Lookback: The Doors ’70 – ’71, The Return To Blues Rock On ‘Morrison Hotel’ & ‘L.A. Woman’ – The End Of The Jim Morrison Era

“I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer…” – The Doors, “Roadhouse Blues” (Photo above likely subject to copyright)

I saw Jim Morrison, former lead singer of the Doors, was in the news the other day. Well, if I’m being a little more accurate, his tombstone was in the news. Morrison is buried in one of Paris’ most notable cemeteries, Pere Lachaise. I’ve actually been to the cemetery and yes, I visited Morrison’s grave… me and a few hippies. The hippies took it a lot more serious than I did. You could tell it was more of a religious pilgrimage for some of them. Anyway, there was a bust of Morrison as part of the tombstone and it was stolen in 1988, 37 years ago, but has been recently found. It was gone when I was there in 1990 so I guess I missed out on seeing it. No word on whether the cops will cart the bust of Morrison back over to the cemetery… I would think the stone replica of his head would be pretty pricey to mail via FedEx considering the weight.

I was frankly surprised they found the headstone. It was a bit of a coincidence as I have to admit, I’ve been thinking about the Doors quite a bit lately. I’ve never actually posted about the Doors, even though I really love these guys. They were a part of a piece I did on my favorite Psychedelic Rock albums earlier this year – you really can’t talk about psychedelia and not mention the Doors early albums – and they’ve been hovering in my mind ever since. It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing B*V this long without posting about the Doors, one of the fundamental American rock bands.

It was my younger brother who actually turned me onto the Doors. When he wasn’t playing the Beatles or George Harrison, I’d hear the Doors through our shared wall. He owned everything they put out. I’d go into his room, which was really a crucible for my budding interest in rock n roll, and hear all these great 60s bands. It was the mid 70s and one might consider that my brother was born 10 or 15 years too late but then he’s always been an “old soul.” If he’d been born a little earlier he might have run off to Woodstock and we may have never seen him again. We lived in a neighborhood named “Woodstock” when the show went down and somebody stole the neighborhood sign at the corner of our yard… presumably to show folks in other cars where they were headed. My father still grumbles about that once in a while.

Having heard the Doors blasting all the time next door led me to buy my first Doors’ album rather early in my record collecting career. In 1980 they put out one of those old fashioned, single-vinyl greatest hits albums, creatively titled Greatest Hits. It was the red and white one with a young Morrison on the cover. It was hard to catch up on all the great music of the 60s and 70s so many of us just bought greatest hits albums to “catch up” our collections… Francis Ford Coppola had used the Doors’ legendary track “The End” in Apocalypse Now and suddenly the Doors were hot again. Everybody had that Greatest Hits album… except my little brother who owned everything they’d done already. Around that time the biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, came out and it was an influential tome for all of us young, rebellious, pubescent teen age boys out there. Once again they’d used a picture of the young Morrison, in full “Lizard King” mode on the cover. All of this eventually led Rolling Stone to put Jim on the cover again under the title, He’s Hot, He’s Sexy, and He’s Dead. Heady stuff.

The Doors literally burst upon the scene with their self titled debut in early 1967 and were an instrumental part of the soundtrack for that year’s Summer Of Love. I didn’t realize it but their second album also came out in late 1967. Morrison exploded as the leather trouser wearing rock star singer. He’s an archetype for so many who came after him from Michael Hutchence (INXS) to Billy Idol. Their third album, Waiting For The Sun, is also a superb album but it was so overshadowed by the first two records that it sometimes gets overlooked.

After a long, exhausting tour which left Morrison struggling with anxiety and self medicating with alcohol he had considered quitting. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek talked him into staying through the recording of their next album, The Soft Parade. The Doors had always had a cool cache with the counter culture and underground rock scenes but The Soft Parade, which included some Tom Jones style horns (“Touch Me”) and strings, didn’t fly with those hip crowds. They were trying to be creative and head in a new direction but they ended up sort of losing their identity. Morrison only wrote about half the songs, the other half were written by guitarist Robbie Krieger. The tour in support of that album with Morrison getting hammered and more and more reckless on stage was, in short, a disaster. Eventually he was arrested in Miami for indecent exposure for allegedly exposing himself on stage. Most of the rest of the tour was cancelled. Morrison was charged and was facing real jail time. This was a band whose backs were against the wall.

In the spirit of, “everybody loves a comeback story,” this is the period I want to focus on in this post. The next two albums the band did in 1970 and 1971 prior to Morrison’s early demise in Paris (and burial at Pere Lachaise) to me, is some of the most compelling rock n roll they ever recorded. I want to “lookback” to the Doors’ albums Morrison Hotel and then L.A. Woman. I’ve done lookbacks to certain eras from different bands over the years – The Allman Brothers’ first two studio albums with Duane, the peak of both Aerosmith and Bob Seger or even the early Paul Butterfield Blues Band albums so this shouldn’t be foreign territory for long time readers. These are the last two albums Morrison did in his lifetime and I certainly think they’re special.

The Doors, at their core, were yes, a psychedelic rock band but they were also a stone cold blues band. Let’s not forget they covered blues legend Howlin Wolf’s great song “Backdoor Man” on their debut album. In difficult times Hendrix would turn to the blues as similarly Dylan would return to the folk music idiom, so to the Doors would turn back to the blues rock they all loved when they started the band and by doing so, they rediscovered themselves. While only the latter of these two albums was a “conventional hit” some of the songs on these albums entered the canon of great rock songs and lived forever on classic rock radio.

