I always tell my son: when your music becomes less relevant, your pathetic comic value might come in handy. [And my kids] have punished me with every take on me, from Family Guy to Rick Moranis,' he says – the former a reference to McDonald's appearance in the cartoon in 2008, the latter a reference to a sketch-show skit, both of which riffed on the in-demand McDonald's ubiquitousness. 'I feel oddly honoured by it all!' McDonald's down-to-earth nature has been a constant; the singer has always been unafraid to apply his supreme skills to the supremely silly. In the 2009 episode of sitcom 30 Rock titled Kidney Now!, McDonald is part of the all-star musical line-up singing on a charity song to raise money for a kidney transplant. 'This country has 600 million kidneys / and we really only need half,' he sings with typical eyes-closed sincerity. 'That means about 300 million kidneys / You do the math.' He also turned the earnestness up to 11 for 1999's South Park movie. For the soundtrack he sang Eyes of a Child, a faux loving hymn to the magic of children, their angelic innocence meaning 'they've yet to realise the bastards they really are'. 'Oh yeah!' McDonald says with a chuckle. 'I was doing the vocal, and [co-writers] Trey [Parker] and Marc [Shaiman] were sitting in a chair in the control room writing lyrics that were ever more awful. And I kept saying: 'Guys, I can't sing that! That's pathetically awful.'' Which makes you wonder about the lyrics that didn't get used. 'I remember, at the time, [my wife and I] trying to get our kids into a youth group at the church that we decided we needed to attend so that they wouldn't grow up total pagans,' McDonald continues. 'And it was a failed experiment at best – nobody knew that better than my kids,' he notes wryly. 'But after that song came out, I remember thinking you could hear a pin drop whenever we walked into one of the church services.' Fifty years on from that Shreveport try-out, Michael McDonald remains in good humour, good voice and a good part of the magic of The Doobie Brothers. As much is in evidence in Walk This Road, on which McDonald takes lead vocal on four tracks. As Pulp have managed this month but Oasis aren't even bothering risking, the Doobies' new album achieves that trickiest of feats for the revenant rock stars on the comeback trail and anniversary victory lap: it builds on their legacy without trashing it. McDonald gets that. 'The two things that I was most in fear of losing were: that instantaneous feeling of passion when we performed live. And that place you go to when you're singing a song you've sung 1000 times… 'You renegotiate with all that stuff as you get older. On the road now, I laugh and accept the fact that sleeping in a bunk on a tour bus at 73 is no picnic. And [that I'm going to be] worrying about things like: where are my hearing aids? Did I leave them in a restaurant? ' None of which, though, is important as long as 'when I get on the stage with those guys, I sense that we're 19 again. In that moment, all that matters is between us and the audience. If so, then I have some business to still be there.' And Michael McDonald knows exactly how to find that moment. 'People always ask me: 'Why do you close your eyes when you sing?' Well, there's a place I like to go to. A place to remove myself to, where it's just me in the song. I know the audience is out there. I know who I'm talking to. I know it's all about this moment. I don't want to ever lose that.'
