Were I listening to Michael McDonald’s “Hail Mary” for the first time as a 7” single, I’d have double-checked the speed setting to ensure it wasn’t playing at 33 rpm instead of 45. Clocking in at just shy of seven minutes, the opening song on McDonald’s first album of original material since 2000’s Blue Obsession takes its sweet time to get where it’s going. But I’m not complaining. At 65 years old, McDonald’s sui generis voice has grown thicker (and less dynamic) than the instrument that made him famous in the 1970s and early ’80s, and the track’s sedate pace allows him to burrow it into a syrupy bed of Hammond B-3 and jazz guitar, with his wife Amy Holland adding vocal harmonies. As the introduction to Wide Open, “Hail Mary” is by default a statement, and it’s easy to assume that McDonald would foreground the patina that his voice has acquired over the years. When he sings “Does the sound of my voice still carry/Any kind of message still important to you?” one wonders how much he’s addressing a fictive lover, and how much he’s questioning his own relevance.
Not that anyone really needs an introduction to the silver-haired erstwhile Doobie Brothers leader and Steely Dan affiliate anymore. This past January, McDonald and longtime collaborator Kenny Loggins featured on “Show You the Way,” the lead single from Thundercat’s marvelous third LP, Drunk, which the “What A Fool Believes” co-authors co-wrote with the Brainfeeder bassist after he mentioned his desire to work with the duo in an interview. Much more than a simple novelty gag, “Show” is a belated millennial coronation for McDonald, who, unlike any of his musical peers, has watched his public image re-emerge over the past couple decades to public and private reactions that oscillate between comedic hatred, ironic acceptance, and earnest appreciation. At the same time, R&B itself has morphed countless times, leading to Solange Knowles and Frank Ocean transfixing the music world in 2016 with albums that were as arty as they were soft and lathered with ambience—a kind of urbane smoothness that McDonald himself codified at his popular peak with “I Keep Forgettin’” and the Patti LaBelle duet “On My Own.” A month before he performed “Show” and “Fool” at Coachella, McDonald was, yup, joined by self-professed fan Knowles at another festival.
McDonald could have easily cashed in his cachet with the current titans of millennial R&B and released an album with Solange and Thundercat guesting, perhaps Raphael Saadiq or Mark Ronson brought in for production, and maybe even coaxed Frank Ocean into the studio for a feature. Maybe next time. Instead, Wide Open is more a labor of love than an attempt by McDonald to capitalize on his resurgent popularity. He’d been stashing away demos of new material for a decade, and harboring dreams of maybe earning some Nashville songwriting gigs. Shannon Forrest, a Nashville-based producer, current Toto drummer, and longtime friend of McDonald’s, started tinkering with his tunes, and the pair eventually recruited a handful of session pros to flesh them out. And out, and out: only one song on the 71-minute long Wide Open comes in under five minutes, and the first two tracks nearly crack the 15-minute mark between them. If the album has a flaw, it’s not its lack of hipness, but its need for some editing.
While Wide Open isn’t a masterclass in songcraft or production, it’s a well-executed attempt to show McDonald’s capacity to stretch into different styles that works best when his collaborators shine. Bassist Marcus Miller contributes a Sade-style funk groove to “Find It In Your Heart” and shreds on the R&B rocker “If You Wanted to Hurt Me,” both of which echo McDonald’s 1980s solo peak better than anything else here. Branford Marsalis’ saxophone threads throughout “Blessing in Disguise,” culminating in a two-minute solo that’s worth the wait. On the string-laden, nearly eight-minute B.B. King-style slow-burn “Just Strong Enough,” Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes and L.A. session vet Robben Ford, along with former Randy Newman and George Harrison bassist Willie Weeks, provide an elegant backdrop for McDonald’s scenery-chewing vocal. And the string section showing up halfway through the searching power-ballad “Dark Side” makes for Wide Open’s most satisfying surprise.
When Wide Open misses its marks, though, it’s the kind of drag that McDonald’s otherwise off-the-mark critics often pinpoint about his earlier work: it’s just kind of dorky. The middle of the album, in particular, sags quite a bit under the weight of McDonald’s attempts at rock: the country/modern-rock crossover attempt “Half Truth,” and the limp ballads “Ain’t No Good” and “Honest Emotion.” As it winds down, Wide Open expands geographically and politically, with mixed results. “Too Short” is a breezy, light piece of West African-inspired pop, while the uptempo “Free A Man,” despite McDonald’s best intentions, falls flat as social commentary. The refrain, “Free a man/And love will follow,” is a wan echo of Funkadelic, and it’s not clear what rhetorical point lyrics like, “For the sake of perspective we look back/On what it’s meant in this country to be black,” and, “Religion has not failed man/No, it’s the other way around” are supposed to have, because “inspiration” isn’t what comes across.
It’s laudable that McDonald stuck to his guns on this album after expressing his desire to work with his current favorites, like Ocean, or Alabama Shakes belter Brittany Howard. It’s worth holding out hope, though, that McDonald could pair up with a producer/co-writer who can better emphasize his inimitable vocal grain as it nears the 70-year mark, like Dan Auerbach did with Dr. John, Jeff Tweedy with Mavis Staples, and Richard Russell with Gil Scott-Heron. For now, when Wide Open works, it mostly functions to suggest what McDonald and the right collaborators could do in the future.
