[Image: cover of The Doobie Brothers’ 1973 album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. (Click to enlarge.)]

A few days ago, as I walked through the living room, The Weather Channel was on TV. The Missus asked, “Have you seen the weather? In the Philadelphia area, I mean? Black ice.” Preoccupied, I said, “Jeez,” and shook my head, and kept on going. But the damage had been done: the phrase had set a hook in my head, where — of course! — it immediately triggered a skein of associations.

I know, I know — “black ice” simply describes the appearance of the ice, not the ice per se. I know, okay? Black ice does not come from black water.

But that’s where my mind went. And then the mental needle jumped into this song’s groove, where it has stayed.

And did I mention, this was days ago?

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When The Doobie Brothers first started to record, I had no idea who they were. In fact, I didn’t pay much attention to them at all until ten years later, when they churned out a string of hit singles with Michael McDonald on vocals.

I did like McDonald’s distinctive voice. Plus, practically every woman I knew thought he was the bee’s knees. It had something to do with the white hair (which, sadly, never earned me any groupies of my own).

All of which said, I did know this song. McDonald wasn’t with them yet, but even allowing for the absence of his voice I’d never have guessed it to be the same band. This piece just sort of choogles loosely along, in a softer Creedence Clearwater Revival vein vs. the later “blue-eyed soul” stuff.

And the suddenly a capella refrain, repeated over and over down towards the end, sticks utterly in the head — days, years, decades later…

The album on which it appeared (pictured above) — the Doobies’ third — seems these days to be widely dismissed: not particularly interesting. But “Black Water” was the band’s first #1 hit, and I’ve never heard or read anything to suggest it shouldn’t have been.

Songwriter Patrick Simmons, says Wikipedia, was inspired by New Orleans to write the song:

A lifelong aficionado of Delta blues, Simmons would state: “When I got down there [to New Orleans] it was everything I had hoped it would be… The way of life and vibe really connected with me and the roots of my music.” Having earlier constructed the song’s basic guitar lick, he completed “Black Water” on the basis of the experience of his introduction to New Orleans: the lyrics Well if it rains, I don’t care — Don’t make no difference to me/Just take that street car that’s goin’ uptown specifically reference a streetcar journey Simmons made on a rainy day to the Garden District in Uptown New Orleans to do his laundry.

An alternate theory batted about on the theory-rich Internet asserts that the song pays tribute specifically to Mark Twain, specifically to Huckleberry Finn — sometimes adding that the novel is one of Simmons’s favorites. Romantic, hmm? And convenient. Thanks, Internet, but I’m stickin’ with the rainy-day laundry version. (See the note below for more about Simmons.)

Interestingly, “Black Water” was not at first released as a single, but as the “B” side of a song called “Another Park, Another Sunday.” According to one of the original Doobies, Tom Johnston, airplay of “Another Park” suffered because of a line which said, “Radio brings me down” — leading DJs, out of loyalty to their medium, to simply flip the record over and play the B side instead. This strikes me as (again) convenient, marginally believable 20/20 hindsight, as folklore, almost. I don’t think the song needs any external excuses for its popularity; once played, it almost demands replay. All the ingredients are right there, stuffed inside: a lyric which, while not particularly complex, fits with precision into the melody and the complex, shuffling rhythm; that a capella touch, apparently improvised in the studio; and a couple of kicking solos, especially on the violin.

[Below, click Play button to begin Black Water. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:15 long.]

[Lyrics]

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Note: “Black Water’s” lyrics were used as a sort of pegboard wall on which those of another band’s other, later, and very different song were hung: 2009’s “I Got You,” by Train:

[Lyrics]

The Doobies’ Patrick Simmons thus received partial songwriting credit for “I Got You,” too.

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