The Doors: the Story of LA Woman on TV

[Big Ears]

The Doors: the Story of LA Woman is on BBC 4 tomorrow night at 10:20pm (Friday 30th March 2012). Described as a new documentary which includes exclusive interviews with surviving members, Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger. The album was released in April 1971, but eight weeks later Jim Morrison was dead. The Doors is followed by Mark Lawson Talks to Noel Gallagher on the same channel, to 12:20am (I am not an Oasis fan).

 

[LG]

I'm not the biggest fan of the Doors but have come to appreciate them more now than I did when I was a lot younger. I think Jim Morrison is like a meteorite, he blazed across the music scene getting everyone's attention and then was gone in an instant.

 

[Big Ears]

Like Jimi Hendrix! It'll be interesting to hear what they have to say about him.

 

[TheSound]

Luckily I spotted this on the TV listings and recorded it, and am I ever glad I did. It was a hour discussing and playing the L A Woman album with most of the main players - the guys themselves, producer, friends etc, everyone except 'Mr Mojo Risin' himself of course, just a tremendous documentary about probably the best album by in my view the best band of the 60's....that was the album - their last, Jim Morrison was dead a few months later - that gave us Riders on the Storm, L A Woman, and Love Her Madly. It actually made me go away and dig out my Doors CD's, and I have been in and out of them all weekend and renewing my long-standing appreciation of their unique and evocative music. This to me is the mark of great TV documentary making, when you turn it off and the impact of the programme literally has an effect on your whole life (or at least the leisure-time part of it) for the next few days, that to me is real art, and that to me is why we need music, and why we needed bands like The Doors who can still do that to people over 40 years later.

 

[LG]

^^You really think LA Woman is better than their debut TS??

I've mellowed on The Doors over the years, but will always play their first record more than the others.

 

[TheSound]

^^You really think LA Woman is better than their debut TS??

Difficult to say really LG. I have been playing all of the albums over the weekend, and all 6 of them are pretty much flawless in my view. I don't count the albums they did after Morrison died, not that there's much wrong with them, Other Voices and Full Circle are nice records, though I never liked 'American Prayer' as it seemed morbid and exploitative of Morrison, but for me the Doors with Morrison and after him have to be treated as virtually two separate bands, they are one band who died as an entity when the singer passed away, and he could never ever be replaced. I suppose I was motivated by the documentary on BBC TV, so maybe I was slightly influenced by that, but on balance, I'd say 'L A Woman' was a stronger record than 'The Doors' even though the first album is just miraculous, there's quite a bit of exploratory stuff on 'L A Woman' - especially with tracks like 'The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)' and of course the incredible sounds they conjured up with 'L A Woman' and 'Riders...' ...I wasn't really around, except in diapers!! but I'm pretty sure nobody had heard anything like those tracks when they first came out, that pulse-like base line on both tracks, and a raging thunder storm on 'Riders', those two tracks are just extraordinary and will be loved for as long as Beethoven's 5th has been! So I'd probably rate their albums like this...

LA Woman
The Doors
Strange Days
Morrison Hotel
Waiting for the Sun
Soft Parade

But it seems futile to list them at all, it beggars belief that the first album (which I am playing as I type!) was 45 years ago, even today there's very little you hear in terms of instrumental and production techniques that can live with it - and yes I am playing the original recordings, though on CD and not vinyl, and not the modern 're-mixes' which I know a lot of Doors fans hate.

 

[LG]

^^I've missed you...

Indeed many collectors prefer the very first CD's over the numerous "Remasters" warts and all because they simply did a Direct transfer from the mastertapes to the digital processors, which kept the balance the same.

I can rate The Doors first on my list, other than that I honestly haven't played the others enough to give them a place on any personal list.

I love Riders on the Storm...cracks me up when I read the band Hated that song when they recorded it, like some bad Lounge act instead of a rock band.

 

[TheSound]

Well then since we are talking about it, here (IMO) are the 3 confirmed all time classic songs from this album - surely rarely has rock music been more evocative of a particular era than late 60's/early 70's 'turn of the decade' Doors...or in the case of 'L A Woman' more evocative of an entire great city...as the BBC documentary explained, the 'L A Woman' in the song is no particular girl or collection of girls, it's a metaphor for the city of Los Angeles, Morrison saw the whole city as his mistress, if you bear that in mind when you play it and listen to the words, the song takes on a whole new meaning, it's just pure genius. Oh, and 'Mr Mojo Risin' is ... of course .... an anagram of 'Jim Morrison' just to reinforce the point he was making.

 

[gguerra]

On a side note, their recent documentary "When You're Strange" was pretty good IMO even if you are not a fan.

The first feature documentary about The Doors comprised of entirely unseen archival footage.

 

[Masherbrum]

^^You really think LA Woman is better than their debut TS??

I've mellowed on The Doors over the years, but will always play their first record more than the others.

I love The Doors. I also agree with you, their debut is in my opinion one the Greatest Debut Albums of All-Time.