Michael McDonald's Smooth New Memoir: What We Learned From 'What a Fool Believes'

For all his Smooth on the surface, yacht rock — and the artists who have created it over the past few decades — can be turbulent below deck. Some of the musicians and singers associated with the genre (whether they want to be associated with it or not) can have dark sides, illegal pasts, insecurities and amazing rock and roll sides.

As he reveals in his new memoir, What a fool thinks, no one encapsulates this dichotomy like Michael McDonald. That softly melodic voice and electric piano often hid a wild lifestyle, at least during his early, pre-sober days in the music business, when he was a member of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers. MacDonald unpacks some of these stories in the book, co-written with comedian Paul Reiser.

Here are a few things we learned taking a ride on the good ship Cali Macca.

At least once, he and Walter Becker toyed with being part-time traders.

For a period before joining the Doobies, McDonald sang on Steely Dan records (“Peg”, of course) and was part of their touring band. He describes Becker and Donald Fagen's methods in the studio, such as when Becker would hit him: “Gee, I remember liking the sound of your voice a lot more in the last few sessions.”

But their adventures extended outside the studio. McDonald writes about how they came up with a plan to “buy about half an ounce of some of this ultra-pure cocaine” from a friend and “make some easy money (selling only to our friends, completely under the radar) but ultimately a fair portion of batter for our own recreational consumption, free of charge…. What could possibly go wrong?”

Well, for starters, the two “thundered most of it before they even cut it, let alone sell anything.” He says they never left the dining room table in the McDonald's apartment except to pee. After a “painful few days” of non-stop coke, they had just one gram left.

Mess with Yacht Macca at your own peril.

In the mid-70s tension began to develop between McDonald and Doobies guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and their conflicting ideas about musical arrangements. When Doobies co-founder Pat Simmons told McDonald and others that he was thinking of “breaking up the band” around 1979, McDonald used it to make, he writes, “the changes that I felt needed to be made so that we could move on”.

Without being super clear about it, McDonald makes it clear that the Doobies had to choose him or Baxter. Considering that McDonald's “What a Fool Believes” was a ubiquitous hit at the time, the decision was obviously an easy one for one to make. “I'm not sure what that says about me exactly (other than that I'm more than capable of being a jerk),” he writes, “but at the time, I felt that if we were going to continue, it was necessary for the band to re-emerge as a different and coherent entity”. He did say that Baxter – who, ironically, suggested the Doobies recruit McDonald in the first place – “didn't take it personally”.

There are enough elements of McDonald's music here for a special yacht edition Take a risk!.

For McDonald's music geeks, the memoir is heaven. Reflecting its origins as a song of social commentary, the working title of “Takin' It to the Streets” was “Falling Through the Cracks”. An extensive discography at the end lists all of McDonald's songs — who knew he sang backup on records by Wang Chung and Toto He remembers reading RSthe “scorching” review (his speech) of the Doobies” Minute to minute album. “I'm not a glutton for punishment, I didn't usually read reviews, but because this was it Rolling rockI couldn't help myself — though it only took a few sentences for me to regret it,” she writes.

He was once chewed out by Ray Charles.

Later in his career, MacDonald and his hero shared the same bill for a benefit concert. McDonald assumed that Charles knew about “the charity aspect of the event”, but apparently not. “The boss wants to talk to you,” Charles' manager told McDonald on the day of the show. MacDonald went to Charles' trailer, finding him chilling in a bathrobe. “Man, you gotta give me something,” Charles told him. MacDonald had a feeling he knew what Charles meant, but he played dumb and asked about backroom perks. “No, man,” Charles told him, “what I'm saying is give me something! … I can't do it for free!” As McDonald realized, that meant cash before Charles took the stage.

McDonald told him that all proceeds were to go to the foundation and that the musicians had agreed to this set-up. “With that,” McDonald writes, “he stopped rocking for a moment, turned in my direction, and in a slightly raised pitch explained, 'I don't mind your arrangement! I'm old, dammit! I don't have time for this crap!” MacDonald says Charles did the show but would not sign off on the use of footage of his performance for a film of the event. “Was I disappointed?” he writes. “Sure. But I honestly felt worse at the idea that he was angry with me. The feeling that I had let him down seemed to trigger old feelings of disapproval that I felt long ago from my dad.”

He has a sense of humor about himself.

This authentic side of McDonald was evident in his acceptance of the term “yacht rock,” as he put it. RS in 2020. In his memoirs he writes about The 40-year-old Panagia, in which co-stars Paul Rudd and Steve Carell play appliance store clerks in a showroom filled with television screens. The manager, played by Jane Lynch, is, he writes, “a pathetic die-hard Michael McDonald fan” who insists that only his music be played in the store.

At one point, referencing the 1983 McDonald's hit with James Ingram, Rudd's character barks, “If I hear 'Yah Mo B There' one more time, I'm gonna burn this place down!” An industry friend worried that McDonald would be offended, but McDonald writes that he found it “hilarious,” adding, “And in the end, the movie even increased our summer ticket sales.”