THEDOORS

LA Woman 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition RHINO

10/10

THE portents weren’t good. Still reeling from a disastrous gig in New Orleans where Jim Morrison – overweight, heavily bearded and catatonically drunk – had smashed his microphone and stormed off stage during final song “Light My Fire”, The Doors assembled at their rehearsal room at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard in December 1970 to start work on a new record.

With their singer potentially facing six months’ hard labour in a Florida prison, having been found guilty of “indecent exposure and profanity” at their infamous gig in Miami, long-term producer Paul Rothchild having quit, and short on new material, the odds seemed stacked against them. Yet the album which emerged from this seemingly hopeless situation is now widely considered to be The Doors’ defining artistic statement.

A soundscape of the city that spawned it, LA Woman oozes both glamour and seediness, its combination of driving, desert-dry blues and brooding lounge as sleazily enigmatic as its titular heroine, “another lost angel” in the “city of night”. Shot through with a sense of impending doom – five of the ten tracks, eight written by Morrison, are coded farewells – it’s as gripping as fiction, a goodbye to both Los Angeles and the singer’s rock-star alter ego. All set against a musical backdrop that takes the band full circle to their garage roots.

A decade on from the album’s last reissue, this expanded 50th-anniversary edition sheds new light on this most intriguing of records. Newly remastered – once more – by producer Bruce Botnick, the original 49-minute album comes with some serious sonic sparkle. John Densmore’s drums are snappier, Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek’s intuitive interplay more zingy, Morrison’s boozy baritone more intoxicating than ever.

It’s the two hours of bonus material, however, that really set the pulse racing. Opening