The group's first album with Michael McDonald marked a shift to a more mellow and self-consciously soulful sound for the Doobies, not all that different from what happened to Steely Dan – whence McDonald (and Jeff Baxter) had come – between, say, Can't Buy a Thrill and Pretzel Logic. They showed an ability to expand on the lyricism of Patrick Simmons and Baxter's writing on "Wheels of Fortune," while the title track introduced McDonald's white funk sound cold to their output, successfully. Simmons' "8th Avenue Shuffle" vaguely recalled "Black Water," only with an urban theme and a more self-consciously soul sound (with extraordinarily beautiful choruses and a thick, rippling guitar break).
The group's first album with Michael McDonald marked a shift to a more mellow and self-consciously soulful sound for the Doobies, not all that different from what happened to Steely Dan - whence McDonald (and Jeff Baxter) had come - between, say, Can't Buy a Thrill and Pretzel Logic. They showed an ability to expand on the lyricism of Patrick Simmons and Baxter's writing on "Wheels of Fortune," while the title track introduced McDonald's white funk sound cold to their output, successfully. Simmons' "8th Avenue Shuffle" vaguely recalled "Black Water," only with an urban theme and a more self-consciously soul sound (with extraordinarily beautiful choruses and a thick, rippling guitar break). "Rio" and "It Keeps You Runnin'" both manage to sound like Steely Dan tracks - and that's a compliment - while Tiran Porter's hauntingly beautiful "For Someone Special" was a pure soul classic right in the midst of all of these higher-energy pieces…
Their last LP for Columbia, 1979's Back on the Streets, found Tower of Power once again a disappointment to their fans. After two albums of desultory balladeering, the band still refused to return to their blistering funk roots, choosing instead what they hoped would be a more commercially viable wade into the oceans of disco. It didn't work. With a slick production that's so predictable it's horizontally boring, Tower of Power limped into the R&B charts with the mini-hit "Rock Baby" in August. And it really doesn't get any better from there. Across a batch of mediocre and uneven disco numbers, replete with strings and "sexy" backing vocalists, the band wandered across the absolutely MOR ballad "Heaven Must Have Made You" and the "Chuck E.'s in Love"-esque "And You Know It."