This was not supposed to be the Doobie Brothers' greatest hit. The lead singer on the song was not their usual lead singer Tom Johnston; instead it was the guitarist and secondary vocalist Patrick Simmons, who wrote the song on a lark after their producer dug the fantastic fingerstyle guitar lick that would ultimately anchor the song. It was buried as a B-side to what was supposed to be their hit single off their 1974 album. The single bombed, as did the following single. The Doobie future looked dim. They may have been exiled back to Northern California, playing perpetual manchild rock at the Hell's Angels parties they had sauntered out of.
Then the goddamndest thing happened. Far from Northern California, all the way on the other edge of our massive, flawed country, in Roanoke, Virginia, site of the European colonial settlement that vanished into thin air, there was a radio station. It just so happened that near this radio station, in those storied coastal environs, was a river called the Blackwater. And this radio station began playing "Black Water" off the new Doobie Brothers album based purely on this coincidence. The song isn't even about the Blackwater river; the Mississippi River is clearly stated in the first verse. Based on this chance airplay, requests for the song in this one region spiked dramatically, which led Warner Bros. to throw up a half-court shot at the buzzer and release this song as a new single, just to see what the hell these New Roanokeans had in terms of judgement that their doomed colonial predecessors lacked. And it caught on in Minneapolis. From that auspicious victory, it just took over music in 1975, the year of Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Month Python and the Holy Grail. It peaked that spring at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
I know the 1970s had Watergate, but the burying of "Black Water" is an underrated coverup from the time. But unlike nefarious election dirty tricks, great music will always find the light of day.
What didn't they think was good enough about this song? The sublime finger-strummed guitar lick that burrows into your long-term memory on a single hearing? The invigorating harmonies in the choruses? The positively life-affirming counterpoint of the famous a cappella ending? What failed to please them?? I cannot refuse this song. When it plays in my presence, it has the floor. I try to sing all the counterpoint vocal parts at the same time, every time, even though this is idiotic.
Maybe I'm just partisan because I come from Minneapolis, a market apparently ripe for the taking by this superb recording. We are the first city of the Mississippi River, so we maybe swell with a little pride hearing the Huck Finn-inspired references to Our river. I wasn't really paying attention typing that last bit because I was listening to that guitar lick in my head again.