“Black Water” by Doobie Brothers

"Black Water" drifts out of What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, the Doobie Brothers' 1974 album, with its writer Patrick Simmons singing lead. He stumbled on the guitar lick while killing time between takes on The Captain and Me, and producer Ted Templeman heard it over the talkback and told him to build a song on it. Simmons, a lifelong Delta blues fan, finished the job during a stay in New Orleans, a city whose way of life he felt tied to the roots of his music.

It's a lazy, sun-warmed ramble dressed up with a whole backwoods orchestra: Jeff "Skunk" Baxter on pedal steel, Arlo Guthrie on autoharp, Novi Novog on viola, Bill Payne on keyboards, and horns arranged by the Memphis Horns. In March 1975 it became the first of the band's two number-one singles.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.