The Doors - L.A. Woman (1971)

(This review honors Jim Morrison on the seventieth anniversary of his birth today, and it's also a tribute to Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who died in May 2013.)

The Doors began as a psychedelically tinged rock band whose music suggested a dark parody of cocktail lounge arrangements edited and presented in the style of film narratives, befitting their film-school origins.  The driving force, though, was always lead singer Jim Morrison, with his poetic, brooding lyrics and foreboding vocals.  In the late sixties, the Doors' vision became undisciplined, and so did Morrison; by 1970, the band was in disarray and Morrison's antics made things all the more difficult for them.  Their music increasingly lacked focus and direction.  Then, in 1971, the quartet got their act together and made a record no one would have predicted from them.

L.A. Woman presents the Doors as a mature rock band inspired by jazz and more firmly anchored in the blues than on previous records, with their theatrical cabaret stylings inspired by the work of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht kept to a more tolerable level.  The result is some of the group's most direct music, from the pop radio-friendly "Love Her Madly" and the delicately beautiful "Hyacinth House" to the hard, angry "Been Down So Long" and the evocative slow blues of "Cars Hiss By My Window."  On L.A. Woman, Morrison's voice - as well as his lyrics - is stronger than ever, and he gets support that, for the first time in the Doors' career, is more than adequate.  Drummer John Densmore finally provides a heavy sound, as if he's overcome a fear of breaking his drum skins if he played too hard (a fear that his earlier drumming suggested), and he's more able at keeping a beat.  Ray Manzarek offers some of his most inventive keyboard work, from ragtime piano to subtle organ leads, while Robby Krieger plays some of his most stinging guitar solos.  None of this is an accident; for L.A. Woman, the Doors recruited bassist Jerry Scheff,  freeing Manzarek from having to approximate bass chords on his organ and giving Densmore a rhythmic foil to work with, as well as rhythm guitarist Marc Benno, which allowed Kreiger to stretch out and play more leads.     

But because this is a Doors album, L.A. Woman can't help but have at least one epic track.  Actually, it has two.  The title song, encompassing a tight fusion of rock, blues and jazz, chronicles the thrill of finding love and sex in a city that is alternatively dazzling and destructive, sensational and seedy.  (While the band slows down and goes for the burn before building back up to a fast rock tempo, Morrison displays his knack for clever wordplay by repeating the phrase "Mr. Mojo Risin'," an anagram of his name.)  The closing cut, "Riders On the Storm," brings the Doors's music to an apex that couldn't have been imagined four years earlier.  The low-keyed jazz arrangement, with Manzarek's keyboards evoking a misty drizzle, is deceptively soothing, but Morrison's voice, musing on procreation, serial murder, and wandering souls, is as ominous as the thunder and rain sound effects that permeate the song.  "Riders On the Storm" is a final-sounding coda that paradoxically suggests greater musical moments for the Doors to come.

Unfortunately, Jim Morrison died in Paris less than three months after L.A. Woman's release.  The two albums the remaining members released with Manzarek and Krieger on vocals (Other Voices, Full Circle) before breaking up in 1973 were regarded as respectable efforts, and they  have their adherents, but to many Doors fans, the band died with Morrison.