For all intents and purposes, Toulouse Street functions as the Doobie Brothers’ debut. Though it released a self-titled effort in 1971, the band admitted the latter album was rushed and reflected the results of a group that had barely spent any time together. Toulouse Street unfolded amid far more favorable circumstances.

Overflowing with feel-good vibes and a catchy hybrid of Southern-reared blues, rock, R&B, and country, it touted key lineup changes that proved crucial to the band’s success. And it’s how most listeners discovered Tom Johnston and Co., setting the stage for a dominant run during the Seventies that led to the Doobie Brothers’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sourced from the original analog master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 45RPM 2LP of Toulouse Street offers the 1972 set in definitive sound. Given the luxurious room of a 45RPM version for the first time and benefiting from wider grooves, the music benefits from extraordinary soundstages, ultra-quiet backgrounds, vivid dynamics, and incredible imaging. Ted Templeman’s production shines like never before. Facets that help make the album so welcoming — voices that naturally rise and fall, notes that properly carry and decay, bass lines you can trace from beginning to end, well-placed percussive accents, well-defined separation between the players — come across on this collectible reissue with involving presence, balance, and realism. It’s like the man says: Listen to the music. All the time.