Michael McDonald can’t wait to return to his home state of Missouri, step out on stage alongside his platinum-selling Doobie Brothers bandmates, and look out at the enthusiastic crowd awaiting them.
And chances are McDonald will see someone from the old neighborhood.
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“I’m likely to see someone I knew in grade school,” McDonald says with a laugh. “It sort of makes you feel old.”
Nostalgia has a way of doing that—especially for the Missouri native whose musical dreams first began to materialize in Ferguson.
“Back then, they had party lines,” McDonald says. “There was nothing more thrilling than picking up the phone to make a call and realizing that one of the neighbors was already on. It was the neighborhood party on the streets party line, and my mother would just invite herself into their conversation. She’d be on there for an hour.”
McDonald lost his mother in 2009. But such is life—this constant journey of holding on and letting go. It’s a subject that The Doobie Brothers tackle on their new song “Learn to Let Go” off their new album Walk This Road—the band’s 16th album and their first studio album to feature Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, John McFee, and McDonald together.
“I think it’s a lesson that we learn over and over again in life about all kinds of things,” McDonald says of “Learn to Let Go,” which he wrote alongside John M. Shanks. “Life is just a series of letting go of things and moving down the road. And if you can gain a little bit of humility in the process, that’s a good thing.”
The Doobie Brothers also find themselves taking some time to appreciate all that they have, especially as they return to St. Louis on September 4 as part of their Walk This Road Tour.
“I don’t think any of us dreamed in our wildest years that we’d still be on the stage in venues like this playing for people that have been coming to see us for 50 years,” McDonald says. “Some of the guys I grew up playing music with in St. Louis are still doing it. At some point, we probably thought someone would come along and grab us by the back of the neck and say, ‘You’ve got to grow up now.’”
Growing up isn’t always easy, but McDonald says that change—and leaving behind the things that hold you back—are essential to moving forward. It’s a lesson all the members of The Doobie Brothers have learned through the years, as bandmates seemed to come and go as quickly as the years themselves.
“I think the only reason we’re back together, or rather, I’m back with the band, is primarily because we’ve been friends all these years,” says McDonald. “All of our kids grew up together, so in some ways, they kept us together even when we would’ve drifted out of communication probably more than we did. There’s always some reason to talk again. I always cherish that experience and that friendship with the guys. I think that’s foremost in our relationship. And it shapes the music we make.”
It also has a way of pushing McDonald a bit out of his comfort zone, a unique challenge for a man who turned 73 in February.
“I definitely play more keyboards than I would probably when I was with my own band,” McDonald says. “I take on those responsibilities and sometimes I dread it and sometimes I love it, but I mostly love it because it’s just me facing my fears, if you will, and learning to do things that I probably wouldn’t have any other reason to.”
And there are millions of reasons for McDonald to keep going—along with millions of fans who appreciate it.
“For anyone who’s written a song or composed a song, you feel like it is a gift that you are giving the world, for better or worse,” says McDonald, who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside his bandmates earlier this year. “It’s something you feel obliged to do and I think like any storyteller, you feel like you’re giving something away that’s worth giving.”
