# In 1974, The Doobie Brothers tucked a song onto a B-side. It became their first number one and sold over 1,000,000 copies

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1974-the-doobie-brothers-tucked-a-song-onto-a-b-side-it-became-their-first-number-one-and-sold-over-1000000-copies/
- Published: 2026-11-13T15:58:14+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-13T16:27:03+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/1974-the-doobie-brothers-tucked-a-song-onto-a-b-side-number-one/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- ‘Black Water’ started as a B-side.
- Radio play helped turn it into the band’s first number one.
- The song marked Patrick Simmons’ first single release.

## Summary

The Doobie Brothers’ ‘Black Water’ began as a guitar riff Patrick Simmons played while the band were recording their 1974 album, *What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits*. Producer Ted Templeman urged him to develop it into a song, which drew on Simmons’ visits to New Orleans and childhood imaginings of the American South. Its gentle, folk-influenced sound differed from the band’s better-known rock singles, and it became Simmons’ first song to be released as a single.

The track was initially issued as the B-side to ‘Another Park, Another Sunday’, which reached number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. After radio stations in Roanoke, Virginia, began playing ‘Black Water’ heavily, other stations followed and the song was re-released as an A-side. It became the Doobie Brothers’ first number one single; the article’s headline says it sold more than one million copies.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.