The Captain and Me

The Captain and Me is the third studio album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers, released on March 2, 1973, by Warner Bros. Records. It features some of the band's most popular songs, including "Long Train Runnin'", "China Grove" and "Without You". The album has been certified 2× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was voted number 835 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).^[8]

The Captain and Me
Studio album by The Doobie Brothers
Released	March 2, 1973
Recorded	1972–73
Studio	Warner Bros. Studios, North Hollywood, California
Genre	Country rock boogie rock hard rock
Length	41:53
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Ted Templeman
The Doobie Brothers chronology
Toulouse Street (1972) The Captain and Me (1973) What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (1974)
Singles from The Captain and Me
"Long Train Runnin'" / "Without You" Released: March 28, 1973 "China Grove" / "Evil Woman" Released: July 25, 1973

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[2]
The Great Rock Discography	7/10[3]
MusicHound Rock	2.5/5[4]
Record Collector	[5]
Rolling Stone	(favorable)[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[7]

Recording and content

There was pressure on the band to move quickly and to save time they began reworking old tunes.^[9] One of Tom Johnston's songs, "Osborn", had been an improvisational piece that the band played live. After laying down the track, according to producer Ted Templeman, "We still really didn't have it, and I said, 'Make it about a train, since you have this thing about 'Miss Lucy down along the track.' So he came up with "Long Train Runnin'."

Synthesizers and strings were brought in to record The Captain and Me. Synth programmers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff were brought in to engineer the opening track, "Natural Thing". Striving for a synthesized sound like that of The Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", they would overdub individual notes to create chords for the song's bridge.^[10]

"Dark Eyed Cajun Woman" was a bluesy track (one of the band's earliest) and seen by Johnston as a tribute to the blues and B.B. King. "South City Midnight Lady", while being about South San Francisco, is not about any woman in particular. Jeff Baxter of Steely Dan played pedal steel guitar on the track. He would become an official Doobie Brother in 1974. Cecil and Margouleff also added the synthesized effect of a woman whispering at the end.^[10]

"Clear as the Driven Snow", according to Johnston, is a warning about recreational chemical abuse, which reflected the band members' lifestyles at that time.^[10]

The second side of the album opens with the rocker "Without You". This song, like many others, had begun as a jam. "That song had both drummers playing at the same time," Johnston stated. "It was kind of a tribute to The Who. We did it in concert for quite a while."

Patrick Simmons' short solo guitar piece "Busted Down Around O'Connelly Corners" is followed by "Ukiah", which Johnston wrote in tribute to the area. Johnston said, "We played a few shows in Ukiah, and I used to camp out a lot in the area when I was going to college." The song's back-to-the-land sentiments also reflected some of his feelings at the time, although he admitted he probably couldn't make it as a farmer. This track segues into the album closer and title track, "The Captain and Me". According to Johnston, the captain is no one in particular and the lyrics were written at the last minute and have no real meaning. The song was released as a single in the Netherlands and received some airplay there. Ron Blomberg recalled he and Yankee captain Thurman Munson liking the song for its positive message "about people coming together to change things for the better," describing the song as having "pretty cosmic" words, and named his book about Munson after this song.^[11]

Surround releases

The album was originally released in Quadraphonic sound on the CD-4 Quadradisc system and also on Quadraphonic 8-track tape. The album was also released in 2002 remixed into 5.1 multichannel DVD-Audio,^[12] and on 14 September 2011, on hybrid stereo-multichannel Super Audio CD by Warner Japan in their Warner Premium Sound series.^[13]

Artwork

The artwork found on the front and back of the album features the band, including manager Bruce Cohn, dressed in 19th century western garments and riding a horse-drawn stagecoach beneath an incomplete freeway overpass. "All that stuff came from the Warner Bros. film studios lot," Tom Johnston said. "It must've been a lot of work for the guys who brought up the horse team and the carriage and the clothes. It was fun to do—they had coffins out there, all kinds of crazy stuff." The photography was done by Michael and Jill Maggid. The setting for the cover was located at the Newhall Pass interchange of the Interstate 5 and California State Route 14 freeways near Sylmar, California, the incomplete bridge featured being one that partially collapsed during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. This same section of freeway would collapse again during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.^[10]

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
1.	"Natural Thing"	Tom Johnston	Tom Johnston	3:17
2.	"Long Train Runnin'"	Johnston	Johnston	3:25
3.	"China Grove"	Johnston	Johnston	3:14
4.	"Dark-Eyed Cajun Woman"	Johnston	Johnston	4:12
5.	"Clear as the Driven Snow"	Patrick Simmons	Patrick Simmons	5:18

