Master Class: Michael McDonald's Millennium

Michael McDonald's Millennium

Are great keyboard chops, a soulful voice, and stellar songwriting still an asset in this age of electronica? They are in Nashville, says the king of blue-eyed soul.

By Ernie Rideout
Music examples by Tim Akers

From his work with the Doobies to his own hit solo work, Michael McDonald keeps one thing constant: An unerring sense of what makes a great accompanying keyboard part. In the Juse 2000 issue of Keyboard, Michael talks about what inspires him at the keys, while his long-time associate, Tim Akers, provides the musical fireworks. Here are audio and MIDI files of Tim playing all the examples in the article.

AUDIO TRACKS

All Examples - MIDI Example 1 - MP3

Example 2 - MP3 Example 3 - MP3 Example 4 - MP3

Example 5 - MP3 Example 6 - MP3 Example 7 - MP3

As the producer of the Doobie Brothers, Ted Templeton had no small part in shaping the guitar-heavy pop landscape of the early '70s. Yet at the height of the Doobies' reign, Templeton recognized the immense potential of bringing a particular unknown singer/keyboardist into the Brothers' fold, thereby directing the band into uncharted musical waters. "When you hear talent like that," he said of his intuition about Michael McDonald, "who gives a damn?"

The decision to bring in McDonald to record Takin' It to the Streets arguably did as much to create the subsequent demand for keyboard-dominated pop as anything that came out of the L.A. hired-gun hit factories of that era. Heck, it may even have played a part in the popularity and relevance of a fledgling magazine called Contemporary Keyboard. McDonald penned and sang many of the tunes that propelled the Doobs to their Grammy-winning, multi-platinum years.

To say that McDonald is modest about his abilities is an understatement, however. Backstage at a star-studded special tribute concert in his honor this past January (co-sponsored by NAMM and Yamaha), he confided to Keyboard, "I feel that I've done absolutely nothing to deserve this. All these great artists I'm onstage with tonight are people I've often thought about over the years. I've always wished I could thank them."

On hand to offer their own musical gratitude for McDonald's contribution were collaborators and admirers such as Kenny Loggins, Ray Charles, the Doobie Brothers, Steve Winwood, Toto, Christopher Cross, and Patti Labelle. The house band contained no slackers, either: Steve Gadd and Alex Acuna on drums, Nathan East on bass, and Tim Akers as musical director, to name just the foundation. And in typical McDonald fashion, he kicked butt on keys.

"I don't consider myself much of a keyboard player," he says, in spite of the evidence to the contrary. "I think of myself as a songwriter who picks up little things from guys I admire. I always fantasized about being a session guy, but that never materialized. A lot of what I do is to try to simulate what a bass player would play along with what a guitar player might do. I've always enjoyed when people can actually play a melody and accompany themselves at the same time. That escapes me totally. And there used to be a bounty on my head from most synth manufacturers in the early days of my career. I depended on hired guns like Bill Payne to make my records sound good with synths. The running joke in my own group of guys was, 'Whatever you do, don't let him near a synthesizer. Don't let him touch that envelope.'"

McDonald's writing style is distinctive as well, due in part to his approach to the keyboard and to his affinity for gospel music. "My chord progressions seem unusual to guys who play a lot," he explains. "They're kind of unresolved [see Example 1, below]. Some guys find them awkward to play, and I find that interesting. In terms of the end result, I think the audience picks up on the fact that the progressions are odd, and they like that. I know as a kid, I loved it when somebody would throw me a curve, chordally. At least with my writing, I hope people find that it's fresh.

"I usually have to search for that suspended sound. It's funny, people always talk about the intro to 'Takin' It to the Streets' as it being kind of a strange thing [see Example 2, below]. But to me, it was just totally traditional gospel. I wrote the intro in my car, driving to a club gig. I heard the chord in my head, but I wasn't sure what it was. I was hoping the tones would still be in my head by the time I got to the gig, so I could find them. I wasn't sure it really existed until I sat at a piano and found it.

"That's why I enjoy writing songs, especially with that suspended feeling. They make a statement without resolving. I've always kind of copped that from my favorite writers. For me, it's a product of listening to all those Carole King records, and all that Burt Bacharach stuff, like 'The Look of Love,' where the intro is this beautiful ethereal chord, with a bass note that doesn't let on what key the song is in."

Syncopation and a three-against-two feel are also commonly heard in classic McDonald keyboard parts. Some of this comes from his gospel roots, and some of it comes from the unique instrumentation of the Doobies. "Because we had two drummers in the Doobies," he reveals, "it was fun for us to kind of mess it up rhythmically. We liked that rolling groove that wasn't quite 4/4 and not 12/8. Sometimes when we superimposed those meters, it implied more than what was really going on. At that time, everything was four on the floor, and we had a certain aversion to that. We strove to mimic the old R&B records, like when Stevie Wonder would sit down and play with the studio drummer, and this great loose groove that would come about." See Examples 3-7 below.

