Jesus is Just Alright (1973)

Performer: The Doobie Brothers                          Writers: Arthur Reid Reynolds
Highest US Chart Position: #35                            Label: Warner Brothers
Musicians: Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, Tiran Porter, John Hartman and Michael Hossack

While The Doobie Brothers would seem like the last group to be involved in the Jesus Movement, their version of the song “Jesus is Just Alright” not only became an anthem for the movement but wound up cracking the Top Forty pop chart in early 1973. The group had no religious inclinations at all, but had begun performing the tune on the strength of a version recorded by The Byrds that appeared on their album Ballad of Easy Rider in 1969. Roger McGuinn and company had, in turn, begun performing the song after drummer Gene Parsons had heard it recorded by the original artists, The Art Reynolds Singers, in 1966. The Byrds released their version on a single that made it onto the Hot 100 in February of 1970 but then disappeared the following week. The Doobie Brothers’ version was heavily based on that version and is something of an anomaly in their repertoire of the time. For my taste, they were one of the triumvirate, along with The Eagles and America, of what I had labeled country-rock. Of course, they were nothing of the kind, but with Patrick Simmons in the band bringing in the acoustic fingerpicking, that’s where I categorized them. This song, on the other hand, was pure soul, which is ironic considering that is a genre they would become associated with when Michael McDonald joined the group a few years later.

The song begins with a one-beat pickup on the drums before the splash of a cymbal on the downbeat, with John Hartman pounding a straight ahead backbeat on the snare and banging away at the bell of the ride cymbal on every beat. A tambourine doubles the cymbal while Michael Hossack’s congas weave in an out of the beat creating some very intricate patterns by the end of the intro. Then the wordless vocals come in singing the distinctive melody of the song that ends with Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons’ guitars on one and two of the next two measures. From there the ascending lead guitar, doubled by the Tiran Porter’s bass, takes the group into the chorus. The second time around, the chorus melody has different words and leads back into the wordless vocals of the intro, but this time with guitar hitting and then sliding at the end of each phrase. Then it’s once more around the chorus, but with the organ of Bill Payne punched up in the mix and a final held note that feels like the finale of the number. Instead, the drums come in again, playing half time, with an organ wash in the background and fingerpicked guitar fills by Simmons. Then Simmons launches into a sanctified wail, telling everyone that Jesus is his friend, which leads into his searing guitar solo followed by the organ holding as the Leslie speaker spins everyone into the final chorus.

The signature moment in the song, however, is middle break, something that was not part of the Byrds’ version and wholly an invention of the Doobie Brothers. In an interview with Tom Johnston he says that the idea came from the organist on the session, Bill Payne, former pianist for Little Feat and studio session man in L.A. Besides the horn section, Payne was the only other outside musician to play on the Toulouse Street LP from which the single was pulled as well as the B-side, “Rockin’ Down the Highway.” I don’t remember hearing the song in 1973. My introduction to it came a few years later. I will never forget sitting in a doctor’s office sometime around 1976, flipping through an old copy of The Saturday Evening Post. What made it so unforgettable is that I remember being surprised at the time that the magazine was still being published. Anyway, there was an article in the magazine about Jesus Music and I remember reading with fascination about this song by The Doobie Brothers. I was naturally familiar with all of their huge radio hits but didn’t know this tune and so I immediately went out and bought a copy of The Doobie Brothers Greatest Hits and was enthralled. “Jesus is Just Alright” may have only reached number 35 in the charts in February of 1973 but it is a powerful song by a great band in the prime of their career.