In the Summer of ’71 the band I was in did an audition to replace The Doobies as the house band at The Chateau (they had resigned after signing their Warner Brothers’ deal), the hippie/biker bar up on Summit Road in the Santa Cruz mountains (we didn’t get the gig ;-). In the middle of our set this real longhaired guy came up to say "Hey" to our main singer/songwriter/guitarist/organist (talented guy ;-), Lance Libby (he’s up in very northern Washington state now, right below the Canadian border, living on a farm). I hadn’t yet heard of them then, but learned afterwards it was Doobies lead guitarist Patrick Simmons, who knew Lance from Lance having been in local band Christian Rapid. Christian Rapid had changed their name from Stained Glass after having had two albums out on Capitol Records in the late-60’s. Their lead singer/songwriter/bassist Jim McPherson left the group to join John Cipollina in his post-Quicksilver Messenger Service band Copperhead. Amazingly, I had been in a band in my senior year of high school with the younger brother of Stained Glass drummer Dennis Carrasco!
Four years later, I was driving down a residential street in Campbell (a San Jose suburb) when I saw Dave Shogren, the Doobies original bassist (debut album only). He was on the driveway of his tract house, washing his Rolls Royce ;-) . He may have been on only their debut---which stiffed, but apparently had made enough dough to buy a Rolls and make at least a down payment on the house. After The Doobies gave him the boot, he was in a band named SF Star (how’s that for a crappy name?), whose drummer I knew well; he told me he was inspired to take up drums after seeing me playing at a local Teen Center when I was 14 years old---my first band. All the other guys in my Frat band (what bands like Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Standells, and The Kingsmen are called by Rock ’n’ Roll historians) were in college, and their precious drummer had left to join a group that is now semi-legendary---The Chocolate Watchband, seen in the Roger Corman teen-exploitation movie Riot On Sunset Strip. That drummer just happened to go to my high school (Cupertino), and was in both the marching band and the orchestra. He lives in Santa Cruz now, and plays Jazz.
San Jose was a kind of small city at the time, and many musicians were related somehow to others. I saw and heard a number of local bands I consider "better" than The Doobies (the drummer and lead guitarist of The Chocolate Watchband had a band together after TCW called it quits---The Electric Tingle Guild, who were really, really great), but you can’t argue with success.