The first time Michael Goessling, who was adopted as an infant, spoke to his biological father he asked him what he did for a living. Musician, said the man, who called himself “Mike.” Still on the phone, Mr. Goessling had already begun scouring the internet when Mike mentioned he was on tour and would be performing in St. Louis, where Mr. Goessling lives.
“I just spit it out: ‘Are you Michael Mc Donald?’ He chuckled and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so.’” That initial conversation took place in May 2025. Mr. Goessling, 59, has had some time to get used to the idea that his father rose to fame as a soulful lead vocalist of the Doobie Brothers. Mr. Mc Donald, 74, wrote in a memoir that he was in eighth grade when his girlfriend got pregnant with Mr. Goessling, and the couple was pressured to give him away.
For Mr. Goessling, the discovery still feels surreal. “I was certainly more prepared for perhaps, you know, Mike the retired schoolteacher or accountant or truck driver,” he said. “But certainly not Mike the five-time-Grammy-Award-winning Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer.” Mr. Mc Donald did not respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday.
Mr. Goessling was born in St. Louis, near where Mr. Mc Donald grew up. Mr. Mc Donald’s younger son took an ancestry test, which showed he had a brother named Michael Goessling in St. Louis. On May 6, 2025, Mr. Goessling received a letter from a lawyer representing his birth parents. “What might come from this story and the attention it’s getting all of a sudden is that the adoption narrative gets elevated in this country,” he said.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing