Hot on the heels of a recent, lengthy 50th anniversary tour and the 2025 album Walk This Road (both of which reunited the band with Michael McDonald), The Doobie Brothers will revisit 1973's their 2x Platinum third album, The Captain & Me, in a new Audiophile Edition.  It's due January 9 on Blu-ray from Rhino.

The Captain & Me built on the success of its predecessor, the California band's breakthrough Toulouse Street, and kicked off a run of seven consecutive top 10 album smashes for the Doobies.  The album balanced Tom Johnston's hard rock rousers with Pat Simmons' more laid-back SoCal grooves, all unified by Ted Templeman's clean and crisp but far from sterile production.  It yielded two Johnston-penned hits in "China Grove" (No. 15 Pop) and "Long Train Runnin'" (No. 8 Pop) while the album itself made No. 7 on the Top LPs survey.  Bassist Tiran Porter and drummers/percussionists John Hartman and Michael Hossack rounded out the band lineup for the album.

Rhino's Audiophile Edition includes four unique mixes: the original 1973 quadraphonic mix (previously available on the Doobies' Quadio box set), surround guru Elliot Scheiner's 5.1 mix originally released in 2001, a new Dolby Atmos mix, and the original album mix in high-resolution stereo.  In our review of Quadio, TSD wrote:

The instrumental separation of both singles is crystal-clear in quad but "Long Train" stands out as it captures listeners in the center of a diagonal, with drums in the front left and percussion in the rear right; the effect is powerful.  Simmons' "Clear as the Driven Snow" opens with a gentle acoustic lyricism and dreamlike soundscape redolent of Crosby, Stills, and Nash before kicking into high gear; the quad mix considers the dynamics of the track as it too shifts from subtlety to brashness.  Nick DeCaro contributed string arrangements to three selections on The Captain & Me including the relaxed ode to a "South City Midnight Lady."  Instrumentation is discretely spread throughout the soundstage including Simmons' eerily wailing ARP synthesizer, DeCaro's dramatic strings, and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter's weeping pedal steel.  Unexpectedly, many of the vocals of the jam-like "Evil Woman" (co-written by the whole band) emanate from the rear channels, allowing the edgy guitars to dominate the fronts.

Both the original 1973 quad mix and the unique 2001 surround mix (with a center channel and a subwoofer) are wholly immersive; TSD looks forward to hearing what new colors will be brought out of this classic album in Dolby Atmos.  The Blu-ray Audiophile Edition of The Captain & Me hits stores on January 9 and you'll find pre-order links and the track listing below.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

The Doobie Brothers, The Captain & Me: Audiophile Edition (Warner Bros. BS/BS4 2694, 1973) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1. "Natural Thing"
2. "Long Train Runnin'"
3. "China Grove"
4. "Dark Eyed Cajun Woman"
5. "Clear As The Driven Snow"
6. "Without You"
7. "South City Midnight Lady"
8. "Evil Woman"
9. "Busted Down Around O'Connelly Corners"
10. "Ukiah"
11. "The Captain And Me"​