Photo Credit: Clay Patrick McBride
The Doobie Brothers have announced the June 6, 2025, release of their forthcoming studio effort, Walk This Road, via Rhino Records. The hitmakers’ latest 10-track assemblage finds Michael McDonald rejoining the group, which featured Patrick Simmons, Tom Johnston, and John McFee in the studio and collaborative forces in the writing room. As a preview, the ensemble released two tracks off the set, “Walk This Road” and “Call Me.”
News of The Doobie Brothers’ impending full-length release arrives in tangent with members McDonald, Johnston, and Simmons’ status as 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame honorees.
Walk This Road came to fruition in the winter of 2024 with help from producer John Shanks, who assisted the players above in the songwriting process. Working one-on-one with Shanks, each participant found a way to assert their personality and unique style into the set, evoking Doobie’s signature personality-filled rock-informed compositions.
According to Simmons, pervasive themes of recovery and enlightenment appear across the tracks, “waking up to see the important things you’ve been missing,” he delineated via press release. The title track falls into the aforementioned motif, as it “embodies a sense of hope and togetherness, in terms of searching for the right path forward.”
The track features the esteemed soul sensation, Mavis Staples, “We all sang on ‘Walk This Road,’ that’s a different kind of track for us to do,” says Johnston. “I think it’s good to try to do things you haven’t done before, that’s the way it should be.”
Commenting on his own experience, McDonold imparted, “Getting back in with the guys and playing again is great. In my heart I’ve always been a Doobie Brother. We’ve all remained friends over the years. We’ve all been enjoying it tremendously, even more than we thought we would.”
Pre-orderWalk This Road. Scroll down to stream the initial singles from the impending release.
- Walk this Road” Featuring Mavis Staples
- “Angels & Mercy”
- “Call Me”
- “Learn to Let Go”
- “State of Grace”
- “Here to Stay”
- “The Kind That Lasts”
- “New Orleans”
- “Speed of Pain”
- “Lahaina”