Stampede-Great Album
This the best doobies album next to The Captain and Me. The guitar rythyms are excellent. Music man is one the best doobie songs ever. I Cheat the Hangman is very haunting. Sweet Maxine and Take Me in Your Arms will get your blood pumping. If you love the doobie brothers, you should love this album like I do.
One of the best Doobies albums
The 'Stampede' album would have to be one of the best Doobie Brothers albums ever but the last to feature lead singer/guitarist Tom Johnston before he was forced, rather against his will, to make way for Michael McDonald and the first to feature new fully-fledged member, Steely Dan and sessions guitarist, Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter.
It was now obvious that the band had started to take new approaches in fusing soul, jazz, funk, blues, folk and rock music as 'kind of' heard on their last album 'What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits'.
Worth listening to but you'll be liking it afterwards.
Stampede
Doobie Brothers' Stampede is my 4th favorite Doobie Brothers album next to Captain & Me, Toulouse Street and Takin' It To The Streets.It contains some great tunes, especially the first half of the album with Neal's Fandango, Sweet Maxine (it sounds like they used this song as a blueprint for their big "reunion" single "The Doctor), and I Cheat The Hangman. The jam at the end of "Hangman" was featured in an episode of What's Happening - during a scene where the Doobies are playing a concert at the boys' alma mater where Rog and the gang go to school - along with some Doobies classics such as "Black Water", "Takin' It To The Streets" and "Echoes of Love".
Some great stuff on this CD - the last the feature Tom Johnston prominantly, even though he did appear on the following album for 1 track.
A++
The best Doob' on the range
STAMPEDE was an album that for some reason I had to pick up. Nothing noteworthy out of my research seemed to make this album stand out over any others that the Doobie Brothers made, other then it was the last to feature for a while anyway lead singer Tom Johnston. Finally getting ahold of it, it is now my favorite Doobie Brothers album of the ones I own. An album that you can listen to straight through is always good because you don't know how good the next track is going to be, and when you go back and replay the tracks you liked they are even better.
This album also has some of my favorite pieces of their music. NEALS FANDANGO one of my absolute favorites, has a great driving sound and is about being stuck somewhere you don't want to be but have the drive to want to go back home. TEXAS LULLABYE is probably Tom Johnston at his most laid back and mellowest in a tune about good ol' days in the fields and living a simplar life with friends and family. I CHEAT THE HANGMAN is the best Doobie Brothers song you haven't heard with a haunting, quiet opening track that halfway through ends the song with a jarring instrumental session and is one of their best, and Jeff Baxter's instrumental piece PRECIS is the perfect lead in as the next track.
STAMPEDE is the kind of album that you will want to remain in your CD player for days on end simply because the music is just that great and fun to listen to. Definitly one of my favorite CD's.
Not my favorite
I thought it [was bad] when I got it, but I will have to break this out again and listen to it some more. I love the Doobies. I got this CD for one song, and I didn't like the rest of it. But after reading some of the other reviews, I am curious as to how it will strike me if I listen to it casually a few times.
