The Doors’ 1971 album L.A. Woman turned 50 years old in April. And to commemorate the occasion, Rhino is releasing a 3-CD/1-LP 50th anniversary deluxe edition featuring the original album newly remastered by the Doors’ longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick, two bonus discs of unreleased studio outtakes, and the stereo mix of the original album on vinyl, plus liner notes from David Fricke.
The outtakes in the collection include covers of classic blues songs like John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake” and Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train,” an early demo for “Hyacinth House” recorded at Robby Krieger’s home studio in 1969, and more, recorded with rhythm guitarist Marc Benno and Elvis Presley’s TCB band bassist Jerry Scheff.
“The previously unreleased reels here — serial takes of ‘The Changeling,’ ‘Love Her Madly,’ ‘Riders On The Storm,’ and ‘L.A. Woman’ — depict a band obsessed with groove while executing turns and flourishes with the precision of a well-drilled soul combo,” Botnick explains. “The idea was to go from song to song, to let it flow.”
Today, we get to hear the original demo of “Riders On The Storm,” possibly the Doors’ best song, which was recently discovered on an unmarked tape reel in the band’s vault. The recording was made with producer Paul A. Rothchild during the early recording sessions for the album at Sunset Sound studios. Rothchild called the new songs “cocktail music” and left the project, after which Botnick came in to co-produce the album. Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
Disc One: Original Stereo Mix Remastered
01 “The Changeling”
02 “Love Her Madly”
03 “Been Down So Long”
04 “Cars Hiss By My Window”
05 “L.A. Woman”
06 “L’America”
07 “Hyacinth House”
08 “Crawling King Snake”
09 “The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)”
10 “Riders On The Storm”
Bonus Tracks
11 “Hyacinth House” – Demo
12 “Riders On The Storm” – Sunset Sound Version – Original Demo*
Disc Two: L.A. Woman Sessions, Part 1
01 “The Changeling” *
02 “Love Her Madly” *
03 “Riders On The Storm” *
04 “L.A. Woman” (Part 1) *
Disc Three: L.A. Woman Sessions, Part 2
01 “L.A. Woman” (Part 2) *
02 “She Smells So Nice” *
03 “Rock Me Baby” *
04 “Mr. Mojo Risin’” *
05 “Baby Please Don’t Go” *
06 “L.A. Woman” (Part 3) *
07 “Been Down So Long” *
08 “Get Out Of My Life Woman” *
09 “Crawling King Snake” *
10 “The Bastard Son Of Jimmy & Mama Reed (Cars Hiss By My Window)” *
11 “Been Down So Long” *
12 “Mystery Train” *
13 “The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)” *
L.A. Woman: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is out 12/3 via Rhino. Pre-order it here.