Side two

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Vocals	Length
6.	"Without You"	John Hartman, Michael Hossack, Johnston, Tiran Porter, Simmons[nb 1]	Johnston, Simmons	4:58
7.	"South City Midnight Lady"	Simmons	Simmons	5:27
8.	"Evil Woman"	Simmons[nb 2]	Simmons	3:17
9.	"Busted Down Around O'Connelly Corners"	James Earl Luft	Instrumental	0:48
10.	"Ukiah"	Johnston	Johnston	3:04
11.	"The Captain and Me"	Johnston	Johnston	4:53

Personnel

The Doobie Brothers:

• Tom Johnston – acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica on "Long Train Runnin'", ARP synthesizer, lead and backing vocals
• Patrick Simmons – acoustic and electric guitars, ARP synthesizer, banjo on "The Captain and Me", lead and backing vocals
• Tiran Porter – bass, backing vocals
• John Hartman – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Michael Hossack – drums, congas, timbales

Additional players:

• Bill Payne – piano on "China Grove", "South City Midnight Lady" and "Ukiah", organ on "Without You", electric piano on "Dark Eyed Cajun Woman"^[14]
• Jeffrey 'Skunk' Baxter – pedal steel guitar on "South City Midnight Lady"
• Ted Templeman – percussion, backing vocals on "Without You"^[15]
• Nick DeCaro – string arrangements on "Dark Eyed Cajun Woman", "South City Midnight Lady" and "Evil Woman"
• Malcolm Cecil, Robert Margouleff – ARP synthesizer programming on "Natural Thing", "Clear as the Driven Snow", "South City Midnight Lady" and "Ukiah"

Production

• Producer: Ted Templeman
• Production Coordination: Benita Brazier
• Engineer: Donn Landee
• Design: John Casado, Barbara Casado
• Photography: Michael Maggid, Jill Maggid
• Art Direction: Ed Thrasher

Charts

Chart (1973–74)	Peak position
Canada (RPM)[16]	10
New Zealand (RIANZ)[17]	12
US (Billboard 200)[18]	7

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[19]	Gold	20,000^
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

1. Bruce Eder. "The Captain and Me - The Doobie Brothers". AllMusic. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
2. Larkin, Colin (2007). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
3. Strong, Martin Charles (2002). "The Doobie Brothers". The Great Rock Discography. The National Academies. ISBN 1-84195-312-1.
4. Asakawa, Gil (1999). "The Doobie Brothers". In Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (second ed.). Detroit: Visible Ink Press. p. 356. ISBN 1578590612.
5. Paul Rigby. "The Captain & Me - Record Collector Magazine". Record Collector. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
6. Bud Scoppa (1973-05-10). "The Doobie Brothers: The Captain & Me". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2007-10-01. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
7. Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 253. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
8. Colin Larkin (2006). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 259. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
9. Leviton, Mark. "The Doobie Brothers' 'The Captain and Me': Polishing a Diamond" (REVIEWS: ALBUM REWINDS). The Doobie Brothers. BEST CLASSIC BANDS. Retrieved November 6, 2021.
10. "Old Black Water Keep on Rollin': 30 Years of the Doobie Brothers". Long Train Runnin': The Doobie Brothers 1970–2000 (CD Booklet). Warner Bros. Records. 1999. p. 20. 75876.
11. Blomberg, Ron; Epstein, Dan (2021). The Captain and Me. Triumph Books. pp. 133–134. ISBN 9781629378541.
12. dvdtalk.com review of The Doobie Brothers’ The Captain and Me DVD-Audio
13. (in Japanese) Warner Premium Sound 14 September releases Archived 2011-08-13 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
14. "The Captain and Me by The Doobie Brothers". Classic Rock Review. February 21, 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
15. Templeman, Ted; Renoff, Greg (2020). Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life in Music. ECW Press. p. 178. ISBN 978-1770414839.
16. "RPM Search Engine" (PHP). Library and Archives Canada. March 31, 2004.
17. "The Doobie Brothers" (ASP). New Zealand Charts. Hung Medien. Retrieved June 28, 2011.
18. "The Doobie Brothers Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
19. "Was It Any of These Men?" (PDF). Cash Box. February 28, 1974. p. 51. Retrieved November 15, 2021 – via World Radio History.

Notes

1. The album package credits this song to "The Doobie Brothers" rather than to the individual band members. This group credit is also used for the song on Best of The Doobies even though the band's lineup had changed by that time. The live album Rockin' Down the Highway: The Wildlife Concert credits the song to Johnston only.
2. Early LP copies credit this song to "The Doobie Brothers." This is corrected on later copies of the album.