Warner Bros. 3193
Producer: Ted Templeman
Track listing: Here to Love You / What a Fool Believes / Minute by Minute / Dependin’ on You / Don’t Stop to Watch the Wheels / Open Your Eyes / Sweet Feelin’ / Steamer Lane Breakdown / You Never Change / How Do the Fools Survive?
April 7, 1979
5 weeks (nonconsecutive)
“We had just come off a record that everyone was a little disappointed with,” says keyboardist/vocalist Michael McDonald. “So with Minute by Minute, in some ways there was a little more tension, but in some other ways the tension was kind of relieved, because the worst was over.”
Simply put, the Doobie Brothers were one of the most successful American rock acts of the ’70s. Following the release of 1972’s Toulouse Street, the group’s second album, each subsequent Doobies album cracked the top 10 of the album chart, with 1976’s Takin’ It to the Streets reaching number eight and going on to sales of more than a million copies. Best of the Doobies, a hits collection released later that same year, reached number five.
However, the Doobies’ fortunes soured with 1977’s Livin’ on the Fault Line. “Going into that album we were really anxious, because of the success of Takin’ It to the Streets,” says McDonald. “But with Minute by Minute, even though there was some anxiety, we had kind of suffered the blow already, so we had a little more of a relaxed attitude about the music.”
By 1977, the Doobie Brothers had gone through significant lineup changes. In 1974, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, formerly of Steely Dan, joined the band. A year later, McDonald, who had also worked with Steely Dan, joined. As a result, the band’s musical direction began to change from rock to a more polished R&B approach. On Minute by Minute, the lead vocals and songwriting credits were split between McDonald and Doobies co-founder guitarist/vocalist Patrick Simmons. Yet McDonald says Simmons was still considered the leader of the band. “If anyone was the leader of the band, it was Patrick,” says McDonald. “We all tended to look to him and he had the demeanor for it.”
While Simmons remained the leader, McDonald was emerging as the band’s creative force, as both of the big hit singles were tracks he co-wrote and sang.
The Doobies spent approximately a year working on Minute by Minute, occasionally breaking for a string of live dates. Ted Templeman, who produced all of the Doobie’s albums, was again at the helm when the band cut the album at Warner Bros. Studios in North Hollywood.
“What a Fool Believes” was written by McDonald with Kenny Loggins sitting at the piano in his home in Studio City, California. A few days following the writing session, the duo came up with the song’s chorus on the telephone. Recording the track was more difficult. “We must have cut 25 takes in the course of a few days,” McDonald recalls. When tensions began to rise between the band members who were becoming increasingly frustrated, Templeman intervened. “He said, ‘We got it. I’ll use take eight and splice it right at the first bridge with 22 and it’ll work,'” McDonald says. “It was great. It worked fine. It was the take we were trying to do, but for some reason, it eluded us.”
The title track also did not come easily. “I remember emotionally brutalizing [drummer] Keith Knudsen,” says McDonald. “It was a difficult song to because it was a 6/8 shuffle, but it was important to get it right, because it was just me on keyboards, Tiran Porter on bass, and Keith on drums. I was so focused on getting the track to feel right that by the time we were finished, Keith was probably close to suicide, but he hung in there until we got it right.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of April 7, 1979
1. Minute by Minute, The Doobie Brothers
2. Spirits Having, Flown Bee Gees
3. Dire Straits, Dire Straits
4. Love Tracks, Gloria Gaynor
5. Blondes Have More Fun, Rod Stewart