The Doors are commemorating the 50th-anniversary deluxe edition of their sixth and final album with Jim Morrison, LA Woman, out Dec. 3.
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Celebrating the band’s seminal album, and last with Morrisson, who died in Paris three months after its release, LA Woman: 50th Anniversary Edition features the original album, remastered by The Doors’ longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick, who took a more organic approach in remastering, paying little mind to perfecting any of band’s tracks.
“The previously unreleased reels—serial takes of ‘The Changeling,’ ‘Love Her Madly,’ ‘Riders On The Storm,’ and ‘LA Woman’—depict a band obsessed with groove while executing turns and flourishes with the precision of a well-drilled soul combo,” says Botnick. “The idea was to go from song to song, to let it flow.”
In addition, the 50th edition includes two bonus discs of unreleased studio outtakes, the stereo mix of the original album on 180-gram vinyl, and more than two hours of unreleased recordings pulled from the original LA Woman sessions, including an early demo from guitarist Robby Krieger’s home studio of “Hyacinth House,” recorded in 1969.
Other outtakes feature the band—Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek, and Krieger—in the studio with rhythm guitarist Marc Benno, who worked with Leon Russell in The Asylum Choir, and bassist Jerry Scheff of Elvis Presley’s TCB band. Additional outtakes feature the band playing through some older blues like John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake,” Lee Dorsey’s funky 1966 classic “Get Out Of My Life Woman,” written by Allen Toussaint, along with Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train,” and Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go.”
In the liner notes, rock journalist David Fricke delves deeper into the making of LA Woman, recorded over six days at the Workshop on Santa Monica Boulevard in November 1970 and featuring some of the band’s most iconic hits such as “Love Her Madly,” the title track, and “Riders On The Storm,” which also has a previously unreleased demo version on the deluxe edition.
“Morrison may never have come back to The Doors,” writes Fricke in the liner notes. “But with his death, L.A. Woman became rebirth, achievement, and finale, all at once. It’s the blues too–original blues, as Morrison promised. Fifty years later, there is still nothing like it.”
LA Woman 50th Deluxe Track List
CD 1: Original Album Remastered
- The Changeling (2021 Remaster)
- Love Her Madly (2021 Remaster)
- Been Down So Long (2021 Remaster)
- Cars Hiss By My Window (2021 Remaster)
- L.A. Woman (2021 Remaster)
- L’America (2021 Remaster)
- Hyacinth House (2021 Remaster)
- Crawling King Snake (2021 Remaster)
- The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat) [2021 Remaster]
- Riders On The Storm (2021 Remaster)
- Hyacinth House (Demo) [2021 Remaster]
- Riders On The Storm (Sunset Sound Demo)
CD 2: LA Woman Sessions, Part 1
- The Changeling (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Love Her Madly (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Riders On The Storm (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- L.A. Woman, Pt. 1 (L.A. Woman Sessions)
CD 3: LA Woman Sessions, Part 2
- L.A. Woman, Pt. 2 (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- She Smells So Nice (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Rock Me Baby (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Mr. Mojo Risin’ (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Baby Please Don’t Go (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- L.A. Woman, Pt. 3 (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Been Down So Long (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Get Out Of My Life Woman (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Crawling King Snake (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- The Bastard Son Of Jimmy & Mama Reed (Cars Hiss By My Window) [L.A. Woman Sessions]
- Been Down So Long II (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- Mystery Train (L.A. Woman Sessions)
- The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat) [L.A. Woman Sessions]
