One Hit No More, No. 107: Stealing Away with Robbie Dupree

Quite possibly wishing he was elsewhere.

Hold on. Putting on my sailing cap…though something about it doesn't feel right...

The Hit
There’s a better than fair chance that even the people who know 1980’s “Steal Away” think somebody besides Robbie Dupree recorded it. God knows someone else did. When he heard it, a music writer for the Los Angeles Times named John D’Agostino ripped it as a “blatant, wimpy rip-off of the Michael McDonald/Kenny Loggins’ composition ‘What a Fool Believes’”; the Washington Post flagged similarities in Dupree’s vocal style and the backing keyboards. McDonald didn’t give a shit, apparently, but his publisher flirted with a lawsuit for theft.

If you toggle back and forth between “Steal Away” and “What a Fool Believes” over and over again - as I’m sure D’Agostino and McDonald publishers did - yeah, the similarities in the backing keyboards come through. But the vocals?

Once you expand to the song as a whole - i.e., include the thicker (better) bass on “What a Fool Believes,” or the way the musical elements in “Steal Away” play together, while McDonald’s tune has more contrasts and oppositions - you get what the critics heard, basically, all the way down the “wimpy,” but Dupree’s slipped in some nice touches - e.g., the big, twanging strings that dominate the bridges, the way the song fades in as if you’re waking up to it. You don't have to love it, but give it credit for having a different mood.

The song came out of nowhere - and it took a minor miracle for it to go anywhere further than Dupree’s head - but he did not.

The Rest of the Story
As just about anything you read or hear about Robbie Dupree points out, you’d think he was from anywhere but Brooklyn. Born Robert Dupuis in 1946, he grew up and went to school much like anyone else - i.e., he didn’t have any immediate household influences - but he loved music, especially soul/R&B artists like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye and played from an early age. When he made the decision to take a swing as a working musician, Dupree moved north to Woodstock, New York - which, as he regularly points out, was not the sight of the famous/infamous 1969 rock festival. In a 2018 retrospective on PopMatters, Dupree recalled his Woodstock:

One Hit No More, No. 96: Tom Johnston, A Doobie Ducks Out Mid-Toke

Not flattering, but definitely rock 'n' roll.

The Hit
“Savannah Nights” open with bare-naked percussion - bongos (I think), definitely a snare, some quick taps on a hi-hat (toms?) - until a percussive rhythm guitar comes in, then horns, then a full standard rock ensemble takes over and it’s off to the races. When the vocals start, you’re pretty sure you know that voice…

…and, if you’re a fan of 1970s Bay Area rock, you do. Shit, how do I approach this one?

The Rest of the Story
“It’s not what I grew up doing and where I came from. So I just said, ‘You know, go ahead and do your thing. That’s cool. I’m gonna go do mine.’ That’s kind of where I left it until such time.”

That’s Tom Johnston, founder, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for the Doobie Brothers talking about his bad luck, yet brief departure from the band that made him pretty damn famous. And that’s the rub with this chapter of the One Hit No More series: whenever someone talks to Johnston, pretty much all they talk about is the Doobie Brothers. Johnston more or less backed into his solo career and it didn’t last that long, at least not on the studio side. He recorded just two albums - 1979’s Everything You’ve Heard Is True and 1981’s Still Feels Good - and I’ve already covered half the story of his solo career with that one quote.

Talking about the rest of it requires talking about the Doobie Brothers, but I can only do that for so long without going against the animating presence of this series - i.e., learning and writing about one-hit wonders. “Savannah Nights” was Johnston’s one hit as a solo artist - and that only reached No. 34 on the Billboard (in 1980, for the record). That’s not to say the Doobies charted high or often - they didn’t, not for all the materail they put out - but they have legacy (e.g., “China Grove,” “Listen to the Music,” and “Long Train Running”) that stretches toward iconic, if mostly for their era (I know; the Doobies 2.0 had some hits of their own). They also have the kind of longevity that most bands can only dream of. As such, this post covers only how he got started and how his solo career came about, because it’s pretty much all Doobies on either side of that.