Blackwater means just that. The lakes and rivers of most of the southeast are blackwater. The waters down here are a dark, silty black. It's because of the tannins from the trees and undergrowth that live in and immediately around our water systems.
I was raised in south-southeast North Carolina. We had what the old folks called "fresh water" streams and creeks (pronounced cricks) and the "black water," which was the swamps.
No double entendres here. The Moon is shining on the dark water of the Mississippi River. The river boats have big paddle wheels on them for a way to push them down the river. The Honky Tonk is where you go to dance to Dixieland music in New Orleans. They have a lot of them and you can walk from one to another.
The Doobie Brothers was my stepdad’s favorite band. I got the call that he had passed away while I was at work. During the drive home Black Water came on my iTunes and it broke me. I had to pull over to have a good cry and listen to the rest of the song. RIP Dad.
It's the Mississippi river, and a honkytonk is commonly defined in the early 1900's as a "low" dancehall/saloon, with loud raucous music ... and patrons.
Boy BP, got that 100% wrong in the end. It was about just what it was about, the Mississippi River, the moon shinning down making the water look black, New Orleans and going to a honky-tonk, dancing, drinking and having a good time on the bayou,
PLEASE BP, do their banger awesome song, "JESUS IS JUST ALRIGHT WITH ME" next!! You cannot keep still, you have to be dancing, tapping a toe or wiggling to the beat in your chair and singing along at the very least, to that song about Jesus! 🙏❤ 💃🎸🎵🇺🇲
Several weeks into basic training in the summer of 1978 we were being moved on buses. Someone started singing the end of this song, and before you knew it people were singing each of the parts as loud as we could. It was a brief moment of spontaneous joy I’ll never forget.
"Patrick Simmons wrote and sang lead on "Black Water" while the band was in New Orleans. Simmons was a fan of Delta blues and had previously visited New Orleans for a Doobie Brothers gig in 1971. The Doobie Brothers' song "Black Water" is about the Mississippi River and the South, and is inspired by Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. "
That was a viola (bigger than a violin but smaller than a cello) 😁Patrick Simmons wrote and sang lead on this one and he was obsessed with New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta. The song was his tribute to the place and lifestyle! Thanks BP! Fun Fact: song was originally released as a “B” side to another single but was re-released as a single because it was so popular and it became a #1 hit!❤️🔥✌🏻🫶🏻
There was a renaissance of music in the 70's & 80's, Eagles, Doobies, Journey, Kiss, Police, Genesis, Ozzy, Foreigner, Little Rive Band, Chicago, REO, YES, Bad Company, Aerosmith, ELO, CARS, Steve Miller, Styx....... its an endless list.
It’s talking about the Mississippi River… it’s romanticized from Mark Twains vision … the books Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn where they float down the river …the band also liked how it would be raining in Louisiana with the sun still shining bright. … they also liked the French Quarter … they’d hit up the bars and clubs and they’d be playing “Dixieland”
Love this by Doobie Brothers. 🔥❤️ The Mississippi flows down to New Orleans where Dixieland music is played in honky tonks (bars). He even talks about the street car in NOLA. ❤
I'm from New Orleans, as a kid mom would take me out to the French Quarter and we'd go sit on the dock of the Missisippi river at midnight and watch the tug boats and stuff come in and they'd open the big bridge...and she'd sing this song....RIP Mom. :)
@@michellemccall6511 :) If you ever had Cafe Du Monde donuts then you know the spot right where they park the big paddle boats...so you smell donuts....and of course I had donuts, that place is 24/7 open air , best place to people watch in the world.
Love the Doobie Brothers, they are/were a local Bay Area band Some of the greatest tunes from the 1970's. I saw this pop up and jump right on over. I haven't heard this song in a very long time. Still know the lyrics. Anything Doobie the best..... ❤
@@rdecker62 OK, I'll give you that the band started in San Jose... However, I lived in Marin County during their Hay Day and Tim Johnston one of the co-founders moved to Marin. In fact he still lives there. So we also claimed them as a local band. Lol. Hell they were good no matter where they lived. ❤️ Yes, weren't we blessed with such incredible musicians all around us. Did u ever go to the Day's on the Green concerts?
This is an one that I automatically turn the radio up when it comes on. This and China Grove are my favorites. I was lucky enough to see them do this in concert and this song and Jesus is Just Alright are two songs that get better live.
Patrick Simmons, the one member of the band to go through all the different lineups of this group, wrote and sang lead on this gem. Still sounds great 50 years later.
This was released when I was in high school, and the ending is what drew everyone in at the time. I remember everyone loving it, with the ending coming up often in discussions.
One of the best Doobie Brothers songs to me! My sons used to make fun of us cause when we'd have a party or hear this on the radio...they wanted to know why it was necessary for all of my age group to stop everything, turn up the music and all of us sing harmony to this song until it was over before returning to whatever we were doing. 😅😅😅Old Blackwater is referring to the Mississippi River as are the paddle wheel and catfish jumping. Honky tonk is not a dance but a type of dance hall, bar or jook joint. It's always referring to working class dives where loud, raucous music was/is played. One of the theories of the origin of the name is that it came from the type of piano that was played in these places. They were manufactured by the William Tonk & Bros Company and had tacks attached and were modified to make a more percussive sound to the piano music, and was louder and had rhythmic tinny sounds. They also made player pianos that didn't require a pianist. Nowadays they refer more to what you'd call a hole in the wall, and playing loud, rowdy country western or southern rock type music. They've always been up and down the Mississippi and around New Orleans but they have them all over the country. Apparently started on the Mississippi and expanding to the west and even had them during gold rush times. Honky-tonks were referred to as far back as the mid-1800's... it's hilarious to me that my sons in their late thirties now stop everything and join us in singing it!
You can never go wrong with a Doobie Brothers song. China Grove, What a Fool Believes, It Keeps You Runnin', Takin' It to the Streets, and my favorite Listen to the Music are all great.
This is a great song - and it turn into a round! The harmony of this is phenomenal. Doobie Brothers BEFORE Michael McDonald joined. (He has a very soulful voice, very smooth)
According to Online Entomology In 1889 Honk Tonk seems to be the name of a particular theater, and the Marshall, Texas, "Messenger" of May 27, 1892, mentions the "Honk-E-Tonk district" as "the most disreputable part of town."
Get into that funky Dixieland music. Absolutely my favorite Doobie Bros. song, and that's saying a lot. Being in the back waters of the Mississippi river on a raft or small boat and listening to nature all around. Then getting out to socialize, dance, sing, drink, and just have a good time.
Years ago, this song came on the radio in my car. Just before the breakdown, the DJ comes on and says, “fords, take the high parts, chevys, take the bass, dodges and foreign cars, find some place to chime in”. I laughed good at that one.
oh, yes...here we go!!!...this song had a HUGE resurgence in the late 80's and I have no idea why but I remember hearing it all the time in high school!
They did this during covid from their own homes and that guys voice is just as good.They also were back for people to donate to ones going through hard times then. Cheers from Sydney. Take care
Blackwater is the most laid back cool song! My 2nd favorite though is along that line, but is just plain beautiful, called "SOUTH CITY MIDNIGHT LADY". I hope you will do that pretty song soon!! (It's my 2nd favorite of the Doobies after "Jesus is Just Alright" which I just literally begged for in a comment below. Thanks BP for this and all the great reactions! 💃🎸🎵🇺🇲
Been diggin' this since it came out Feb. 1974. Slow, deep water with lots of tannin in the content (Mississippi River - it's in the lyrics). It's called a fiddle when the violin is played that way. It's celebrating New Orleans - don't read too much into it. Honky-Tonk is a bawdy Texas-Okie style Hick-bar/saloon where loud music is played. If you dance IN one, I suppose it's a dance - but nobody ever called it a particular dance like a waltz or polka or fugue or jig or square. I was told long ago that 'Honky' comes from the nasal tones of southern and hill dialects. This is earlier Doobies, before Michael McDonald joined. Another early classic from The Doobs is CHINA GROVE (Texas, NOT the Orient).
Love Love Love this song. So many cool elements. The wind chimes, the viola, how brings that funk knees out in his voice and the near the end where they start singing a cappella and they're all singing something different and I don't want the song to end. They have a bunch of cool stuff.
Love The Doobie bros. China Grove and South city midnight lady are my personal favorites. Please check out April Wine...Roller extended version 🙏. Great reaction and Peace out ☮️ ✌️ 🙏
One of my favorite songs. Takes me right back to junior high. I'm not a huge Doobie Brothers fan, but I sure love this one. I think you overthought this. It's just about relaxing and partying near or on the Mississippi.
They're so fantastic in concert, had the pleasure of seeing them in the 80's and again in a BBQ Roundup in Cedar Rapids Iowa in the late 90's at an outdoor concert 💙
When it comes to listening to music from this generation, I highly suggest listening to the studio versions first! Not because they aren't as good live, they just perform the songs very differently sometimes! I grew up listening to The Doobie Brothers, and they were actually the first band I took my boys to see! Also, I just noticed that u haven't done anything by Little River Band! Check out Reminiscing! It's one of my favorite songs ever!
I'm happy you liked this one. This song was written by Patrick Simons. This is another group that had so many song writers. It is a fun one to watch live because the audience gets into it and sings the end with them .... At least at the concerts I was in attendance. Thanks for listening to this BP - one of my favorites.
@chelseahaley2350. Doobie Brothers are great, but I really love LRB. That is with original lead singer, Glen Shirrock. Not that the newer guy was bad, but it just didn't seem as good. Also, I know some say that reactors should.listen to original records/recordings before watching bands perform, but I think watching LRB really makes you see and feel the vibe between them when they're harmonizing and performing together..
I grew up in SSE NC and we had swamps around our farm. If we gave him a solid morning of working on the farm, Papa Wildon (my great uncle who raised me) would let my cousins and me run loose. I can still hear Mama Keith yelling, "Y'all stay out that blackwater! Ya hear me!?!" She was referring to the swamp near our tobacco farm. It was full of gators, snapping turtles, cottonmouths, and ragged cypress stumps just looking for a foot to priece. But that cool water under those shady cypress trees was more than any kid could resist on a hot summer afternoon. We ran barefoot through that blackwater and lazed across fallen tree trunks. Between the critters looking to un-alive us, the nastiness in that water looking to infect us, and Mama Keith looking to whop us when we got home, I'm not sure how any of us made it past 12! This song always brings back those days of innocence.
Listening to The Doobie Brothers reminded me one of my favorite groups, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show." I see you haven't listened to them yet. A good place to start is with either "Cover of the Rolling Stone,' "Only Sixteen," "A Little Bit More." or "Sylvia's Mother." They have great discography. If you're in the mood for humor, then listen to "I was Stoned and I Missed It."
My favorite song by the Doobies. A honky tonk is like the country version of a juke joint. It's a hole in the wall establishment in the middle of nowhere for the locals to drink, shoot pool, and listen music.
A Honky Tonk is just an old run-down bar where people come to dance to country music. That was a cool observation on "Black Water" being "Moonshine". My mom was a huge Doobie Brothers fan so I heard a lot of their music growing up. Love Black Water!!
My first ever concert at 16 was Doobie Brothers and ZZ Top. I really didn't know their music at the time, but the concert was incredible. The music was amazing, and I immediately became a fan. They had the audience sing along to this song, and it was so much fun, because everyone was singing together. I learned the lyrics that night at the show, and it brings back such great memories every time I hear it still today.
A Honky-Tonk was originally a Piano played in variety shows in Texas in the late 1800s. It was called a Honkey-Tonk because it generally had horns attached for appropriate sound effects for the show, so you had the Honkey part coming from those horns and the Tonk from the piano keys, particularly if you hit a key that was damaged, and that was often as they were not kept in the best repair. After the variety shows (think of the theatre scene in Tombstone) lost their popularity, the disreputable bars and dance halls bought them at a discount due to the poor repair history. Honky-Tonk the musical style developed out of that disrepair. Since these pianos were not very well taken care off, they were often out of tune or missing keys so the musicians would use them as a rhythm backup as opposed to a harmony or melody... basically figure out which keys work and just hit those. That style survived through Ragtime in the early part of the 20th century and were eventually made a part of early country music. The bars that played that style of music to dance to became known as Honky-Tonks as well.
TO GO WITH THAT MISSISSIPPI PARTY THEME: Listen TO "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain. It has that sexy strut... Yeah, i gotta agree. In Black Water, he is singing about the Mighty Mississippi and the paddlewheelers (aka steamboats, tallstacks) on the river. There is still an ongoing love of those nostalgic boats traveling along rivers - especially the Mississippi. There are numerous festivals along the riverways, where both antique and newly built paddlewheelers congregate. Lots of bands playing along the river walks, with the bigger festivals having 25+ paddlewheelers. You can sign up for cruises with each boat having a theme: beer tasting, murder mystery, wine tasting, etc. I used to go to Tallstacks in Cincinnati, OH along the Ohio River. There were boats from as far away as our southern coastline states. And there are river cruises on especially large ships, with some even stopping through festivals on their routes. Paddlewheeler racing, too. Sorry long winded - just making a point that there is a love of river travel and on a night with clear skies and a full moon, those silvery shards of moonlight dance across that black water. Good times and parties to be had.
Think of a Honky Tonk like a Juke Joint. Out on the edge of town or a little farther out. Only live music. Usually a guitar, a fiddle and someone beating on a drum. Just a casual place to get a drink and dance. Pretty much a southern thing, and a lot of them have been saved and still bring in bands. I love, love, love this song. It is always on my summer patio list. Just chillin and relaxing.
When I hear this song I'm a teenager again working at our local ice cream parlour. We had a radio in the kitchen and we would call our local radio station and request this song all the time. Good memories!
"Black Water" is also my favorite Doobie Brothers' song and I am excited to hear your reaction. I love the call and response between the viola and the guitar in the middle and the way they fade out the music at the end and then fade it back in. I also love the title track "Toulouse Street" from this album which is a great song with a haunting melody and a wonderful recorder solo by Patrick Simmons in the middle. For anyone who doesn't know, a recorder is a type of flute.
He is talking about the Mississippi River and about a raft that is ready to float in the beginning of the song. You missed the line, "Well if it rains, I don't care, don't make no difference to me, we'll take that street car that's going up town. Yeah, I like to hear some funky Dixieland (Funky jazz music) and dance the honky tonk (bar), and I'll be buying everybody drinks all around." It helps to pull up the lyrics. Sometimes, what you hear is exactly what it is, especially on these old 70s tunes. The song lyrics are quite literal in this one.
Try looking at Boots Randolph. He was from the prohibition era. He was a saxophone player. I don't remember if there was any lyrics in his stuff, I was just caught up in his sax music. Listen to yakety Sax. I don't know if he has any videos. He I saw him at his club to in "Bottle Alley" in xxxx Tennessee
I love all of the Doobie’s music, but this is probably my favorite. It just conjures up images of a real warm sultry, lazy summer day - laying in the grass - and for some reason makes me crave jambalaya! (LOL!) This song is so perfect, from the harmonies to the double-lyrics being sung at the same time to the back and forth fiddle-play…it is real ear-candy. I LOVE this song! You’re right - it just has a way of making your calm down and feel relaxed.
My favorite Doobie Brothers song. Black water just means the Mississippi River. They're simply celebrating New Orleans.
Mine too. Actually one of my all time fave songs in general.
More than New Orleans, the entire Mississippi River region.
WHO DAT NATION
WE LUV OUR NOLA ROOTS
BORN AND RAISED NOLA !!!
Mine as well
Blackwater means just that. The lakes and rivers of most of the southeast are blackwater.
The waters down here are a dark, silty black.
It's because of the tannins from the trees and undergrowth that live in and immediately around our water systems.
Almost fifty years later and this song never gets old!
WOW seems like just yesterday
Still makes me dance, even if just in my chair.
@@KarlaElaine100 It came out in 74 I think. That was the year I graduated from high school. Fifty years ago. I can’t believe I am that old!
"China Grove" is a fantastic song! Oh, all the memories....
LOVE CHINA GROVE. ❤❤❤
My favorite 😊❤
TOTALLY AGREE!
China Grove is the bomb! The live video version though.
Black Water is the silty, muddy water that floats down the Mississippi that settles in the delta
I was raised in south-southeast North Carolina. We had what the old folks called
"fresh water" streams and creeks (pronounced cricks) and the "black water," which was the swamps.
No double entendres here. The Moon is shining on the dark water of the Mississippi River. The river boats have big paddle wheels on them for a way to push them down the river. The Honky Tonk is where you go to dance to Dixieland music in New Orleans. They have a lot of them and you can walk from one to another.
Oh my god sometimes a banana is just a banana. Smh
The Doobie Brothers was my stepdad’s favorite band. I got the call that he had passed away while I was at work. During the drive home Black Water came on my iTunes and it broke me. I had to pull over to have a good cry and listen to the rest of the song. RIP Dad.
Sorry for your loss
Doobie Brothers great band in my day
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Bless
That’s your dad…telling you he’s just fine…never doubt it.
It's the Mississippi river, and a honkytonk is commonly defined in the early 1900's as a "low" dancehall/saloon, with loud raucous music ... and patrons.
Right. Not just a bar, but a bar with live music and dancing. Don't believe there was ever a dance called honky tonk.
Boy BP, got that 100% wrong in the end. It was about just what it was about, the Mississippi River, the moon shinning down making the water look black, New Orleans and going to a honky-tonk, dancing, drinking and having a good time on the bayou,
Yeah sometimes he reads a little bit too much into the simplest of songs lol
PLEASE BP, do their banger awesome song, "JESUS IS JUST ALRIGHT WITH ME" next!! You cannot keep still, you have to be dancing, tapping a toe or wiggling to the beat in your chair and singing along at the very least, to that song about Jesus! 🙏❤ 💃🎸🎵🇺🇲
I agree great song, he needs to do it.
Several weeks into basic training in the summer of 1978 we were being moved on buses. Someone started singing the end of this song, and before you knew it people were singing each of the parts as loud as we could. It was a brief moment of spontaneous joy I’ll never forget.
"Patrick Simmons wrote and sang lead on "Black Water" while the band was in New Orleans. Simmons was a fan of Delta blues and had previously visited New Orleans for a Doobie Brothers gig in 1971.
The Doobie Brothers' song "Black Water" is about the Mississippi River and the South, and is inspired by Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. "
Thank You!! BP does love to go off on his crazy theories! He trippin'!
@candacemay7187 ❤️❤️❤️
This is my favorite Doobie Brothers song!! I was in Junior High School when it was released. I’ll soon be 64 years old.
I'll be 64 to amszing song
Same! Just turned 64. This is my youth
Just turned 63, they came out to Australia just in time for my 21st...best present ever, and just like it was yesterday...best of days were ours!
@ You’re so right
Turned 63 this summer, and yeah, a great song from the day.
That was a viola (bigger than a violin but smaller than a cello) 😁Patrick Simmons wrote and sang lead on this one and he was obsessed with New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta. The song was his tribute to the place and lifestyle! Thanks BP! Fun Fact: song was originally released as a “B” side to another single but was re-released as a single because it was so popular and it became a #1 hit!❤️🔥✌🏻🫶🏻
That's what I thought. A viola. Thanks.
He wrote this while riding on a street car in New Orleans on St. Charles Ave. My favorite Doobie song
A.J. Croce does a great song about St Charles, called Texas Ruby.
There was a renaissance of music in the 70's & 80's, Eagles, Doobies, Journey, Kiss, Police, Genesis, Ozzy, Foreigner, Little Rive Band, Chicago, REO, YES, Bad Company, Aerosmith, ELO, CARS, Steve Miller, Styx....... its an endless list.
"China Grove" is a must !! Black water is a favorite , on the radio a lot as a kid singing in the back seat ...great memories.
It’s talking about the Mississippi River… it’s romanticized from Mark Twains vision … the books Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn where they float down the river …the band also liked how it would be raining in Louisiana with the sun still shining bright. … they also liked the French Quarter … they’d hit up the bars and clubs and they’d be playing “Dixieland”
In the south when it's raining while the sun still shines we say, The devils beatin his wife.
Love this by Doobie Brothers. 🔥❤️
The Mississippi flows down to New Orleans where Dixieland music is played in honky tonks (bars). He even talks about the street car in NOLA. ❤
The Doobie Brothers... one of the coolest rabbit holes you can go down. You really need to take that dive.
He is singing about the Mississippi River!
I'm from New Orleans, as a kid mom would take me out to the French Quarter and we'd go sit on the dock of the Missisippi river at midnight and watch the tug boats and stuff come in and they'd open the big bridge...and she'd sing this song....RIP Mom. :)
What a beautiful memory.❤️
@@michellemccall6511 :) If you ever had Cafe Du Monde donuts then you know the spot right where they park the big paddle boats...so you smell donuts....and of course I had donuts, that place is 24/7 open air , best place to people watch in the world.
Black Water and China Grove are my top favorite Doobie Brothers songs. I never tire of them.
China Grove love it!
Growing up in the 70’s…love it!!
Honky Tonk - where the booze flows, bands jam & people dance
Amen
@TrianglesAndCircles
A fun watch , Doobie Brothers on What's Happening TV show .. Vid is on Utube.
@chickeastwater9883 Thanks! Just watched the episode or the part of it with "Takin' it to the Sreets". That was amazing.
@@TrianglesAndCircles
Classic TV rewind , has both episodes one Viddy.
I watched it , last night.
Its about bootlegging the Doobies.
LoL
mississippi moon keep on shining on.the black water because its nightime.water looks black..
Don't overthink it, just the Mississippi River.... we used to burst out the end of this song in the hallways in college! Great memory!!
Love the Doobie Brothers, they are/were a local Bay Area band Some of the greatest tunes from the 1970's. I saw this pop up and jump right on over. I haven't heard this song in a very long time. Still know the lyrics. Anything Doobie the best..... ❤
I’m from San Jose and we considered them our own but there was so much good music coming out of the bay at that time.
@@rdecker62 OK, I'll give you that the band started in San Jose... However, I lived in Marin County during their Hay Day and Tim Johnston one of the co-founders moved to Marin. In fact he still lives there. So we also claimed them as a local band. Lol. Hell they were good no matter where they lived. ❤️
Yes, weren't we blessed with such incredible musicians all around us. Did u ever go to the Day's on the Green concerts?
@ I never did but my sister went. First concert was Journey 1981 at the Cow Palace with Loverboy opening.
This is an one that I automatically turn the radio up when it comes on. This and China Grove are my favorites. I was lucky enough to see them do this in concert and this song and Jesus is Just Alright are two songs that get better live.
I have loved this sing since it came out. I can't hear windchimes without singing a verse in my head. Glad you finally heard it.
The Mississippi River is black at night. River boats have paddles that thump on the water and usually have live music. It's a New Orleans thing.
Doobie Brothers, another great one ........
Patrick Simmons, the one member of the band to go through all the different lineups of this group, wrote and sang lead on this gem. Still sounds great 50 years later.
Love this song. Doobie Brothers always bring the goods.
This was released when I was in high school, and the ending is what drew everyone in at the time. I remember everyone loving it, with the ending coming up often in discussions.
One of the best Doobie Brothers songs to me! My sons used to make fun of us cause when we'd have a party or hear this on the radio...they wanted to know why it was necessary for all of my age group to stop everything, turn up the music and all of us sing harmony to this song until it was over before returning to whatever we were doing. 😅😅😅Old Blackwater is referring to the Mississippi River as are the paddle wheel and catfish jumping. Honky tonk is not a dance but a type of dance hall, bar or jook joint. It's always referring to working class dives where loud, raucous music was/is played. One of the theories of the origin of the name is that it came from the type of piano that was played in these places. They were manufactured by the William Tonk & Bros Company and had tacks attached and were modified to make a more percussive sound to the piano music, and was louder and had rhythmic tinny sounds. They also made player pianos that didn't require a pianist. Nowadays they refer more to what you'd call a hole in the wall, and playing loud, rowdy country western or southern rock type music. They've always been up and down the Mississippi and around New Orleans but they have them all over the country. Apparently started on the Mississippi and expanding to the west and even had them during gold rush times. Honky-tonks were referred to as far back as the mid-1800's... it's hilarious to me that my sons in their late thirties now stop everything and join us in singing it!
Yes! The type of piano. They had a that different sound to them, that was fun.
@@julieCA58yes! I have an old piano that has honky tonk mode.😅
u just can’t find talent like this anymore. Incredible song writing and harmonies. Always one of my favorite DB songs
Awesome group awesome song great reaction ❤
You can never go wrong with a Doobie Brothers song. China Grove, What a Fool Believes, It Keeps You Runnin', Takin' It to the Streets, and my favorite Listen to the Music are all great.
This is a great song - and it turn into a round! The harmony of this is phenomenal. Doobie Brothers BEFORE Michael McDonald joined. (He has a very soulful voice, very smooth)
I have this on an original release album and I play it on my 50+ Yr old Tube amp. It sounds soooo goooood.... Love this song. Masterpiece.
According to Online Entomology In 1889 Honk Tonk seems to be the name of a particular theater, and the Marshall, Texas, "Messenger" of May 27, 1892, mentions the "Honk-E-Tonk district" as "the most disreputable part of town."
My first concert was doobie brothers with Pablo cruise with my older brother Pete!! I think I was 14!! I will never forget it!!❤️
Get into that funky Dixieland music. Absolutely my favorite Doobie Bros. song, and that's saying a lot. Being in the back waters of the Mississippi river on a raft or small boat and listening to nature all around. Then getting out to socialize, dance, sing, drink, and just have a good time.
Years ago, this song came on the radio in my car. Just before the breakdown, the DJ comes on and says, “fords, take the high parts, chevys, take the bass, dodges and foreign cars, find some place to chime in”. I laughed good at that one.
oh, yes...here we go!!!...this song had a HUGE resurgence in the late 80's and I have no idea why but I remember hearing it all the time in high school!
Because it’s a great song!
They did this during covid from their own homes and that guys voice is just as good.They also were back for people to donate to ones going through hard times then.
Cheers from Sydney. Take care
One of my favorite Doobie Brothers song, saw them in 76 with Lynyrd Skynyrd opening, great show, great reaction.
So glad you got to this one. Just the smile on your face...this song just make you feel good.
Had a honky-tonk piano back in the 70s and I just loved it, right up till the moment that my husband sold it, big mistake, huge💔
Blackwater is the most laid back cool song! My 2nd favorite though is along that line, but is just plain beautiful, called "SOUTH CITY MIDNIGHT LADY". I hope you will do that pretty song soon!! (It's my 2nd favorite of the Doobies after "Jesus is Just Alright" which I just literally begged for in a comment below. Thanks BP for this and all the great reactions! 💃🎸🎵🇺🇲
One of my favorite songs of all time... (Having grown up along the Mighty Mississippi river...)
Doobies! ❤ One of my absolute favs since the 70’s….and they STILL can rock! They are so good❣️
The music of my youth. Ahh the memories. I have had the pleasure of seeing them live. This is a band that is even better live.
Doobie Brothers - BEFORE Michael McDonald and AFTER Michael McDonald are BOTH great= love the band in both its incarnations
No, after McDonald, they were just his back-up band.
Been diggin' this since it came out Feb. 1974. Slow, deep water with lots of tannin in the content (Mississippi River - it's in the lyrics). It's called a fiddle when the violin is played that way. It's celebrating New Orleans - don't read too much into it. Honky-Tonk is a bawdy Texas-Okie style Hick-bar/saloon where loud music is played. If you dance IN one, I suppose it's a dance - but nobody ever called it a particular dance like a waltz or polka or fugue or jig or square. I was told long ago that 'Honky' comes from the nasal tones of southern and hill dialects. This is earlier Doobies, before Michael McDonald joined. Another early classic from The Doobs is CHINA GROVE (Texas, NOT the Orient).
"Clear as The Driven Snow" is a Doobie Masterpiece not to be missed.
My favorite DB song! Always reminds me of being 15 at the roller skating rink! Good times!
Love Love Love this song. So many cool elements. The wind chimes, the viola, how brings that funk knees out in his voice and the near the end where they start singing a cappella and they're all singing something different and I don't want the song to end. They have a bunch of cool stuff.
Love The Doobie bros. China Grove and South city midnight lady are my personal favorites. Please check out April Wine...Roller extended version 🙏. Great reaction and Peace out ☮️ ✌️ 🙏
One of my favorite songs. Takes me right back to junior high. I'm not a huge Doobie Brothers fan, but I sure love this one. I think you overthought this. It's just about relaxing and partying near or on the Mississippi.
They're so fantastic in concert, had the pleasure of seeing them in the 80's and again in a BBQ Roundup in Cedar Rapids Iowa in the late 90's at an outdoor concert 💙
I always enjoy the live takes the sound may not be great, but the performances are. I like watching the musician magic with their instruments. ✌🙏
When it comes to listening to music from this generation, I highly suggest listening to the studio versions first! Not because they aren't as good live, they just perform the songs very differently sometimes! I grew up listening to The Doobie Brothers, and they were actually the first band I took my boys to see! Also, I just noticed that u haven't done anything by Little River Band! Check out Reminiscing! It's one of my favorite songs ever!
LRB absolutely! Maybe try 'lonesome loser'? Great harmonies in that one.
I'm happy you liked this one. This song was written by Patrick Simons. This is another group that had so many song writers.
It is a fun one to watch live because the audience gets into it and sings the end with them .... At least at the concerts I was in attendance.
Thanks for listening to this BP - one of my favorites.
Definitely Little River band!!!!!
@chelseahaley2350. Doobie Brothers are great, but I really love LRB. That is with original lead singer, Glen Shirrock. Not that the newer guy was bad, but it just didn't seem as good. Also, I know some say that reactors should.listen to original records/recordings before watching bands perform, but I think watching LRB really makes you see and feel the vibe between them when they're harmonizing and performing together..
Little River Band and Reminiscing… Definitely hit!
I listened to this when it first came out on a quadraphonic system. Had it turned up, shaking the room. Thanks, Mr. Houston.
My first concert back in the 80's. Joe Walsh opening for the Doobie Brothers.
Black water is
The muddy Mississippi River.
The Doobies were rocking it out long before Michael joined them and mellowed them out.
I love the Doobie Brothers...every time I hear them I remember when they were on the show What's Happening,,,,anyone else?
"Which Doobie may you be?" - classic!
My absolute favorite Doobie Brothers song!
I grew up in SSE NC and we had swamps around our farm. If we gave him a solid morning of working on the farm, Papa Wildon (my great uncle who raised me) would let my cousins and me run loose. I can still hear Mama Keith yelling, "Y'all stay out that blackwater! Ya hear me!?!" She was referring to the swamp near our tobacco farm. It was full of gators, snapping turtles, cottonmouths, and ragged cypress stumps just looking for a foot to priece. But that cool water under those shady cypress trees was more than any kid could resist on a hot summer afternoon. We ran barefoot through that blackwater and lazed across fallen tree trunks. Between the critters looking to un-alive us, the nastiness in that water looking to infect us, and Mama Keith looking to whop us when we got home, I'm not sure how any of us made it past 12! This song always brings back those days of innocence.
Man, was this a big 'ol song back then and just continued on... like all their songs. ❤
One of my faves by them. Impossible to not sing along!
Listening to The Doobie Brothers reminded me one of my favorite groups, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show." I see you haven't listened to them yet. A good place to start is with either "Cover of the Rolling Stone,' "Only Sixteen," "A Little Bit More." or "Sylvia's Mother." They have great discography. If you're in the mood for humor, then listen to "I was Stoned and I Missed It."
It is definitely about the Mississippi River....But this is one of my best Doobie Brothers songs...
My favorite song by the Doobies. A honky tonk is like the country version of a juke joint. It's a hole in the wall establishment in the middle of nowhere for the locals to drink, shoot pool, and listen music.
One of their best songs i feel like im there where they are talking About !
A Honky Tonk is just an old run-down bar where people come to dance to country music. That was a cool observation on "Black Water" being "Moonshine". My mom was a huge Doobie Brothers fan so I heard a lot of their music growing up. Love Black Water!!
This is the first song I learned how to fingerpick to on guitar. All time classic for anyone who grew up in the sticks.
My first ever concert at 16 was Doobie Brothers and ZZ Top. I really didn't know their music at the time, but the concert was incredible. The music was amazing, and I immediately became a fan. They had the audience sing along to this song, and it was so much fun, because everyone was singing together. I learned the lyrics that night at the show, and it brings back such great memories every time I hear it still today.
That bit at the end is the ultimate feel-good outro. Seeing you just sit and grin while taking it in was perfect!
I love this song.... I think of Huckleberry Finn when I hear this song...
This is, simply put, a fantastic song. I can't say how much i love this song and so glad you found it. Outstanding.
A Honky-Tonk was originally a Piano played in variety shows in Texas in the late 1800s. It was called a Honkey-Tonk because it generally had horns attached for appropriate sound effects for the show, so you had the Honkey part coming from those horns and the Tonk from the piano keys, particularly if you hit a key that was damaged, and that was often as they were not kept in the best repair. After the variety shows (think of the theatre scene in Tombstone) lost their popularity, the disreputable bars and dance halls bought them at a discount due to the poor repair history. Honky-Tonk the musical style developed out of that disrepair. Since these pianos were not very well taken care off, they were often out of tune or missing keys so the musicians would use them as a rhythm backup as opposed to a harmony or melody... basically figure out which keys work and just hit those. That style survived through Ragtime in the early part of the 20th century and were eventually made a part of early country music. The bars that played that style of music to dance to became known as Honky-Tonks as well.
Incredible song!
This is such a mellow sing along kind of song. ❤
TO GO WITH THAT MISSISSIPPI PARTY THEME: Listen TO "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain. It has that sexy strut...
Yeah, i gotta agree. In Black Water, he is singing about the Mighty Mississippi and the paddlewheelers (aka steamboats, tallstacks) on the river. There is still an ongoing love of those nostalgic boats traveling along rivers - especially the Mississippi. There are numerous festivals along the riverways, where both antique and newly built paddlewheelers congregate. Lots of bands playing along the river walks, with the bigger festivals having 25+ paddlewheelers. You can sign up for cruises with each boat having a theme: beer tasting, murder mystery, wine tasting, etc. I used to go to Tallstacks in Cincinnati, OH along the Ohio River. There were boats from as far away as our southern coastline states. And there are river cruises on especially large ships, with some even stopping through festivals on their routes. Paddlewheeler racing, too.
Sorry long winded - just making a point that there is a love of river travel and on a night with clear skies and a full moon, those silvery shards of moonlight dance across that black water. Good times and parties to be had.
Think of a Honky Tonk like a Juke Joint. Out on the edge of town or a little farther out. Only live music. Usually a guitar, a fiddle and someone beating on a drum. Just a casual place to get a drink and dance. Pretty much a southern thing, and a lot of them have been saved and still bring in bands. I love, love, love this song. It is always on my summer patio list. Just chillin and relaxing.
Nothing I like more than a guitar solo on an acoustic, that just jams hard.
This is the song that makes me remember momma . I was just telling the story about the first time I remember this song. God and mom speaking to me
This song is great! Always loved these guys 😊
When I hear this song I'm a teenager again working at our local ice cream parlour. We had a radio in the kitchen and we would call our local radio station and request this song all the time. Good memories!
You feel the joy of the song... That is what a great band does...
"Black Water" is also my favorite Doobie Brothers' song and I am excited to hear your reaction. I love the call and response between the viola and the guitar in the middle and the way they fade out the music at the end and then fade it back in. I also love the title track "Toulouse Street" from this album which is a great song with a haunting melody and a wonderful recorder solo by Patrick Simmons in the middle. For anyone who doesn't know, a recorder is a type of flute.
They are awesome.
He is talking about the Mississippi River and about a raft that is ready to float in the beginning of the song. You missed the line, "Well if it rains, I don't care, don't make no difference to me, we'll take that street car that's going up town. Yeah, I like to hear some funky Dixieland (Funky jazz music) and dance the honky tonk (bar), and I'll be buying everybody drinks all around."
It helps to pull up the lyrics. Sometimes, what you hear is exactly what it is, especially on these old 70s tunes. The song lyrics are quite literal in this one.
Try looking at Boots Randolph. He was from the prohibition era. He was a saxophone player. I don't remember if there was any lyrics in his stuff, I was just caught up in his sax music. Listen to yakety Sax. I don't know if he has any videos. He I saw him at his club to in "Bottle Alley" in xxxx Tennessee
An incredible piece of music. Doobies
I love all of the Doobie’s music, but this is probably my favorite. It just conjures up images of a real warm sultry, lazy summer day - laying in the grass - and for some reason makes me crave jambalaya! (LOL!) This song is so perfect, from the harmonies to the double-lyrics being sung at the same time to the back and forth fiddle-play…it is real ear-candy. I LOVE this song! You’re right - it just has a way of making your calm down and feel relaxed.
Saw them live a couple decades ago. What a memory. Love your dive into the oldies. 🌸🌸🌸
I just saw them live on October 2 . They still sound great
One of their best!!!! Live is always good.