The Doobie Brothers’ former San Jose home named a historic landmark

Woah oh woah, listen to the San Jose City Council. The former home of a founding member of the Doobie Brothers, who admonished us to listen to the music, was deemed worthy of historic preservation.

Musician Tom Johnston never actually owned the San Jose property, but he rented it for four years beginning in 1969. During that time the fledgling singer/songwriter turned his attention from his graphic design studies at San Jose State to his new band with guitarist Patrick Simmons, bass player Dave Shogren and drummer John Hartman.

By the time Johnston moved out of the three-bedroom, two-bath Craftsman-style home, The Doobie Brothers had already completed their first three studio albums. Johnston wrote most of the band’s early hits, like “Listen to the Music,” “Long-Train Runnin’” and air-guitar favorite “China Grove,” in the home and the original lineup of the band often rehearsed there as well. (Singer/songwriter Michael McDonald, responsible for later hits like “Takin’ It to the Streets”, didn’t join the group until 1975.)

The home’s current owners purchased the property in February 2019 for $1.2 million, according to public records, and began petitioning to designate the home a city landmark in May 2021. Using a state law called the Mills Act, the designation gets the owners a property tax break in exchange for restoring and maintaining the historic property. The owners created a 10-year plan that includes upgrades to exterior paint and plumbing, as well as “installing a bronze plaque on the front of the home explaining its historical significance,” according to the San Jose Mercury News.

“When we preserve something and it’s not a part of today’s culture, that’s preserving history and I appreciate the work that’s gone into this,” San Jose City Council Member Raul Peralez said of the application at the hearing.

The Doobie Brothers are the city’s only homegrown group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the decision to declare the house a landmark was relatively uncontested. But Council member Maya Esparza noted that, even though she voted to approve the historic designation, she had concerns that oftentimes the properties being honored with this status only preserved “the history of the privileged, the history of who’s benefited from our city’s past redlining and other discriminatory practices.”

“I’m not bringing this up because I have issues with The Doobie Brothers or their contributions to music, but as far as I know we don’t have any city historic landmarks associated with Los Tigres Del Norte, for example,” she said at the meeting, citing the multi-Grammy-winning Norteño music group started by actual brothers Jorge, Raul and Hernan Hernandez in San Jose in the late 1960s.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo then requested that anyone with knowledge of important Los Tigres Del Norte properties in the city come forward and offer their proposals for preservation. He also more generally encouraged the entire community to step up with their landmark suggestions so the city could preserve “those many hidden gems in our city.”