The Doors will release a newly-expanded edition of L.A. Woman, their final album with frontman Jim Morrison, on Dec. 3. The album celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year.
The 3CD/1LP set features a brand-new remaster of the album on CD and vinyl by Bruce Botnick, the band's longtime engineer and the co-producer of this album, alongside more than two hours of previously-unreleased outtakes and session material. Among the set's most striking discoveries is an early version of "Riders on the Storm," discovered on an unmarked tape reel in the band's vault. It was produced by Paul A. Rothchild, who produced all of the band's albums up to this point but departed early in the planning for L.A. Woman, later dismissing the band's work in this era as "cocktail music." David Fricke pens in-depth liner notes for the set.
READ MORE: April 1971: The Doors End An Era with 'L.A. Woman'
L.A. Woman followed a period of turmoil for the band, after a charge of indecent exposure leveled against Morrison following a Miami, Florida concert kept the group off the road and the airwaves. Over a week, the band, Botnick, and supporting musicians Marc Benno (rhythm guitarist for Leon Russell's Asylum Choir) and Jerry Scheff (bassist in Elvis Presley's live TCB Band) convened in the group's private rehearsal space to assemble an album less obsessed with technical precision and more with feeling and vibe.
The result: the band's seventh Top 10 record, certified double platinum in the United States, and packed with classics like the Top 20 hits "Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm," plus the title track and "The Changeling." Morrison died just months after the album was released - buried in Paris at only 27 years old - but L.A. Woman helped make his artistry immortal.
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