Doobie Brothers explain what sparked their biggest hits

This is hard to believe: The core four of the Doobie Brothers, who have been together on and off since 1979, have never made an entire album together. Until now.

Different members — from cofounders Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons to later principals Michael McDonald and John McFee — have come and gone at various times from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band.

This summer, the Doobie Brothers delivered “Walk This Road,” on which the core four played on an entire album for the first time.

“It feels good,” said Johnston, who will lead the band to Mystic Amphitheater in Prior Lake on Sunday. “Having Mike on this one takes it to a different place. It’s kind of like a new talent, if you will, and what it sounds like. You get much more variety in the style because you’ve got Pat, Mike and myself doing the writing.”

Moreover, Grammy-winning producer John Shanks cowrote every song on the album — “a new way of doing things but it’s kind of fun,” Johnston said.

This year also saw Johnston, Simmons and McDonald inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame for their Doobie Brothers’ catalog including “What a Fool Believes” and “Black Water.”

“I didn’t see it coming and I don’t think any of us did,” Johnston said of the Songwriters Hall recognition. “It really was kind of humbling.”

“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is more about music and popularity,” Johnston said. “The Songwriters is more about the quality of tunes you’ve written.”

Since Johnston’s songwriting is in the spotlight this year, the Star Tribune asked him to discuss what sparked some of his best-known songs.

“That was during the Vietnam War period. I had been listening to this English philosopher speaking at San Jose State [University]. He was a utopian kind of guy and that song was utopian in nature. My whole idea was people needed music rather than politics to get along with other countries. Vietnam, China, the United States. Then I took that a little farther to people in general. If you’d just lighten up and have a good time, it was utopian. It seems to work. I’m amazed how long that song has hung in.”

“It was feel-good time. Footloose, fancy-free running around Santa Cruz Mountains is probably where it came from. I was describing living life at the time, I guess you could say. I had written the chord changes a couple years earlier. Lyrically, it got written in L.A.

“I had that song playing with a band called South Bay Experimental Flash before the [Doobies] band was happening. I don’t know that there’s any depth there. It was about having a good time, which was pretty important in those days. I didn’t have a lot of money but I had a great time.”

“The song had lots of different names. I think it was called ‘Parliament.’ We were playing that in 1970, ’71, ’72. We finally recorded in ’73. It gets a big audience response every time we play it.”

“I started it on acoustic [guitar] and I grabbed [drummer and housemate] John Hartman and we’d go downstairs where we used to practice. We cranked it up. I put the amp on 10 and blazed and he was pounding the drums really hard.

“It’s another track, which is not unusual for me, that didn’t have lyrics. The lyrics got written based on what Billy Payne was playing on piano. I made up this whole thing about the sheriff and samurai swords and that kind of stuff.

“Later on, after the song had been out, I was driving with a cab driver in Houston and he said: ‘How did you come up with China Grove?’ I said, ‘It was just a make believe song.’ He said, ‘There really is a China Grove, it’s just outside of San Antonio.’ I think what happened is I saw the road sign in ’72 when we were touring in Winnebagos. It’s basically nothing but an ice house and a feed store. That’s what that town is. It’s probably bigger now. I’ve never been in the town itself. I should.”

“I had it in a band I was in called Border Patrol in the ‘80s, and we [Doobies] didn’t record it until ‘87. We hashed out the chorus with Charlie Midnight and Eddie Schwartz. Eddie came up with the idea of the doctor. So we married that with lyrics and chord changes I already had and put on sort of a pop chorus, for lack of a better way to put it. It was still edgy and distorted and had a rock feel to it, but the chorus was kind of pop.”

When: 6 p.m. Sun.

Where: Mystic Amphitheater, 2400 Mystic Lake Blvd. NW., Prior Lake.