Doobie Brothers- Toulouse Street- Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, John Hartman
After a forgettable first album, the Doobie Brothers’ sophomore effort Toulouse Street may just be the strongest second act of the Seventies. So remarkable a turnaround in songs, sound, and good fortune is the July 1972 release that even some longtime Doobie Brothers fans still mistakenly refer to Toulouse Street as the band’s first album.
Formed in San Jose California, the original songs were a musical gumbo consisting of a balanced blend of distinctly American styles including country blues, Stax soul, acoustic folk, and chugging rock and roll, while the choices by the Doobie Brothers of outside material to cover on Toulouse Street were a colorful mosaic running the gamut from Sonny Boy Williamson to Seals and Crofts. There’s “Rockin’ Down the Highway”, for half a century an invitation to dashboard abandon and speeding tickets everywhere; the definitive version of “Jesus is Just All Right”; and the flat-out rocker buried deep at the dark end of Toulouse Street, “Disciple”.
By the way, after the long-suffering band was denied even so much as a nomination for twenty-four years, the Doobie Brothers were finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, and toured to mark both the band’s COVID-delayed fiftieth anniversary as well as the golden anniversary of Toulouse Street .-Redbeard