Morrison Hotel, 1971

After spending 9 months and a ton of money recording The Soft Parade, the Doors stripped things down for Morrison Hotel. The album is actually divided into two halves entitled “Morrison Hotel,” and “Hard Rock Cafe.” They recorded the album in their rehearsal space, where they were more comfortable. They also augmented their lineup (Morrison (vocals), Manzarek (keyboards), Krieger (guitar), and John Densmore (drums)) with Lonnie Mack (blues rock guitarist) on bass and John Sebastian from the Lovin’ Spoonful on harmonica. More critically Manzarek switched from electric piano to an old tack piano, giving the album a more organic feel. Unlike The Soft Parade, Morrison has a co-write on each song.

The album kicks off with one of the Doors’ signature songs, “Roadhouse Blues.” It’s on my recent Playlist: Songs About Drinking… Engineer Bruce Botnick has described it as “the ultimate bar band song” and oh yes, he’s right. Surprisingly it was first released as a b-side and never was a big radio hit. But it’s been played on rock radio ever since. Sebastian’s harmonica is so critical on the driving blues rock song. The album also has a song that started during the album that bears it’s name, “Waiting For The Sun.” It’s trippy and sounds like it could have come off one of those first two albums. Soundgarden did a great cover version. “You Make Me Real” is a jaunty little rocker that makes me feel the room is spinning. It was the single that “Roadhouse Blues” was the b-side for. “Peace Frog” is a funky slab of guitar and wonderful bass guitar. “There’s blood in the streets it’s up to my ankles…” indeed. Side one wraps up with the “Blue Sunday” and “Ship Of Fools” (the latter of which ended up on our April Fool’s Playlist). Even those deep tracks are strong.

“Land Ho!” continues the nautical theme and kicks off side 2. Next up is one of my favorite tracks, and a song everyone should hear at least once, “The Spy.” It’s slinky and bluesy and just creeps up on you…”I’m a spy, in the house of love…” And indeed I was. “Queen Of The Highway” was another track that should have been a hit. “Indian Summer” is a groovy dirge of a song. “Maggie Magill” takes us home on a bluesy/blues rock note. This album may not have big hits that folks will think of when they think of the Doors, but it’s over all one of the strongest albums these guys ever did. While it was merely thought of as a “return to form” at the time, a comeback album if you will, it really should have been huge. That would be the fate of their next album, Morrison’s last…

L.A. Woman (1971)

Morrison may have grown heavy from too much booze and grown a beard to distance himself from the earlier “Lizard King” persona, but he continued to deliver fantastic lyrics. This album is the best record made about Los Angeles ever. I think even the most casual fan would admit that this album, Morrison’s last alive, stands alongside their first two albums. Tellingly, they went back to their shared/communal writing credit, “All songs written by the Doors.” The album opens with the funky, bluesy “The Changeling.” “I had money, I had none, but I’ve never been so broke that I couldn’t leave town.” Perhaps Jim was telling us he was ready to journey… on. “Love Her Madly” was the first single, although the band had wanted “The Changeling to get that honor.” It’s hard to choose, but I think “Love Her Madly” was the right choice… “Don’t you love her madly as she’s walking out the door” may be the most truthful line ever written about love.

This album saw the end of the Doors’ relationship with longtime producer Paul A. Rothchild. Engineer Bruce Botnick stepped up to do produce the album with the band after Rothchild quit.

“Been Down So Long” is a Morrison penned track that is strictly blues. I could hear Howlin Wolf covering this one. “Cars Hiss By My Window” is another bluesy track that I’ve always loved. It’s on my Playlist: Songs About Cars. It’s so minimal in it’s execution but perfect. Side one of the original vinyl wraps up with the most epic L.A. song ever, “L.A. Woman.” I listen to this song and I feel like I’m driving through the streets of L.A. with the top down. “Drive through your suburbs, into your blues…” Morrison drops his moniker, “Mr. Mojo” which somehow fed speculation that he faked his death. At almost 8-minutes it’s certainly an epic farewell to L.A. Once again the song is helped along by session bassist Jerry Scheff who had played with the King (Elvis). Mark Benno also played rhythm guitar on several tracks.

After that almost perfect side of music, side 2 opens with the guitar squall of “L’America.” The drums are almost martial on that one. It’s a fever dream of a trip through the USA. “Hyacinth House” is a track that also should have been a single to my ears. The track is all about Morrison’s tempestuous relationship with Pamela Courson. Then they had the temerity to cover John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake” and I absolutely love the way they laid it down. It’s dirty blues. Blues music always make things better. “C’mon, let’s crawl.” I’m not even sure how to describe “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)” but it’s like a crazed preacher from the South on acid and spilling mysteries. “We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping,” and “Out here, we is stoned immaculate.” The album ends on the atmospheric track “Riders On The Storm,” which is supposedly the track that caused their longtime producer Paul Rothchild to quit, describing it as “cocktail jazz.” Although I’m told he denied saying that about “Riders On The Storm,” but said it about “Love Her Madly” which “drove him from the studio.” “Riders On The Storm” is one of the most epic psychedelic songs the Doors ever did. It’s the perfect ending song.

If you’ve only ever heard the “hits” or the songs they play on the radio from these two landmark albums I suggest you tee up both of these records post haste. There is so much gold to be found even in the deep tracks. They’d really found their groove again. If only Morrison had gotten a little help… maybe not taken the trip to Paris… maybe split from Pamela Courson as his relationship with her seemed a bit… toxic. Ah, life is full of “could have been.” While I love that early Doors music, this is my favorite part of their career, but then I’ve always been a sucker for bluesy music. Crank these two up loud.

I can’t help but wonder where they’d have gone next…

Cheers! (“Forget the night. Live with us in forests of azure.” Actually sounds like fun.)