Take Me In Your Arms

Last Friday while I was waiting in the drive through line at the bank, the Sirius Soultown channel played a song that I recognized but could not place for nearly three minutes. The same song was done by the Isley Brothers and then the cover that lurked in my memory, the Doobie Brothers. It is interesting how songs translate from one genre to another, can be so different, and yet both so good.
In 1976 I saw the Doobie Brothers play this song in a general admission concert, was able to get all the way to the stage about three feet from Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, sitting in that chair playing is heart out. Backup bands that day were Firefall and The Marshall Tucker Band. The guitarist earlier had played with Steely Dan, and later brought Michael McDonald from that band to the Doobie Brothers. After the Doobie Brothers faded from being a lead act, Jeff Baxter became a defense consultant, specializing in missile systems.

Getting back to that 1976 concert, I remember very well see a man smoking a 'doobie' who had a 5th of whiskey in his back pocket. A policeman walked up, told the man that it was against the rules to have glass bottles in the arena and took the whiskey away. The 'doobie' went on burning. Times were different then.