Nice Rhodes dynamics (Michael McDonald on Beato)

[AnotherScott]

Here's a really nice performance (both the playing and the singing).

 

 

[Outkaster]

I was disappointed with this interview. Not because of Michael or anything, but there wasn't any talk about influences, chord choices, or anything really that musical. I was surprised as I expected more.  He played maybe two times.  A lot of this interview was stuff most people know about him.

[Doerfler]

Didn't (probably won't) watch the interview, but agree with Scott about his singing and playing.. The Rhodes obviously is very well maintained, it has some type of aftermarket pre amp, I can't get a close enough view from this video to see which one it is. 

[jazzpiano88]

It was a poor interview, IMO.     The questions were disjointed and Mike seemed like he was falling asleep.   No interesting ground was covered and they spent quite a bit of time complaining about the state of the music business that everyone already knows about.  Rick seemed unprepared and the vibe was just really off.   Several minutes in he broke in abruptly, energetically asking viewers to subscribe because only a small percentage of viewers are subscribers. 
 

The gem was the above performance at the end of the interview, which was excellent.     

[tapes]

It was again one of those "classic Beato interviews" that is hyped up beyond belief in the comments...yet it was mostly McDonald talking. Beato didn't even get to ask about his classic solo album, If That's What It Takes (1982), with "I Keep Forgettin'" among many others. That album is like a who's who of L.A. session players. 

[GovernorSilver]

I enjoyed the interview fwiw.  

 

Beato doesn't let his guests play that much, so this interview was consistent in that regard.  

 

It did spark me to seek out interviews with Jeff Baxter, the guy who brought him into Doobie Brothers.  😎

[GovernorSilver]

Now this interview features a LOT more playing by McDonald.  I'm sure the difference here has a lot more to do with the format and setting (Musiclab hosted by Gerald Veasley vs. Rick Beato's operation).

 

 

[HammondDave]

Here we go again…. 
 

I watched it and enjoyed it.  I am always interested in human stories. And Michael’s story about his father hit my heart. My dad said the same things to me, and it made me cry. Much more interesting than chord voicings and song structure (that you hear about in many musicians’ interviews.). It was a very good balance (for a 1 hour 40 minute interview). 

[Dave Ferris]

I've probably mentioned this before at one point, we went to the same high school together. McCluer High, in the Ferguson/Florissant school district of St. Louis, Mo.. Mike was a year older then me and graduated in 1970.

 

I saw him often as a kid in four different bands. The first time I might've been 14 and he was in his first band of any note which was called, Jerry Jay and the Sheratons. They were playing on a flat bed truck in the parking lot of a local Dodge dealer as a celebration of their opening. The  band was very popular, they played all the "sock hops" and "Y-dances" at the area's grade and high schools. It was a large band, they had as many as six horns horns at times, all very straight laced looking, no long hair or hippie look, which was just starting to gain traction. In that sense, they appeared less threatening for all the Catholic school functions. They played mostly Soul music- Sam & Dave, Arthur Conley, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, etc.. They also threw in the token Top 40 hits of the day from groups like the Buckinghams and The Association.

 

They also played at a very popular teen club called the Castaway in Ferguson. A club that also had a group called "The Hour Glass" in their rotation, which featured Greg and Duane Allman. Pre-Allman Brothers.

 

As time went on, the whole Jerry Jay horns/suit thing became out of fashion with the kids and it was all the Hippie/Psychedelic crowd that started coming to the Castaway. Mike was in three bands - Del Rays, Blue and The Guild. No horns, mostly guitar driven except for Mike on his Wurlitzer EP. All groups had super high quality lead vocalists and harmony. While most bands of the time had turned to covering groups like the Moby Grape, Cream, Nazz, Beatles, Doors and the like, Mike was an anomaly singing Burt Bacharach/ Dionne Warwick hits like "Do you know the way to San Jose", "Always something there to remind me". The Del rays recorded the latter song with the Jerry Jay horns and was very popular on AM radio in STL. The photos in the video primarily show him in his Jerry Jay days with the suit.

 

 

From the Metro STL Live Music Historical Society, organized by my old friend, Drummer Greg Bishop, who painstakingly put this site together years ago.

 

The Blue's page. Which also features some live tracks from a reunion gig in 1988.

http://www.stlmusicyesterdays.com/Blue.htm

 

Jerry Jay & the Sheratons

http://www.stlmusicyesterdays.com/Jerry Jay.htm

 

The Guild

http://www.stlmusicyesterdays.com/Guild.htm

 

By the early 70's Mike and the Guild, like he mentioned in the interview, had hooked up with the Blytham Booking agency up in Champaign, Ill.. Like he also mentioned, the head agent there, Irving Azoff had took a liking to Mike , his voice, style and songwriting. Next we knew, Mike had moved to Ca.. Word filtered back he was starting to play with some big names. Through the close knit music community, we all heard about when he got the short lived Steely Dan gig and it was like he joined the Beatles or something. After that the whole thing just kept snow-balling for him-- Doobies, "what a fool believes", solo career. Definitely the ultimate local North County guy does good beyond belief scenario.

 

I enjoyed the interview myself.

[John Tweed]

What a voice! Nice Rhodes too. Who wouldn’t love to wake up one day and be able to sing like that? He came across to me as humble, human, a genuine nice guy. No,the interviewer didn’t ask every question we could come up with here. That’s not the idea of the interview.

 

If anyone can point me to their analysis of their own music (or anybody’s for that matter) written by Mozart, Beethoven or Bach, I’d love to see it. No, you can’t, because they were too busy just writing the music in the first place.

[ProfD]

Excellent interview. Especially for any musician who really wants to understand how the business works and the importance of relationships and networking and luck.😎

[AnotherScott]

On 3/9/2024 at 5:57 PM, Doerfler said:

The Rhodes obviously is very well maintained, it has some type of aftermarket pre amp, I can't get a close enough view from this video to see which one it is. 

Good catch. It has more bell than I'd normally expect, maybe it's a dyno? I've never played one IRL. I hadn't even though about the after-market aspect, I had only been thinking of the normal variation among the different Marks over time, most of which I have not played myself.  (Off-hand, I can only distinctly remember playing two actual Rhodes. One was a wonderful feeling model from the 60s, which sadly I did not own; the other was a terrible feeling model from the early 70s, which, sadly, I did.)

 

Getting back to the reason my subject line is what it is... Not having played a real one in so many years, it was nice to be reminded how naturally expressive a Rhodes can be, more so than many emulations. I was noticing how naturally the barkier tones seem to grow out of the quieter ones. The bark is not something that jumps out at you by simply coming in at full (or close to full) force once you pass a certain threshold, something we hear on many implementations of sampled velocity layers. His performance here nicely exhibits the natural dynamics of the board, as the bark comes in sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, but not jarring and always as a natural sounding outgrowth of his playing expressivity.

[jazzpiano88]

One thing that I thought was interesting was that it wasn't so much Michael enforcing his "new style of music" onto the DB, (contrasted with say Peter Cetera Foster w/ Chicago), but it was Michael instructing his band mates on how to play their parts that created the strife in the band.  The Doobies always had a mix of styles and Michael's contribution was a natural extension. 

 

It was nice to see Micheal regretting this aspect of his behavior, even though that would naturally be expected given his impact their later success. 

[GovernorSilver]

I've been on the receiving end of that type of band situation - where the songwriter gets more and more particular about how the song ought to be played by each instrumentalist.   In my case the songwriter was right most of the time.  😀  I don't quite have the creativity and skills of a Skunk Baxter.

 

Interesting story about how Tiran got him to record a demo of Losin End.

 

The interview inspired me to look more into Doobie history.  Baxter had them doing recording sessions for other artists like Carly Simon, to level up their musicianship.  Patrick Simmons seems to have written his most harmonically and rhythmically adventurous songs - eg. "Rio", "Living On the Fault Line", "Chinatown" around this time.  

 

I enjoyed their sitcom appearance

 

 

[zxcvbnm098]

I enjoy all of his interviews, and am surprised at the opinions to the contrary to be honest. 

 

Interviewing is hard stuff; I've interviewed Bill Clinton and Robbie Robertson to name a couple of bigger names, and I describe it like dancing with someone you don't know for the first time. You have to find the tempo and rhythm, and sometimes you don't quite get it as smoothly as you want. And sometimes the people you're interviewing just aren't in the right space for it for a variety of reasons? A lot of it can be out of one's control. And, if it's someone you admire, you have to check yourself sometimes and not show super enthusiasm and over-geek out. 

 

I think Rick has found a wonderful niche for himself (and us), and usually asks many of the same questions I would want to know from the various artists. It is a business, so he has to put his hand out a bit, but it could be a heck lot more annoying than it is. I've loved each and every one of his extended interviews, and I tip my hat to him for finding his niche and working hard to get these interviews down and out. Many of these folks will not be around for much longer, so there's a historical aspect to documenting these stories for all to see. 

 

Watching this, McDonald does have kind of a sleepy delivery when he's interviewed I've noticed, so this was par with what I've seen before. But the stories were great, and like Hammond Dave, I found the parts about his dad super interesting and really very touching. You can tell it was a complex relationship, as many can be with parents. 

 

And great to hear the St. Louis stories from Dave Ferris - fascinating as well. I never would have guessed it was him on the Bacharach tune; great singing for sure, but he didn't sound like "him", or rather the voice I associate with him starting in the 70's forward.