Even if his inauspicious beginnings did not bode well‘LA Woman’ may be the Doors’ best album. On April 19, 1971, the Los Angeles band released their sixth studio album, a collection of 10 songs steeped in blues and the essence of the city that captivated them. Fate wanted it to be too the last album in which Jim Morrison participated. And hide stories that (maybe) you didn’t know
“It’s finish!”
By the late 1970s, the mental toll of Jim Morrison’s addiction and legal troubles threatened to overwhelm the band. Any attempt to make an album under these conditions could have been an absolute disaster. And, in fact, it started. But this time, the myth had nothing to do with it.
Paul Rothchild, the producer of his five previous albums, abandoned the project in its first stage. He claimed that the material bored him and called it ‘lounge music cocktail after listening to the two songs the Doors taught him in November 1970. One of them was the legendary Riders on the Storm. The other, I love her madly, I kicked her out of the studio. “The material was bad, the attitude was bad, the acting was bad.” it says in Morrison’s biography “No one here makes it out alive”. “After three days of listening, I told them ‘It’s over!’ through the intercom and I canceled the session”.
“I think it sucks”
They called an emergency meeting at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Rothchild laid the cards on the table: “I said, ‘Look, I think it’s disgusting. I don’t think that was the word they wanted to hear. ‘East the first time I’m bored in a studio in all my life. I want to go to sleep.'” So the so-called ‘Fifth Gate’, abandoned. Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore were shocked.
A photo of the Doors in Los Angeles in 1969 / Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives
“The jailer was gone”
When they recovered from the shock, engineer Bruce Botnick was called in and his production help strengthened the band. Gone are the days of Strict Rothchild. Those long sessions where it was common to record 30 takes or spend endless hours perfecting the sound of a drum kit. “Rothchild was gone and that was one of the reasons we had so much funsaid Robbie Krieger in Guitar World in 1994. And he concluded: “The jailer was gone.”
“Like canned sardines”
Fleeing from the technology provided by Sunset Sound, the Doors decided to record in their modest “workshop” on Santa Monica Boulevard. “It was the room in which we had always repeated“, recalls John Densmore in the documentary ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’. “Our music permeated on the walls. We felt very comfortable. it was our house“It was a small space, littered with empty beer bottles, tattered magazines, tangled cables and an assortment of instruments, as well as a jukebox and a pinball machine. “It was cramped,” recalls Botnick. “We were like canned sardines.
voice in the bathroom
During takes, Morrison held his Gold Electrovoice 676-G microphone, the same one he used on the band’s last tour, and sang in the adjoining bathroom, which served as a temporary recording booth. THE tiles providing impressive natural acoustics. Jim tore the hinges off the door to better communicate with his companions.
Jim Morrison / Getty Images/CBS Photo Archive
“Will Elvis’ bass player play with me?
For the recording, they invited, among others, the bassist Elvis Presley, Jerry Scheff. By all accounts, Morrison, a huge fan of the “King of Rock”, was excited. Will Elvis’ bassist be with us? Do you want to play with me?”
Inspired by Duke Ellington
Love her madly, the first single, became one of the band’s biggest hits (and this resulted in the departure of the producer). Krieger wrote it at home, dealing with his boredom during Morrison’s trial for showing his genitals. He was inspired by his issues with his then-girlfriend and later wife, Lynn. According to its author, its title refers to the Duke Ellington song, We love you madlya phrase he used to utter in front of the public at the end of his concerts: “We want them con locura”
The gigantic leather notebook and the anagram
Jim Morrison wrote LA Woman in a huge leather-bound notebook that they had given him. Guitarist Marc Benno recalled it in Goldmine in 2011: “It was gigantic, Like a Los Angeles phone book, but it was full of poems, letters and drawings”. The lyrics of the song include an anagram with his name – ‘Mr. Mojo Rising. Densmore told LA Weekly how it happened: “He moved the letters around and it was an anagram of his name. I knew “mojo” was a sexual term and that gave me the idea to make the tempo slow and long. also gave me the idea of accelerating little by little, as in an orgasm”.
“We have never been so stupid”
“We were never stupid enough to ask Jim what his words meant. He would never have given a straight answer.” Krieger told LA Weekly. LA Woman’s lyrics inspired the band to play “in a state of enormous excitement” when they recorded it. As Manzarek explained in Classic Rock: “The Doors came in. We sink our teeth into this song. Everything was passion and flight. It felt like we were on route 101, driving from Bakersfield to San Francisco. You can hear our enthusiasm.” Krieger has always considered that the theme “the Doors par excellence. For me, it’s magic.”
The hitchhiker killer
Part of the lyrics of Riders on the storm, written by Jim, refer to murderous hitchhiker Billy “Cockeyed” Cook, which was the subject of the 1953 film “The Hitch-Hiker” (There is a killer on the road). ” Essentially, It’s a very cinematic song about a serial killer.Manzarek explained. Although the keyboardist observed that certain phrases expressed Morrison’s love for Pamela Courson (Girl, you gotta love your man). Fue the last song that the four Doors members recorded and also the last song recorded by Morrison and published before his death in Paris on July 3, 1971.