The Very Best Of The Doobie Brothers (2007 CD Set)
Sound:
B- Music: B
Beginning
back in 1970, The Doobie Brothers quickly became one of the top touring and
recording Rock bands in the business, with its mix of Rock, Blues, Country and
Pop. The band eventually became
identified with Michael McDonald when he became their most prominent lead
singer, but they held together until 1983.
With producer Ted Templeton, they had a critical and commercial run few
band ever see. The 1988/1989 reunion had
some commercial success, but was not the same and the band folded again. 1991 and 2000 saw new releases, but they did
not work out either. However, The Very Best Of The Doobie Brothers is
a new CD set from Rhino that tries to highlight it all.
The hits
and favorites across two CDs include include:
Listen To The Music
Jesus Is Just Alright
Rockin' Down The Highway
Long Train Runnin'
China Grove
South City Midnight Lady
Another Park, Another Sunday
Eyes Of Silver
Nobody
Black Water
Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me)
Sweet Maxine
I Cheat The Hangman
Takin' It To The Streets
Wheels of Fortune
It Keeps You Runnin'
Little Darling (I Need You)
Echoes Of Love
What A Fool Believes
Minute By Minute
Depending On You
Real Love
One Step Closer
Wynken, Blynken and Nod
Keep This Train A-Rollin'
Here To Love You
You Belong To Me
The Doctor
South Of The Border
Need A Little Taste of Love
Dangerous
Rollin' On
Ordinary Man
That
samples 12 studio albums, but running here in a chronological order, it does
not always seem logical. After Minute By Minute, they start to become
lax and their version of the Carly Simon hit You Belong To Me (which Simon and McDonald co-wrote) seems more
like the end of an era. They never find
their voice again and McDonald went on to a solo career that was briefly
interesting, then a disaster with endless (and endlessly poor) Motown covers.
There is
no doubt that Listen To The Music, Jesus Is Just Alright, Rockin' Down The Highway, Long Train Runnin', China Grove, Black Water,
Takin' It To The Streets, It Keeps You Runnin' and What A Fool Believes are inarguably
great singles and the band deserved the critical and commercial success they
got, but this expanded version of previous hit sets seems superfluous and
painful as you get to the second CD. So,
it should still sound great, right?
Wrong! The PCM 2.0 16 bit/44.1kHz Stereo is tinny,
tiny and even compressed to some extent throughout the two CDs. You would think we would get better transfers
form the master tapes, but this all sounds second or third generation and is
the kind of set that makes the quarter-century CD format seem older. Even the newest tracks suffer from this.
If you
can find them, you would be better off getting the old 24K Gold CD of the 1976 Best Of set or if you can find it, get
the best Doobie Brothers disc on the market.
In 2001, Warner and Rhino issued the hit 1973 album The Captain & Me in the higher fidelity DVD-Audio format. One of the best albums issued by anybody in
the now-fading format, it featured a DVD-Video side that offered the album in
Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, but the DVD-Audio side offered the album in the
MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) format.
This advanced PCM format is easily decoded by equipped players and
offered 192 kHz/24 bit MLP 2.0 Stereo and 96 kHz/24 bit MLP 5.1 mixes. It was also a rare disc that offered one side
per format and was even reissued.
Now out
of print, its stunning audio performance shows further proof that the wrong
materials were used for this CD set.
Skip this set and look for those and other audiophile editions of the
band’s music instead.
- Nicholas Sheffo
