MusicRadar

The Doors (from left: Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, John Densmore and Robby Krieger) perform outside in Frankfurt, Germany, 1968. © Bettmann/CORBIS

"I'm glad that LA Woman was our last album," says Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. "It really captured what we were all about. The first record did, too, but LA Woman is more loose, it's live – it sounds almost like a rehearsal. It's pure Doors."

Forty years after its release (this April will be 41, to be exact, but who's counting?), music fans young and old are reveling in the the sound of "pure Doors" on the just-issued 40th anniversary edition of LA Woman, a two-CD set jammed with alternate versions of classic songs like Love Her Madly and Riders On The Storm, along with the newly discovered cut She Smells So Nice.

Recorded in late 1970 and early '71, LA Woman - a superb collection of tough, ballsy blues and ameliorating trippiness - is the product of a band rallying around itself despite serious cracks in the wall. During writing and tracking sessions, singer Jim Morrison's enormous penchant for drink was now out of control, exacerbated by a court case stemming from an incident in which he was accused of exposing himself on stage in Florida.

Adding insult to injury, The Doors' longtime producer, Paul A Rothchild, called the group's new songs "cocktail music" and passed on making the record. Undaunted, the group (which also included keyboardist Ray Manzarek and drummer John Densmore) hunkered down with Elvis Presley's bass player, Jerry Scheff, and guitarist Mark Benno and co-produced what would be their swan song with their longtime engineer, Bruce Botnick. (This turbulent period is recounted in vivid detail in the new Blu-ray and DVD release called The Doors - Mr. Mojo Risin': The Story Of LA Woman.)

"It was a stressful time," says Krieger, "but we had a lot of fun making the record. Stuff always seemed to be happening to us - it's just the way things were. But anytime we played, all felt good."

Krieger isn't spending all of his time on memory lane, however: recently, he, Manzarek and Densmore collaborated with au courant DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore) for the song Breakin' A Sweat. Their generation-spanning recording session is part of the new documentary film RE:GENERATION, in which four other eclectic pairs work together to create new music.

MusicRadar sat down with Robby Krieger the other day to talk about LA Woman, Skrillex and the guitarist's upcoming participation on the next installment of the Experience Hendrix Tour. Regarding the latter, we asked Krieger the eternal question: Ever meet Hendrix?

On LA Woman, a real sense of liberation comes through. Is that how you were all feeling, to be finally producing yourselves?

"It was, definitely. All of our other records were produced by Paul Rothchild, who was a great producer, but he was a bit… meticulous. LA Woman felt like we were making a demo. We were in a rehearsal place, we weren't in some $100-an-hour studio, and we knew the sound we wanted to hear. It felt like we were coming home, in a way. The whole thing was great."

When Paul Rothchild said he didn't want to produce the album, did his criticism sting?

"It did, it did. We were pretty up about the music we were making. We had rehearsed for a couple of weeks before we played some things for Paul. He came down to the studio and listened one day – and you know, maybe we weren't at our best; it's hard to say [laughs]… but he just wasn't into it.

"I hate to think this, but Paul had just come off a big hit record. He had done Pearl with Janis Joplin. Maybe he was saying to himself, 'The Doors are on their way down. I don't want to get caught in this thing.' And Janis had just died, too – he might have been looking at Jim and thinking, Man, he's under the gun with this trial. Who knows what's going to happen?... I don't know. Maybe Paul didn't want to be known as the 'dead man's producer.'"

Around the web: