Parting Shots: Michael McDonald
Michael McDonald isn’t afraid to have some fun with his Yacht-Rock persona. So when current soul-jazz sensation Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner—best known for his work with Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington and Erykah Badu—half-joked that he’d love to be stuck on a desert island with McDonald and his contemporary Kenny Loggins, the 65-year-old singer took the off-the-cuff comment as a rallying call.
“Kenny’s kids [read] an article where Steve had mentioned us as influences in his music and writing,” says McDonald, who made his name through his work with Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers and his own hits before the 33-year-old bassist was even born. “We all got into a studio and focused on ‘Show You the Way,’ and I’m hoping we get the chance to write with him again.”
McDonald’s unexpected hipster cred has placed him back in the public eye and even scored the ‘80s star a cameo at Coachella. The recent surge of interest also spilled over into Wide Open—his first record in almost a decade and first set of original material following three albums of R&B and gospel covers for Motown. Wide Open boasts a slew of guests from the roots and improvisational worlds as well, including Warren Haynes, Branford Marsalis, Robben Ford and Marcus Miller.
“At this point in time, I don’t really have any illusions about competing with all the acts out there filling up the airwaves,” he says. “There are so many more musicians vying for that small space than when I was with bands in the ‘70s. Going from playing these classic Top-40 hits was a weird transition—I had to readjust my dials and do a record that’s a little more introspective. I make records with a little more of an open horizon these days.”
It’s been 17 years since you released an album of original material. What got your creative juices flowing again?
When I moved down to Nashville, it was always in pursuit of broadening my bases as a songwriter to something beyond the band I was in at the time. I was always demoing stuff and convincing my producer/co-producer Shannon Forrest to let me buy him dinner in exchange for co-opting some studio time after hours. Even though the Motown period was an active touring time for me, I had to put down these ideas, mostly so I wouldn’t forget them. Shannon recently moved into a new studio and I went over to visit—he pulled out these files that we had been doing all that time and said, “I couldn’t help but think we have an album started here.”
Given that these songs were written over an extended period of time while you were working on a slew of R&B and gospel tracks, do you think they hang together lyrically?
I always operate with the belief that what I come up with from my subconscious, or accidentally, is always going to be better than what I think about too much. I have a way of rationalizing a good idea to the ground and suffocating it. I try to get out of the way more than anything. What happens as a result of that is, a lot of times, you look back on a song and realize that it has a lot more resonance with your own life than you realized—or that, in hindsight, it was a metaphor for your own experience.
You’re coming off three cover records. What impact did those LPs have on your approach?
I used to tell my son, “Not only can you pick up a little money playing Top 40, the practice is a real education” because, as you play these classic songs, you can’t help but learn something about composition. In doing those records, I rediscovered these songs that I had sung for years in bands growing up, but it took my perspective at this age to respect them in a whole other way. What was really hard for me was going back to my original material and loosening the boundaries because a lot of those covers were well-crafted, popular songs written for the medium that they existed in at the time, Top-40 AM radio. They were more than just great, ingenious songs in their own right; they were cleverly written for this tight format. It was odd to go back to recording songs that take eight minutes to unfold or going after arrangements that were a little out of the realm of what might grab people on the radio. Although I love the idea of getting played on the radio and always will, at this point in my career, radio’s not such an option for me. It frees me up to record whatever I feel like for whatever audiences are out there.
Warren Haynes appears on Wide Open and you recently performed together at his Christmas Jam and as part of “The Last Waltz” tour. What brought you into his world?
Ever since Warren played on my record, Blink of an Eye, back in the ‘80s, I’ve wanted to work with him again. We wound up playing this “Last Waltz 40 Tour” that Don Was organized, and Warren was pretty much at the helm of that. I realized his capabilities, which are vast. He’s a phenomenal contemporary blues guitarist— his singing style, his writing style and his style of playing are so unique to him and yet still very much in the American blues tradition.
You’ve dipped your toes into the current wave of jazz/R&B that feels especially relevant this year. What’s been your takeaway from that experience?
I’m really excited about that quadrant of R&B that’s coming out. It’s a fantastic new movement that harkens back to jazz-funk and it’s great to see it burgeoning into a whole new unique style. I’m not a soloist or a virtuoso, but I love the idea of getting up there and having all that width to work with. It makes for a really great live experience. Those guys leave it pretty wide open—every night there is a different version of the song. Steve’s greatly influenced by traditional jazz in a way that I’m not even sure he’s aware of. He just naturally absorbs it and it comes out in his music in a very new and unique way.
This year, I’ve had so many of these experiences that I never dreamed I would have had, like playing with the guys from Snarky Puppy and Vulfpeck at Okeechobee [Music & Arts Festival]. Solange was so gracious to come up and sing “What a Fool Believes” with us. It was a dream come true. My daughter was on the phone with me the whole time, in tears that she wasn’t there. But I saw Solange again at Coachella with my daughter [in April]. We made the rounds and went to go see a bunch of other acts play and stayed out until the wee hours of the night.