What a Fool Believes by Michael McDonald review

From falling foul of Ray Charles to writing with Burt Bacharach and singing with Steely Dan, McDonald has led a fascinating, if addiction-fuelled, life, but his memoir errs on the side of cliche

Michael McDonald is possibly the greatest R&B singer never to have made a great album of his own. You may know the voice from his work in the 1970s with the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, and from later hits such as I Keep Forgettin’, Yah Mo B There and On My Own. Even your kids may recognise him now from his guest spot on Thundercat’s 2017 single Show You the Way. McDonald also happens to be a brilliant pianist, a top bandleader and, on the evidence of this new memoir, a modest, easygoing, 24-carat Nice Guy. I only wish I could say, hand on heart, that he’s written a great book. Unfortunately its sluggish tempo and hackneyed style has you checking the number of pages to the end and reflecting, in echo of a famous line he once sang, “And I’ve got such a long way to go … ”

Not that McDonald lacks for stories or a tough beginning to unpack. Born in 1952 to Irish Catholic stock in a white, working-class suburb of St Louis he inherited his musical chops from a restless war veteran father who once sang at a Democrats’ rally in support of a young JFK. The McDonald house resounded to young Mike’s trombone-playing (his first instrument) and the increasingly fractious rowing between his parents. When his father at last moved out it came as a relief to all, though another heartache wasn’t so easily resolved: McDonald got his girlfriend pregnant when they were both 14, and in accordance with brutal Catholic tradition she was “sent away” and the child given up for adoption. This haunting episode may have been the trigger for the chronic addictions that racked him later in life.