Ever since Michael McDonald joined the Doobie Brothers nearly four years ago, the group has skirted greatness without ever being able to mold its disparate sensibilities into a single, driving force. That's a shame, because singer/keyboardist McDonald (an ex-Steely Dan) is a major rock talent and the Doobies' only hope of becoming something more than a fading, middleweight, "people's" boogie band.

To my ears, Michael McDonald is probably the greatest white blues singer since Joe Cocker. If his voice isn't as large as Cocker's once was, it's as potent emotionally: this man could sing the New York telephone book and break your heart. He's also a gifted songwriter with formidable melodic sophistication. Heavily syncopated, chromatic and influenced by both jazz and R&B, McDonald's tunes are charged with the same tensions that mark his vocals. After a while, one begs for relief. But these nervous, obsessional, spiritually introverted compositions promise a release that's not immediately forthcoming. Even his most famous and outgoing number, "Takin' It to the Streets," doesn't resolve firmly or provide a choral catharsis. With its angular, edgy melody, the song remains potentially explosive, a threat more than a deed.

Minute by Minute, the third Doobie Brothers album après McDonald, suggests that the Doobies will never be the populist Steely Dan their admirers have envisaged since Takin' It to the Streets unless some painful decisions are made very soon. Apparently, there's a basic conflict of sensibilities between high-spirited guitarist Patrick Simmons, who personifies the group's old-time, groovy-hippie/just-folks stance (and who, in concert, can still work up a crowd with his amiably corny rabble-rousing), and McDonald's surprisingly taciturn keyboard intricacies.

On Takin' It to the Streets and Livin' on the Fault Line, Simmons held his own as a writer and singer well enough so that he and McDonald appeared to complement each other. Not this time. Minute by Minute's three predominantly Simmons-penned Cubano numbers ("Sweet Feelin'," "You Never Change," "Dependin' on You") are no better than second-rate lounge fare, while his "Steamer Lane Breakdown" is a pleasant but trivial bit of streamlined bluegrass. "Don't Stop to Watch the Wheels," a would-be full-tilt boogie, fails to tilt.

Though there's no question that the new record's best songs are all primarily by Michael McDonald, even his work has suffered a slight loss. "Open Your Eyes," a jittery post-Motown ballad written by McDonald with Lester Abrams and Patrick Henderson, is the LP's big winner. It's followed, in descending order of quality, by "Here to Love You," "What a Fool Believes," "Minute by Minute" and "How Do the Fools Survive?" Only the latter (a monologue by God in the words of Carole Bayer Sager!) rings false, partly because the intense physicality of McDonald's singing precludes any intellectual detachment. The box score shows four substantial cuts, each of them arranged and produced in the spare, icy, pop-jazz style that's been the hallmark of the "new" Doobie Brothers sound.

Though one can understand the band's and producer Ted Templeman's reasons for going after a "live" studio sound (unfortunately, the instruments here are sometimes woefully out of tune), the maturity of McDonald's music demands more elaborate production than Templeman has ever supplied. On Minute by Minute, the continued absence of such production seems yet another symptom of the Doobies' failure to come to grips with either their populist ideals or the imbalance of their talents.

The only way out of this impasse is for the group to determinedly cultivate sophistication at the expense of "democracy," and give Michael McDonald even more of a central role than he has now. That's what the Jefferson Starship failed to do for Marty Balin—and they paid heavily for it, at least in artistic terms. Templeman must also help the Doobies develop full-scale arrangements that better utilize their lead guitarist and other Steely Dan veteran, Jeff Baxter. With all the firepower this band has—one of rock's strongest rhythm sections, several writers and vocalists, an excellent lead guitarist and a remarkable lead singer—the Doobie Brothers shouldn't be content merely to skirt greatness. (RS 285)

STEPHEN HOLDEN