Product Description

Description The final Doors album to feature vocalist Jim Morrison reaffirmed the quartet's grasp of blues-rock. Beset by personal and professional problems, they retreated to a rehearsal room, cast pressures aside, and recorded a handful of their most memorable compositions. The overall sound of the record isrelatively stripped down, but the musicianship is uniformlyexcellent, with empathetic interplay between guitarist Robbie Krieger and keyboard player Ray Manzarek. Jim Morrison's voice, though somewhat ragged and weather-worn, adds its fiercely unmistakable resonance. The spooky, low-key "Cars Hiss By My Window" and an edgy cover of John Lee Hooker's "Crawling King Snake" are straight, no-nonsense blues, but the album's highlights, including the jangling radio hit "Love Her Madly" and the breezy, chugging title track, which rides on a thrumming bass line and Krieger's fluid licks, mix bluesy bluster with the Doors' swirling, poetic magic. Morrison's death within weeks of the album's completion cast a pall over its content, especially the eerie rain and the funereal electric piano of "Riders On The Storm", the album's indisputable standout, and one of the most compelling, evocative songs in the band's catalogue. Though not the Doors' finest record, L.A. WOMAN was a fitting swan song for one of the mostunique and important bands of the '60s.

Track Listing

1. Changeling
2. Love Her Madly
3. Been Down So Long
4. Cars Hiss By My Window
5. LA Woman
6. L'America
7. Hyacinth House
8. Crawlin' Kingsnake
9. Wasp
10. Riders On The Storm

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42729 in Music
• Released on: 1988-08-26
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The last official Doors studio album, LA Woman was still high on the charts when, like the "actor out on loan" of its closing track, "Riders on the Storm", Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub in the summer of 1971. Via such tracks as "The Changeling", "Crawling King Snake", and the frothy, rollicking title track, the collection leaned heavily toward the blues--in particular, Morrison's boastful "Lizard King" brand of it. It also holds another entry in the band's ever-adventurous tone poems in the ever-underrated mythical tale of American music and culture, "WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)". --Billy Altman

From Amazon.com
This is the Doors' blues album, their best since their 1967 self-titled debut and their last before singer Jim Morrison died in 1971. The band sounds very inspired here, particular after lackluster efforts like Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade. This inspiration is demonstrated in the awesome boogie of "The Changeling" and "L.A. Woman," the lazy blues of "Cars Hiss by My Window," and the very pretty "Hyacinth House" (featuring the great line "I see the bathroom is clear"). Although Morrison not surprisingly takes himself too seriously at times, as in his spoken-word ranting in "The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)," Ray Manzarek's keyboards and Robby Krieger's bottleneck guitar both shine, helping to make L.A. Woman a minor rock & roll classic. --Andy Boynton

Customer Reviews

Swansong
The Doors' last album before Jim Morrison's death stands apart from their earlier releases. Grittier and bluesier, it isn't representative of what made them successful, but has its own aura. The cover shot shows a grizzlier, chunkier Morrison, no longer the budding sex god, and his vocal delivery is that of a more mature hell raiser. Two additional musicians on rhythm and bass guitars are also featured, so that Ray Manzarek's keyboards, though still prominent, are less dominant. The result is that the band sounds less different from other bands than before, but they also sound more fluid.

Blues forms the main thread to the album. There are three straight examples of the form, but there are, as usual, surprises. 'L'America' is the most uncomfortable listening and reveals that Morrison still possessed plenty of menace. 'Love Her Madly' is deliciously light and melodic, Manzarek's piano skipping along, as is 'Hyacinth House'. 'Changeling' provides an earthy opening, while the title track fairly bombs along, allowing each member to stretch out. This is one of the album's trump cards, but two more are left until the end. 'Texas Radio and The Big Beat' sees Morrison on mischievous form and it does indeed feature a big beat. The crowning achievement is of course 'Riders On The Storm,' a soundtrack for psychopaths everywhere, full of beautiful sounds and dark dramas. Possibly not to every fan's liking, 'LA Woman' is nevertheless a superb performance.

Not my favourite...
This probably isn't my favourite Doors album, but I still enjoyed it. From "Love Her Madly" to "The Changeling", and from "Riders On The Storm" to the long and beautiful title track, I'd say it's still worth a shot.

The Doors last effort (and what a way to go!)
LA Woman, the last gasp of a group that was running out of ideas, such that their long erstwhile producer Paul Rothschild threw the towel in and refused to prdouce having declared to the group they were merely playing "cocktail lounge music"?

Well on the evidence of the remastered CD that was not at all what the final product turned out like. Morrison may have been on his last legs physically as proven by his subsequent early death and emotionally low given the Miami obscenity trial bearing down on him, but the Lizard King went out with all cylinders firing. The recordings were made in a nearby basement the group having vacated the Elektra studios by mutual consent, but being the professionals they were the recordings retain all that was great about the Doors - well played instrumentation by three great musicians with the right hard or light touch as the recordings required and Morrison contributing some great songs notably the title track and Riders on the Storm, though overall there are no fillers.

The album was certainly more bluesy that any prior offerings (even including John Lee Hooker's "Crawling King Snake") but as a band that had always been open to many varied influences that adaptation did not cause any energy level loss. What hits one most on relistening now several decades later is that while a lot of the songs were longer workouts than the prior rocking "Morrison Hotel" LP they still have a quality that leaves standing the earlier recordings by the group - "LA Woman" versus "The End"? - no contest with the later Doors winning hands down in my book!