★★★★★
For a while back in the early 70s, before The Eagles usurped everything, The Doobie Brothers were just about the biggest band in America. This is their story. And for lovers of Spinal Tap-style documentaries - sights, sounds and smells - this is actually worth a raised-eyebrow viewing, if only to marvel at one-time Doobie maniac Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter's preposterous tache...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
This live album was recorded during the final concert of The Doobie Brothers' 1982 Farewell Tour at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, which was expected to be their final performance together at the time (like nearly all 70s bands, they ended up doing a bunch of reunion tours). Alternating between early, original-formation rock classics (Listen to the Music, Long Train Runnin', China Grove, Black Water, their rendition of the gospel song Jesus Is Just Alright, etc...
- hour.ca
2011-07-25
★★★★★
When you make one album per decade, it better be good. The Doobies (heyday 1973-79) shortened the odds by reclaiming producer Ted Templeman, who oversaw their salad days and, with his help, have fashioned a winner. Chateau recaptures the excitement of China Grove; the title track would fit right in to 1976's Takin' It To The Streets; while Nobody, the single, is a song from their first album they felt they never got right. Now it shimmers like Listen To The Music...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2010-12-21
★★★★★
The first Doobie Brothers album for ten years is a time capsule from the Nixon/Ford era. Working again with Ted Templeman, who produced their golden age of hits and West Coast anthems, they deliver a textbook set of what their borderline-superannuated fans want. Ageism is not cool, kids, but a glance at the accompanying retrospective DVD shows a lighting crew working ridiculously hard to veil the fact that the Doobies are now, shall we say, weathered...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
Comes in a Warner Brothers Records promo sleeve. Tracklist: A1. Long Train Runnin' (Dennis Perez Classic Remix); B1. Long Train Runnin' (Dee's Churchapella); B2. Long Train Runnin' (Dee's F Train Beats). "Dennis Perez remixes, as played heavily by Joe Claussell. The all time classic rock/disco vocal 'Long Train Runnin'' gets the new & most respectful remix treatment from Brooklyn's own Dennis Perez...
- www.forcedexposure.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
The evergreen rock chuggings of Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons get another collective airing on this handy compendium of the San José kids who bossed AOR airwaves in the '70s. "Listen To The Music", "Jesus Is Just Alright", "Long Train Runnin'" and the Joe Walsh inspired "China Grove" are a virtual mantra of good-time, long-hair Cali-boogie, and none the worse for that...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
★★★★★
One reason this band epitomizes corporate rock is that it has its meager merits, and I'm ashamed to say that on this compilation I enjoy them. In fact, the bassline hooks of "China Grove" and "Long Train Runnin'" move me so efficiently that by the time we get to "Listen to the Music"--which with its easy-rolling rhythms, anonymous harmonies, countrified arrangement, meticulous production, and smug message made my ten-worst list in 1972--I'm still listening to the music.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Though this sums up their brush with greatness, a/k/a Michael McDonald, McDonald has grasped greatness but once: on the eternally recurrent apothegm "What a Fool Believes," here isolated overdisc from such grazes, whisks, and sweeps as "Here to Love You," "Real Love," and "Minute by Minute." Vanity, vanity--usefulness rather than greatness is the purview of a record like this, and thus the first volume stands as a more fetching collection of ephemera...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
The regrouped Doobie Brothers have managed theimpossible by releasing two live discs without so much as onesurprising moment! Virtually every note on Rockin' Down the Highway: The Wildlife Concert is repeated fromstudio versions; even the two new songs are strictly deja vu.But, presumably, that's enough for fans who want to collect allthe hits (except "Real Love") in one place without mussing uptheir memories of the '70s. C-
- ew.com
2009-06-12
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