Forbes
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Mind Reading: Maddie Zahm on Catharsis And Community Building Through Song
Maddie Zahm Gus Black 'If you were listening to my music three years ago, odds are you were making some pretty significant life changes. We all went through some really big stuff together.' Singer/songwriter Maddie Zahm, the former American Idol contestant whose music subsequently went viral on social platforms, is reflecting on the hailstorm of life changes she's experienced in recent years. Those include her decision to leave her role as a youth leader in the Christian church in her hometown of Boise, Idaho, come out as queer and lose nearly 200 pounds as a result of gastric sleeve surgery. Amplifying those evolutions has been her decision to share her experiences in real time both through music and direct interaction with fans. From revealing a then new diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) to the television audience during her run on season 16 of the competition series to pouring out songs of deep self-discovery and acceptance, Zahm says she really knows no other way than to bring others along on her journey. She titled her 2022 EP after her song You May Not Like Her and followed it up in 2023 with the album Now That I've Been Honest. The result has been an intrinsically connected and growing fan community—"I firmly believe it is deeper than a typical artist relationship,' she says—and some growing pains. 'A lot of people have been so invested in my journey and it was intertwined with their own journey. It's a lot of pressure to know what I and my music mean to people,' Zahm says. 'It scared me. I don't want to let them down, but I am human.' At the age of 27, she's already unlocked a key to life. 'The biggest thing I have done is allowed other people to disagree with how my personal journey goes and let go of the idea that I have to be the perfect example of coming out, losing weight, all that stuff. There are going to be people who are not going to agree with my journey, and it would be impossible for me to make everyone happy. It's allowing people to be disappointed in me.' Mostly, Zahm says, her community has helped lift her as she finds her wings. In fact, the artist says had she not released and gotten such positive response to her song Fat Funny Friend, 'I don't think I would've come out of the closet. With that song online, the body positive community, the plus-size community scooped me up with open arms and loved the shit out of me. And I thought, If being honest led me to all of these folks, then what am I to do other than also share about my queer journey.' Because she'd been so entrenched in the church, Zahm knew embracing her queer identity would be difficult for some to comprehend. True to form, she returned home to Boise to embrace the discourse. 'It was important that I had hard conversations with people,' she says. 'I told my management at the time, If I'm going to come out, I need to tell these people in person. I have the capacity to do that. These relationships with people in the church were really deep and I knew it was going to be really hard for people,' she says. 'I remember talking with my therapist and saying it's so interesting because I adore them and they adore me. They thought they couldn't love a gay person, but they already do. So I sat with them, allowed them to ask questions. Some of them aren't in my life anymore and very much disagree and that's been heartbreaking because I really thought I had built a foundation that was strong enough for that not to be a negotiable, but I also have had people come around and some people have come out to me.' 'From an expansive perspective, the people I was introduced to some of the greatest people I've ever met,' she says. 'Half of my friends are in the queer community and most of them I found after coming out. I'm so grateful for the joy that is the queer community and without a doubt I think I've become a better person because of. I've really seen what deep friendship is.' Zahm is also, quite literally, getting more comfortable in her own skin. She's lost nearly half her body weight since getting a gastric sleeve four years ago, a decision she made largely because of some of the health issues she was dealing with. 'I've worked so hard to make it a neutral thing, because I don't believe my life is any better or any worse because of weight loss,' she says. 'Had I figured out how to control my PCOS without surgery I believe now with the internal work I've done, I would've gone to a place where I would've loved my plus-size body but at the time that felt like the answer.' While she understood the process of having the procedure, Zahm says there's a part of her that was—and still is—shocked about the degree of weight loss. 'Weight loss is really disorienting and complex, and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. I think I'm more insecure about my body now than I was when I was plus size.' Several months in, she says, 'I was losing more weight than I originally anticipated, and I didn't really know how to exist in a non-plus-size body. And I started seeing a very different societal treatment, people finding way more humanity for me than before I got the surgery. And I was angry about it. That's where Fat Funny Friend came from.' Zahm says almost didn't release the song. 'I know how long it takes to release music and my body was changing at such a rapid speed and thought, I don't know if I'm the right person to sing Fat Funny Friend. So I told myself I'll post it once and see what happens and at that point I was still in a plus size body.' Turns out she was, in fact, just the right person to embrace the spectrum of body positivity and share her experience in song. 'And it parallels with my sexuality. I'm now realizing its more of a spectrum. It's so great and interesting that communities are allowing me to live in this grey area of figuring out what my life is.' With new music percolating—beginning with anthemic breakup bop Sheets—Zahm says, 'It's been interesting to realize songs that are not as deeply tied to my trauma. To realize I'm going to date a girl and get my heart broken and write a song about it.' Mind Reading (formerly Hollywood & Mind) is a recurring column that features interviews with musicians, actors, athletes, creators and other culture influencers who are elevating conversation and action around mental health, and breaking stigma.
RNZ News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Priya Sami & Sophie-Maude
music culture about 1 hour ago Priya Sami is in studio to tell us about the Official NZ Music Month Summit Tauranga Artist Sophie-Maude is up in Auckland working with artists and came to talk to us about it and her music journey so far Tags: culture music Culture Music
