{"product_id":"the-doobie-brothers-southbound","title":"SOUTHBOUND","description":"Audio Mixer: Justin Niebank.\nRecording information: Blackbird Studios; House of Blues Studios; Little Big Room, Burbank, CA; Lizard Rock Studio, Santa Ynez Valley, CA; Loud Recording Studio; Morningside Studios, Marin County, CA; Q Room; Southern Ground, Atlanta, CA; Starstruck Studios; The Troutfarm.\nPhotographers: Greg Watermann; Jim Shea; Huey Lewis; Mike King; Ben Enos; Michael Griffith; Lawrence Boothby; James M. Rink; David Gossard.\nA throwback to the golden age of star-studded tributes, the Doobie Brothers' 2014 Southbound essentially follows the same playbook as the Beach Boys' 1996 album Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1: team up a classic rock band with a bunch of contemporary country stars to sing the hits everybody knows and loves. Where Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1 was an uneasy fit -- the Beach Boys are many things but a country band is not one of them -- Southbound feels smooth and natural, possibly because nobody involved dared to mess much with the original arrangements, a move that underscores how this is very much a record where singers are sitting in with the Doobies and not the other way around. Whenever there's a flash of modernization, it is minimal, as on the light decorative rhythmic loops and mandolin samples on \"Listen to the Music,\" where Blake Shelton takes co-lead with Tom Johnston as Hunter Hayes lays down some beefy guitar. Johnston and Patrick Simmons dominate Southbound because their songs lend themselves better to country singers; they're either driving rockers or backwoods-inflected boogie, settings that are comfortable for neo-jam bands (Zac Brown Band, \"Black Water\"), swaggering cowboys (Toby Keith, \"Long Train Runnin'\" and Chris Young, \"China Grove\"), modern-day strummers (Jerrod Niemann, \"South City Midnight Lady\"), and arena country heroes (Brad Paisley, \"Rockin' Down the Highway\"). That said, the three Michael McDonald tunes -- \"What a Fool Believes\" (Sara Evans), \"Takin' It to the Streets\" (Love and Theft), \"You Belong to Me\" (Amanda Sudano Ramirez, featuring Vince Gill on guitar) -- all feel at home because this is a Doobie Brothers album, after all, and they've long ago found a way to reconcile the two sides of their musical personality. If there isn't much reinvention to be found on Southbound, that's fine: the record was meant as an open-hearted celebration of the Doobies' biggest hits and that's precisely what it delivers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGenre: Country\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFormat: CD\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eReleased: 11\/04\/2014\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"The Doobie Brothers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44588543017193,"sku":"DWFCJU-YD5Q-00","price":17.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0654\/3523\/8633\/files\/the-doobie-brothers-southbound_vFrPv.jpg?v=1758787535","url":"https:\/\/www.vibinvinyl.com\/products\/the-doobie-brothers-southbound","provider":"Vibin' Vinyl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}