Stampede is the fifth studio album by American rock bandThe Doobie Brothers. The album was released on April 25, 1975, by Warner Bros. Records. It was the final album by the band before Michael McDonald replaced Tom Johnston as lead vocalist and primary songwriter. The album has been certified gold by the RIAA.
Recording and content
Stampede showed the band diversifying elements of their sound more than ever before, combining elements of their old sound as well as country-rock, funk and folk music. Many guest musicians contributed on the album including Maria Muldaur, Ry Cooder and Curtis Mayfield. This was the first album featuring Jeff "Skunk" Baxter as a full-fledged member of the band. He had previously played on a couple of songs as a guest on the two previous albums and toured with the band prior to this one. The first and most successful single released from this album was "Take Me in Your Arms " on April 23, 1975, a classic Motown tune written by the legendary songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Tom Johnston had wanted to record the song for several years. "I thought that would be a killer track to cover," he said. "It's probably one of my favorite songs of all time. I thought our version came out great." The next single, released on July 8, 1975, was "Sweet Maxine" which was more akin to the Doobie Brothers' earlier hits style-wise. "Pat wrote the music to this and I wrote the words, " Johnston recalled. "And Billy Payne had a lot to do with the sound of the song, because of his incredible keyboard playing." The track stalled at #40 on the Billboard charts. The third and final single was Patrick Simmons' "I Cheat the Hangman", released November 12, 1975. It is a somber outlaw ballad that was inspired by the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. "It's about a ghost returning to his home after the Civil War and not realizing he's dead," said Simmons about the song. The album version of the song is a progressive rock-style composition ending in a twisted collage of strings, horns and synthesizers made to sound like ghostly wails. "We'd cut the track, and we kicked around how to develop the ending-I thought about synthesizers and guitar solos. Ted got to thinking about it, and he ran it past Nick DeCaro for some orchestration ideas. 'Night on Bald Mountain' by Mussorgsky really inspired the wildness of the strings, and Nick came up with the chorale thing at the end." The ambitious "I Cheat the Hangman" only managed to reach #60 on the music charts. "Neal's Fandango" was inspired by the Santa Cruz mountains and was an homage to Neal Cassady, Merry Pranksterbus driver and former Jack Kerouac sidekick in On The Road. It was occasionally played on San Francisco Bay Areaclassic rock station KFOX "K-FOX" because of the Doobie Brothers' South Bay roots.
