L.A. Woman

By late 1970, The Doors had experienced just about everything a veteran rock group could fathom- fame, success, excess, critical acclaim, and stylistic complacency. They had helped pioneer the psychedelic era, invented rock theater, and experimented with horn and string arrangements in their music. By this point, The Doors were perhaps a little tired and uninspired, but an old and trusty, tried and true friend crept into their songwriting- the blues. Hard and gritty, with a Texas-style intensity, the blues became the focus of The Doors new project, L.A. Woman. Jim Morrison in particular was very energetic and enthusiastic about the album, being an admirer of blues. The band embraced this new energy and decided to record the album in their rehearsal space, instead of a state-of-the-art L.A. studio. The vibe and comfort the space offered allowed the band to jam in an unhurried fashion, and the result is an album that is loose and freewheeling, but with the instrumental tightness and skill The Doors were known for.

L.A. Woman thematically is a moving album, almost an extension of Morrison Hotel, but with more of a blues influence. There's a feeling of loneliness and restlessness interwoven through the album, especially felt in the songs "The Changeling," "Cars Hiss By My Window," L.A. Woman," "Hyacinth House," and "Riders On The Storm."

The album kicks off on a funk rock kick with "The Changeling," pummeling the speakers as Morrison half-growls the lyrics. "Love Her Madly," Robby Krieger's last big single while with The Doors, follows with it's great guitar hook. The chorus features another hook, Ray Manzarek's calypso organ part, which sounds unique among the many keyboard, organ, and piano parts he played throughout the band's history. "Been Down So Long" is barroom blues at it's toughest, a cross-pollination of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters-style riffs. Morrison really lets himself go and puts some emotion into his singing. "Cars Hiss By My Window" is a very slow blues made up of a series of lyrical letdowns and warnings sung brilliantly by Morrison. A very mellow blues and maybe one of the more underrated Doors tracks. The sleepy mood of "Cars Hiss..." ends almost in whisper, and suddenly a car speeding off down the highway interrupts the silent mood. A flourish of dissonant piano sounds and synthesizer bass set the uneasy, nervous pulse of the title track. "L.A. Woman" is an experience, a literal and psychedelic trip, the former a manic tour of L.A. and it's underworld, the latter an aural nightmare and celebration all at once. The song rumbles quickly through some verses before Morrison declares "let's change the mood from glad to sadness." The song morphs into a different creature, a slow bluesy trudge through uncertainty and a heavy, dense air of despair. Finally after a few bars, Morrison grabs ahold of a spontaneous kind of alter ego- Mr. Mojo Risin'- and runs with it until the buildup rides and explodes into a sunflower. The song takes a strange optimistic turn out of it's ominous mood- truly excellent theater. This song is a perfect example of The Doors, an embodiment of them as a sound, a song only they could write. Immediately following is another Morrison song poem, "L'America," a bleak trip to a downtrodden place, where the narrator hopes to strike it rich. This is another song with a long buildup, from a galloping, march-like entrance, right into a bluesy show tune to break the hypnotic doom. After another couple of wild mood swings, the tune comes full circle, ending with the same trance it began with. "Hyacinth House" signals a return to a lighter atmosphere, a fluttery, pastoral mosaic again themed in loneliness and paranoia. But the lyrical weight never drags down the melancholic beauty in the music- a strange instance of The Doors playing their own gospel. On an album rich with underrated songs, "Hyacinth House" stands out. In a nod to the old blues master John Lee Hooker, The Doors bust out "Crawling King Snake," another blues in that old stumbling roadhouse-style. The band is in fine form, playing with a raw, open sound but with polished technique after years of playing it live. "The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" is an ode to danger and risk of sorts, where a teenager of the 1940's and '50's could, depending on location, tune into border radio stations and hear a whole new world of music (blues, country, rock & roll) not heard on typical American pop stations. Morrison experienced this as a Navy brat, moving all over the country as a child and picking up different music along the way. The hard-driving blues continues the roots of L.A. Woman with indeed a big beat and some great existential-ish poetry. Every great album usually has a grand finale, a sendoff to remember. "Riders On The Storm" is the end of the road, a strangely symbolic farewell to The Doors as a mythical quartet, as Morrison wouldn't survive to see the song become a hit single. Is it lounge jazz? Is it a slow jazz-blues? Is it just a rock tune? "Riders..." is a slow jazz-blues, with added thunder and rain effects and instruments given watery Leslie speaker* treatments. There is a lounge kind of feel to the sound, but instead of being background music, it is instead a heavy mood, one of stoned apprehension under a literal and figurative cloudy evening. The dark weight of the mood rivals that of the title track, and, much like that song, "Riders..." seems to warn against the perils of a restless life, warns of the danger of the road. Morrison sounds prophetic in his understated gloom, and the band lightly bubbles and simmers under his lead. Of course, "Riders..." became another Doors signature, another slice of their wide trademark sound pie. As other Doors songs did, "Riders..." went on to become an instant classic, a timeless piece of fragility and fear, a send off to Jim Morrison, one of the most brilliant, tortured, reviled, and condemned pop culture icons ever.

With the 2007 release of The Doors 40th Anniversary mixes, some new elements were revealed in L.A. Woman. Most were minor adjustments in re-mastering the sound, but there are a few significant changes. The closeout of "Love Her Madly" is extended a little longer than in the original mix, with the fadeout coming much later. Most notable is an extra verse of lyrics in "Cars Hiss By My Window," the last verse ("dog crawled out my window/in the cruel morning yard..."). For whatever reason (vinyl time limits?) this verse was omitted from the original 1971 mix. Also, at the start of "Cars Hiss..." is a new little Morrison yelp ("wayyyooo"). At the beginning of "L.A. Woman," a quote from the traditional children's hymn "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" is played with what sounds like a Moog synthesizer* electronically detuned, before turning into the familiar "car down the highway" sound. Also added to the album are two bonus tracks. "Orange County Suite" is a mid-period Morrison poem (started in 1968), an homage to his girlfriend Pamela Courson. He was recorded playing a piano chord at the start of the piece, and recorded an entire vocal track to map out the song's key, but died before anything else was completed. In 1997, the surviving Doors completed the track with their usual perfect accompaniment. It was originally released as a new track for the Box Set compilation that same year. "(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further" is an old Willie Dixon-penned blues (Dixon wrote a great many classic blues songs that were usually popularized by his fellow bluesmen in Chicago, specifically his Chess Records colleagues). Chicago legend Muddy Waters made it into a small hit originally, and then it was probably played by many other bluesmen over the following years (the blues is a widely traded, copied, plagiarized, and recycled template). The Doors jammed on this song live on a few occasions, and with Morrison and Manzarek being big Chicago blues fans, it's not surprising to see The Doors recording their own cut of this post-war blues classic.

*Leslie Speaker- Basically a standard amplifier cabinet with one or more internal rotating horns, instead of a set speaker. The alternate rotations and speed of the horns affects the tone of the instrument being played through it, giving it an sweeping , shimmery feel (slow) or a dreamy, watery feel (medium, fast).

*Moog Synthesizer (early version)- a keyboard connected by cables to a switchboard of inputs and dials, which activated and adjusted preset sound effects. Robotic-like distortion, reproductions of classical instruments like flutes and horns, and white-noise washes were just some of the available effects on a Moog.