Doobie Brothers headline Lakewood Ranch Winterfest
Here's how long the Doobie Bothers have been making music together:
"I've been in the band for 36 years," John McFee said, "and I'm still the new guy."
The Doobies have gone through nearly constant membership changes, but when they perform at Lakewood Ranch this weekend they'll still have three prominent members that were with the band in the 1970s -- mutli-instrumentalist McFee, co-founding singer-guitarist Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, who's been playing guitar and singing with the band virtually since the beginning.
The Doobie Brothers will headline the second annual Winterfest on Saturday at the Premier Sports Campus in Lakewood Ranch.
Five acts are on the lineup for Winterfest 2015: jazz singer- guitarist Les Sabler at 1 p.m., former Bradenton resident and "American Idol" finalist Sam Woolf at 2:15 p.m., country stars Thompson Square at 3:45 p.m., classic pop-funk band War (featuring original keyboardist Lonnie Jordan) at 5:45 p.m. and the Doobie Brothers at 7:30 p.m.
Thompson Square consists of husband and wife Keifer and Shawna Thompson, who were working separately around Nashville until they teamed up musically. They have hit No. 1 on the country charts with "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not" and "If I Didn't Have You," both in the past few years. "We met the first week we came to Nashville," Keifer Thompson said. "We both came here, just by coincidence, the same week in 1996. We were struggling musicians working 10 jobs." Even after they married and people kept suggesting they work together, they were resistant for several years. But as soon as they started playing music together, they were a hit.
"Everybody has their own timeline," he said. "And ours was to hang around for 13 years before we got it going." The Doobie Brothers have plenty of hits to fill a show, and McFee said fans will get to hear most of their favorites.
"There are some songs that, I don't want to say we have to play them because we enjoy playing them," he said. "We're always going to play 'Listen to the Music,' 'Long Train Runnin,' 'Black Water.' Those are always going to be part of our shows."
The only hits that the Doobie Brothers don't do these days, he said, are most of the ones that Michael McDonald wrote and sang. That's largely because McDonald had such a distinctive voice that songs such as "What a Fool Believes" would be tricky to pull off.
"His voice was really part of the song," McFee said. "Kenny Loggins co-wrote that with him, but if I were Kenny I wouldn't want to follow Michael. And Kenny's a great singer."
The Doobie Brothers still perform and record with McDonald from time to time, McFee said, and he worked with the band on their latest album, "Southbound." The album has the Doobie Brothers performing some of their most popular songs, in new arrangements, with some of country music's biggest stars and session musicians. The Zac Brown Band plays with the Doobies on "Black Water." Sara Evans sings on one version of "What a Fool Believes," and Vince Gill plays guitar on another.
"The project kind of came out of left field for us," McFee said. "Someone suggested it to us and we said, 'Well let's see who we can get.' And it turned out that a lot of the Nashville artists, and the really successful, well-known Nashville artists, were eager to play these songs."
At Winterfest, McFee said, the band will try to "keep things fresh," but fans will hear the songs they love, played the way they love them.
"We try to give the people who come to our shows a great experience," he said. "A great Doobie Brothers experience."
Details: 1 p.m. Feb. 28, Premier Sports Campus, 5895 Post Boulevard, Lakewood Ranch. Tickets: $45 adults in advance, $60 day of show; $30 teens and veterans; $125 VIP. Information: 877-766-8161, lwrwinterfest.com.
Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919.
Follow twitter.com/martinclear.
This story was originally published February 26, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Doobie Brothers headline Lakewood Ranch Winterfest ."