Rock band releases 2 songs from first new album with core lineup in 50 years

A classic rock band has released two new songs from their upcoming album that will feature its core lineup for the first time in 50 years.

The Doobie Brothers released “Walk This Road” (featuring Mavis Staples) and “Call Me” on Wednesday, both from their forthcoming album “Walk This Road.” The album will feature the band’s current lineup, including co-founders Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston with Michael McDonald and John McFee.

“We all sang on ‘Walk This Road,’ that’s a different kind of track for us to do,” Johnston said in a statement. “I think it’s good to try to do things you haven’t done before, that’s the way it should be.”

Simmons said last month that he, Johnston and McDonald wrote 10 new songs for the album together, including the 2023 single “Lahaina” (featuring Mick Fleetwood). The full album will be released June 6 on LP, CD and digital streaming services.

“We had a lot of fun recording it and we feel very proud of the results. John McFee added his incredible musical talents as well. Once more we turned to the amazing John Shanks who produced, wrote, and played on the tracks with us,” Simmons said.

It will be the first album of new music featuring McDonald, Simmons and Johnston since “Takin’ It to the Streets” was released in 1975. Johnston left the band in 1977 and McDonald left in 1982, though they reunited with the Doobie Brothers in later years.

The Doobie Brothers are a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group known for hits like “China Grove,” “Listen to the Music,” “Long Train Runnin’,” “Takin’ It to the Streets,” “Black Water” and the Grammy-winning “What a Fool Believes.” The band released its last album, “Liberté,” in 2021, but the upcoming release will be their first full album with McDonald since “One Step Closer” in 1980 (though he also sang backing vocals on several tracks for 2014′s “Southbound”).

The Doobies launched a 50th anniversary reunion tour in 2021 that stretched through this past year, stopping at the Syracuse amphitheater and Upstate Medical University Arena at the Onondaga County War Memorial along the way. 2025 tour dates have not yet been announced, but the band appears to show no signs of slowing down.

“A lot of people will be like, ‘Oh god you want to be out, die on the road?’ Well, why not? It’s as good as going anywhere else,” the 76-year-old Simmons told syracuse.com with a laugh in 2022.

“The dream of getting up there and rockin’ onstage, that was all kind of what we idealized as kids, and here we are, as old guys, still living it,” he added. “And probably we’ll go down living it, because that’s what we are.”