In May 1987, the Doobie Brothers reunited for a tour to benefit the Vietnam Veterans Aid Foundation. The tour included five stops beginning at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on May 23, followed by shows in Las Vegas, the Stanford Children’s Hospital, Mountain View, California, Denver, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon.
The reunion tour featured a 12-piece with founding members Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald, Patrick Simmons, and John McFee, longtime touring members Jeff Baxter, Tiran Porter, John Hartman, Michael Hossack, and Keith Knudsen, along with Chet McCracken, Cornelius Bumpus, and Bobby LaKind with a set featuring “Black Water,” which went to No. 1 in 1974, along with “Listen to the Music”, “Jesus Is Just Alright,” “Takin’ It to the Streets,” “What a Fool Believes,” and more.
“Some guys haven’t played live for a while,” said late drummer Knudson in 1987. “But once we got started, things went well. The only way we could have pulled this off is if people remembered their parts. It’s amazing that you can remember songs so well that you haven’t played for years.”
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After ‘One Step Closer’
The band went separate ways following the release of their 1980 album One Step Closer. Johnston was touring with a band called Border Patrol, while Simmons released his solo album Arcade in 1983. That year, McFee and Knudsen also formed the band Southern Pacific, which released four albums and briefly featured Creedence Clearwater Revival bassist Stu Cook.
McDonald had a successful solo career following Doobie Brothers with his 1982 debut If That’s What It Takes, and built as built his catalog of songs spanning 10 solo albums with hits “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near),” “Sweet Freedom,” the Grammy-winning James Ingram duet “Yah Mo B There” in 1983 and his 1985 duet with Patti LaBelle “On My Own.”
Reunion
Speaking on the differences that ultimately made the band split after One Step Closer, Knudsen, who helped organize the Doobie Brothers reunion and came up with the idea in 1986, says the band didn’t know what direction to go after their last album together
“There were differences of opinion on which way to go musically,” said Knudsen, who joined the band with their fourth album What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits in 1974. “We couldn’t make up our minds on a direction. Also, we had nothing new to offer. We could have milked the Doobies for years if we had wanted to. But that would have been unfair to the fans.”
Knudsen added, “I didn’t just want the members of the last band,” he said. “I wanted to get all the guys who were ever involved in the band. That would make it really special.”
‘Cycles’
After the tour, the Doobie Brothers had permanently reformed with Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, Michael Hossack, Bobby LaKind, Tiran Porter, and John Hartman, and released their first new album in nearly a decade, Cycles, in 1989.
Though McDonald toured with the band on and off throughout the decades, he didn’t appear on any of the new Doobie Brothers albums until Southbound in 2014.
Photo: Doobie Brothers reunion show at Shoreline Amphitheatre May 25, 1987 (John O’Hara/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
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