McDonald explains his move to Nashville five years ago with the kind of self-effacing humility you'd expect: "I thought I'd get down there and learn a little something about songwriting," he says. "I've always written songs, but I always felt like, 'I wish I did this more, and concentrated on it.' But there's a rudimentary fact of being a musician and performer: Life on the road takes up a good chunk of your time and energy. Writing is like spending time with your kids: It's easy for it to get put on the back burner. So I hoped that by moving there I'd become one of those day-in, day-out songwriter guys.

"But I'm so lazy, you know," he jokes. "When I moved to Nashville, I had wanted to write during the day and spend the first hour practicing the piano, and to make it a habitual regimen. But I'm finding that at this point in my life I'm not very good at habitual regimens. [Laughs.] Being on the road and just kind of winging it hour to hour and day to day for so many years, I'm not much of a creature of habit. So I find that hands-on experience is really my practice. Making up my mind what to do on the spot is what pretty much what I do.

"When I wrote songs in the past," he continues, "I was always trying to simulate a bass line to give a more rhythmic feel to things. It really took me away from learning more about chords. I would come up with musical ideas in the context of a broader arrangement. A lot of times, I'd be tapping my feet -- I was always kind of tap dancing and playing at the same time -- to simulate a kick drum and snare. I wanted to get an idea of how it would feel for the band to play the tune.

"These days, I try to make the demo stage the first step to recording the finished song. It depends on the song and what happens during that initial performance. A couple of things on my latest release [Blue Obsession, on Ramp Records, the label that McDonald started with actor/performer Jeff Bridges] were basically just the demos that we had cut with a drum machine. We brought in a live drummer to finish it up. For some reason, those performances just felt good, and I wanted to keep them."

Blue Obsession is packed with brooding lyrics, deep grooves, and great keyboard playing. Although much of it is played by collaborators, it's all done on vintage gear. "I played acoustic piano, Wurly, and Rhodes," said McDonald of the gear that came from partner Tommy Sims's collection. "Tommy's incredible. He travels with his own instrument museum. He has practically every guitar, every amp, and every keyboard ever made. So we had a veritable warehouse of stuff available.

"The best part of this job," he offers before heading onstage, "is that you're always remaining a student, whether it's learning about people and show business, or learning about music and playing with other musicians. That's the part I enjoy most, even more than learning about music itself: I enjoy learning about the art of communing with other people."

Ex. 1. Michael McDonald's chord voicings characteristically involve slash chords and chromatic bass movement. This progression is from "Open the Door," from Blue Obsession. "I like chords that sound unresolved," he says. Superimposing a chord over the root of a chord that's a fifth below it, as with the C below the G chord here, gives the listener an impression of a missing third -- the recipe for a suspended sound. Ex. 2. One of Michael's most famous slash chord licks is the opening to "Takin' It to the Streets," from the Doobie Brothers album of the same name.

Ex. 3. Want to sound like Michael McDonald right away? (His keyboard parts, anyway -- you're on your own as far as singing goes.) As you see from this example, syncopated diminished 7th pickups will put you partway there. "It's just as important to leave certain things out," says Michael. "Pick up the rhythm with your left hand. It sketches out the groove and implies what's happening. If I kept playing everything in both hands, there wouldn't be any room for you as a listener to fill in the blanks. I find that when I syncopate more, I can leave a lot more out."

Ex. 4. Michael has the Richard Tee two-fisted gospel style wired. To do this successfully, you've got to think like a conga player -- you're very rarely hitting your right and left hand at the same time. Instead of slapping a drum, you're playing chords. Another McDonald trademark: the major third of the chord in the bass with a minor third in the right hand, as in bar 2, beat 3.

Ex. 5. Here's another up-tempo gospel groove with plenty of McDonald contrary motion and syncopation.

Ex. 6. Here you go, Doobie fans. On the recording, "Minute by Minute" fades in over this intro. The only way to figure it out is to count backwards from the beginning of the groove -- and we know you'd rather just be playing it. "Minute By Minute," by Michael McDonald and Lester Abrams. © 1978 Snug Music & Loresta Music. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.

Ex. 7. Michael's ballad style is idiosyncratic as well. This is similar to his piano part for "I Can Let Go Now," from his first solo record, If That's What It Takes.

A selected Michael McDonald Discography

As a solo artist:
Blue Obsession (Ramp Records)
Sweet Freedom: The Best of Michael McDonald (Warner Bros.)

With the Doobie Brothers:
Takin' It to the Streets (Warner Bros.)
Livin' on the Fault Line (Warner Bros.)
Minute by Minute (Warner Bros.)
One Step Closer (Warner Bros.)
Long Train Runnin': The Doobie Brothers 1970 - 2000 (Rhino)

TIM AKERS is a Nashville session keyboardist, songwriter, and arranger. He's performed on records by Michael McDonald, Faith Hill, Peter Cetera, Barry Manilow, the Neville Brothers, Billy Ray Cyrus, and many others.

Photo courtesy of Yamaha

AUDIO TRACKS
All Examples - MIDI		Example 1 - MP3
Example 2 - MP3	Example 3 - MP3	Example 4 - MP3
Example 5 - MP3	Example 6 - MP3	Example 7 - MP3