Downtown Doobie Bounce

I don't think I'd heard the term "the Doobie Bounce" before I watched Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary on Max last December, even though in December 2010 I wrote a post on this blog about how Dave Grusin borrowed the keyboard riff from the Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes" (1978) for the chorus of Michael Franks's "Coming Home to You," the theme song to the 1982 Al Pacino movie Author! Author!

After my wife and I finished the yacht-rock documentary, I found a playlist on Spotify named "The Doobie Bounce," featuring more than 50 songs that similarly borrow the "What a Fool Believes" riff, including Robbie Dupree's "Steal Away," which I expected (Robbie, notice how I keep using the word "borrow"? Never admit you stole anything!), but also at-least-to-me surprises like Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" and 21st-century selections like Breakbot's "One Out of Two" and Dayglow's "Close to You."

"Coming Home to You," for which Alan and Marilyn Bergman provided the lyrics to complement Dave Grusin's melody, didn't make the list, but "Now That Your Joystick's Broke," which Michael Franks wrote himself and recorded in '83 after being a singer for hire for the soundtrack of Author! Author!, did.

Another tune that didn't make the list is Tom Monroe's cover of Petula Clark's 1964 hit "Downtown"—and that's because Tom Monroe is a fictional singer played by Rick Moranis on SCTV. In the same July 1981 episode in which he does an impression of Michael McDonald rushing to a recording studio to add his backing vocals to Christopher Cross's "Ride Like the Wind," Moranis performs "Downtown" with a distinctive Doobie Bounce. (Skip to the 2:05 mark in the video below, or treat yourself to Mr. Monroe's easy-listening covers of the Vapors' "Turning Japanese" and the Police's "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" before he begins bouncin'.)