Country music album salutes Doobie Brothers

Country music is celebrating The Doobie Brothers with the Nov. 4 release of Southbound, as some of country’s biggest stars join The Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald for all-new recordings of the band’s hits.

Blake Shelton, Casey James, Charlie Worsham, Johnnyswim’s Amanda Sudano Ramirez, and Tyler Farr have been added to the roster of artists choosing their favorite Doobie songs to record with the band, with selected tracks featuring special instrumental contributions from Hunter Hayes and Vince Gill.

Releasing on Arista Nashville, Southbound also features previously announced artists Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Sara Evans, Chris Young, Jerrod Niemann, and Love and Theft.

The Doobie Brothers’ most recent studio lineup harkens back to their earliest days. Fellow singer-songwriter-guitarist-lead-vocalists Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston continue to front the group, while multi-instrumentalist John McFee’s history with the Brothers dates back to 1978, after his stint with Southern Pacific. Michael McDonald returns to The Doobie Brothers for this project, which invites fans to once again “Listen to the Music” in a whole new way.

Joining The Doobie Brothers on these new recordings, the guest artists and a complete track listing (sequence pending) are as follows:

“Black Water” with Zac Brown Band
“China Grove” with Chris Young
“Jesus Is Just Alright” with Casey James
“Listen to the Music” with Blake Shelton with Hunter Hayes on guitar
“Long Train Runnin’” with Toby Keith
“Nobody” with Charlie Worsham
“Rockin’ Down the Highway” with Brad Paisley
“South City Midnight Lady” with Jerrod Niemann
“Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)” with Tyler Farr
“Takin’ It to the Streets” with Love and Theft
“What a Fool Believes” with Sara Evans
“You Belong to Me” with Amanda Sudano Ramirez of the band Johnnyswim with Vince Gill on guitar

The album is currently available for pre-order here: http://smarturl.it/amzsouthbound.

In choosing the album title, The Doobie Brothers’ Tom Johnston remarked, “Southbound seemed like the perfect name of this collaboration project with all these dynamic country artists. The band has a lot of roots, both musically and lyrically, from the South such as blues, country, R&B, and folk. To us it was a natural fit that it be called Southbound.”