''Minute by Minute'' is the eighth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American rock band

The Doobie Brothers The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band formed in 1970 in San Jose, California, known for their flexibility in performing across numerous genres and their vocal harmonies. Active for five decades, with their greatest success in the 1970s, ...

, released on December 1, 1978, by

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

. It was their last album to include members

John Hartman John Hartman (March 18, 1950 – September 22, 2022)Cycles'') and

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter Jeffrey Allen "Skunk" Baxter (born December 13, 1948) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s. More recently, he has worked as a defense consu ...

. The album spent 87 weeks on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart. In the spring of 1979 ''Minute by Minute'' was the best-selling album in the U.S. for five non-consecutive weeks. It was certified 3×

Platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

by the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

. The song " What a Fool Believes" hit No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in April 1979 and became the band's biggest hit. The

title track A title track is a song that has the same name as the album or film in which it appears. In the Korean music industry, the term is used to describe a promoted song on an album, akin to a single, regardless of the song's title. Title track may al ...

and "Depending on You" were also released as singles and reached the top 30. ''Minute by Minute'' made The Doobie Brothers one of the big winners at the

22nd Grammy Awards The 22nd Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 27, 1980, at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1979. This year was notable for being the ...

. The album got the trophy for

Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group The Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by ...

and received a nomination for Album of the Year; the single "What a Fool Believes" earned them three Grammys, including Song and

Record of the Year The Grammy Award for Record of the Year is presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without reg ...

Track listing

Personnel

The Doobie Brothers

Patrick Simmons Patrick Simmons (born October 19, 1948) is an American musician best known as a founding member of the rock band The Doobie Brothers. Born in Aberdeen, Washington, he has been the only consistent member of the band throughout their tenure. Simm ...

– lead and rhythm guitars, lead and backing vocals * Michael McDonald –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s, lead and backing vocals *

– lead and rhythm guitars *

Tiran Porter Tiran Calvin Porter (born September 26, 1948) is an American bass and guitar player, vocalist and composer, best known as a member of The Doobie Brothers from 1972 to 1980 and 1987 to 1992. Biography Porter graduated from Leuzinger High School in ...

– bass, backing vocals *

John Hartman John Hartman (March 18, 1950 – September 22, 2022)drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

Keith Knudsen Keith A. Knudsen ( ; February 18, 1948 – February 8, 2005) was an American rock drummer, vocalist, and songwriter. Knudsen was best known as a drummer and vocalist for The Doobie Brothers. In addition, he founded the band Southern Pacific with ...

– drums, percussion, backing vocals

Additional musicians

Ted Templeman Edward John "Ted" Templeman (born October 24, 1942) is an American record producer. Among the acts he has a long relationship with are the rock bands Van Halen and the Doobie Brothers and the singer Van Morrison; he produced multiple criticall ...

– drums (with Keith Knudsen) on "What a Fool Believes", additional percussion *

Bobby LaKind Robert Jay LaKind (November 3, 1945 – December 24, 1992) was an American conga player, vocalist, songwriter and occasional backup drummer with The Doobie Brothers. Originally a lighting roadie for the band, he was invited to join as a sideman f ...

–

congas The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest) ...

, backing vocals * Tom Johnston – backing vocals on "Don't Stop to Watch the Wheels" *

Nicolette Larson Nicolette Larson (July 17, 1952 – December 16, 1997) was an American singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young and her 1978 hit single of Young's "Lotta Love", which hit No. 1 on the Hot Adult Contem ...

– duet vocals on "Sweet Feelin'", backing vocals on "Dependin' on You" *

Rosemary Butler Rosemary Ann Butler (born April 6, 1947) is an American singer. She began her career playing bass guitar and singing in an all-female band named the Ladybirds while attending Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton, California. The band appeared ...

– backing vocals on "Here to Love You" and "Dependin' on You" *

Norton Buffalo Phillip Jackson (September 28, 1951 – October 30, 2009), best known as Norton Buffalo, was an American singer-songwriter, country and blues harmonica player, record producer, bandleader and recording artist who was a versatile proponent of t ...

–

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

on "Don't Stop to Watch the Wheels" and "Steamer Lane Breakdown" *

Herb Pedersen Herbert Joseph Pedersen (born April 27, 1944 in Berkeley, California) is an American musician, guitarist, banjo player, and singer-songwriter who has played a variety of musical styles over the past fifty years including Country music, country, ...

–

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

on "Steamer Lane Breakdown" *

Byron Berline Byron Douglas Berline (July 6, 1944 – July 10, 2021) was an American fiddle player who played many American music styles, including old time, ragtime, bluegrass, Cajun, country, and rock. Life and career Berline was born in Caldwell, Kansas ...

–

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

on "Steamer Lane Breakdown" *

Lester Abrams Lester Abrams (born 1945) is a singer, songwriter, musician and producer who has played with such artists as B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Peabo Bryson, Quincy Jones, Manfred Mann, Brian Auger, The Average White Band, The Doobie Brothers, Rufus and m ...

–

on "How Do the Fools Survive?" *

Bill Payne William H. Payne (born March 12, 1949) is an American pianist who, with Lowell George, co-founded the American rock band Little Feat. He is considered by many other rock pianists, including Elton John, to be one of the finest American piano roc ...

– synthesizer (with Michael McDonald) on "What a Fool Believes" and "Minute by Minute" *

Novi Novog Novi Novog is an American viola player. She is sometimes simply credited as "Novi" and is a cousin of Lauren Wood (also known as "Chunky"). In 1973, Novi became one of three members of her cousin's band Chunky, Novi and Ernie with the bassist Ern ...

– synthesizer solo on "Open Your Eyes" *Sumner Mering – guitar on "Open Your Eyes" * Andrew Love –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

on "Here to Love You", "Dependin' on You" and "How Do the Fools Survive?" *

Ben Cauley Ben S. Cauley, Jr. (October 3, 1947 – September 21, 2015) was an American trumpet player, vocalist, songwriter, and founding member of the Stax recording group the Bar-Kays. He was the only survivor of the 1967 plane crash that claimed the live ...

–

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

on "Here to Love You", "Dependin' on You" and "How Do the Fools Survive?"

Production

*Producer –

*Production Coordination – Beth Naranjo *Engineer –

Donn Landee Donn Landee is an United States of America, American record producer and recording engineer. Much of his work as an engineer has been done with producer Ted Templeman at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood, Cal. The pair worked with a wide varie ...

*Additional Engineer – Loyd Clifft *Additional Engineer - Steve Malcolm *Cover Design and Coordinator – Bruce Steinberg *Photography – David Alexander *Management – Bruce Cohn Recorded at Warner Bros. Recording Studios,

North Hollywood North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...

; Mixed at

Sunset Sound Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 1978 albums The Doobie Brothers albums Warner Records albums Albums produced by Ted Templeman Albums recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders