The Doors - The Soft Parade (1969) **UPDATE TO THE UPDATE**

One more update to this post, and that is that visitor KARK has just informed me that there was a Record Store day release in 2020 of exactly what I'd done here, with all the overdubs removed, and so as that was professionally done, and the end of 'Touch Me' has the organ brought more the the front so sounds much better, then I'm replacing my edits with those. It wasn't a waste of time as they were fun to do, and I now know how the programme works, but as I want the best possible quality for this post then I'll leave it to the professionals. 

Just after posting this album I was contacted by Paul at albumsthatshouldexist, telling me about a new programme that he'd just discovered which uses AI to split out the different elements of a piece of music, and he suggested that I could use it to remove the strings and horns overdubs from the four tracks on this album where they had been added against the band's wishes. It worked amazingly well, and I really can't imagine how it does it, but I now have band only versions of all four tracks, which I've replaced in the folder. The only part I wasn't sure about was the sax solo at the end of 'Touch Me', as without it there wasn't much going on at the end of the song (but it certainly shows the power of the programme), so I did one version with and one without. I've also used it to remove the crowd noise at the beginning of 'Someday Soon', which then enabled me to give it a better intro. I've added the original recordings plus the sax version of 'Touch Me' in a separate folder in the download, so give them both a listen and let me know which you prefer, and then I can update this to a definitive post. 

I was recently contacted by Soulseeker wolfdubz, asking if I still had a copy of expanded edition of The Doors' 'The Soft Parade' album. When I told them that this wasn't of mine, they located the original blog that had posted it, and although the link was dead, there was a copy on Soulseek which I managed to grab so that I could listen to it. Having done that I'm posting it here, as it's a great reimagining of a much maligned record. The blog was called Its Lost Its Found, and is sadly no more, but all the posts are still up and I spent an enjoyable few days going through them all, as it had somehow passed me by. As it would be a shame for all the hard work expended on this reimagining to go to waste, here are the original notes and the expanded version of 'The Soft Parade', housed in a cover that I found on Soundcloud, which was similar enough, and yet different enough, to fit the post. 
I've been dipping in and out of The Doors back catalogue for the last five or so years after a very long absence. I've always been intrigued by their fourth and most derided LP, 'The Soft Parade'. No one's favourite Doors album, 'The Soft Parade' had the band seemingly conforming to the commercial; horns, string arrangements, 'Touch Me'. The less ornate songs seemed unfocused, especially compared to the previous year's effort 'Waiting For The Sun', but there are fantastic songs on the album and also in recordings they made, both live and in the studio, around this time. The material for the original album took place from November 1968 into February 1969, with a couple of earlier recordings from 1968. The band had toured up until recording and had no new material written. Producer Paul A. Rothchild insisted the group record multiple takes of songs written in the studio and was also responsible for the insistence on horn and string overdubs over several of the songs. The album ran over budget and over time, and is disappointing compared to the earlier releases, not just in the material, but the album had only nine tracks and ran not much over 30 minutes. There are several Doors originals not included on 'The Soft Parade' that are the equal, and in some cases superior, to the released material. Put together as a whole, it makes a lot more sense and I think would have been viewed differently if The Doors had released a double album, including live recordings and more improvised material left off the original L.P. This re-imagining of 'The Soft Parade' is that of a double LP; 4 sides running approximately 18 minutes in length and is thematically sequenced.
Side 1 is a set of unreleased and original album songs that retain the familiar Doors sound. 'Wild Child', 'Shamen's Blues' and 'Do It' all feature on the original album, as does 'Easy Ride'; a leftover from 'Waiting For The Sun'. 'Whiskey, Mystics and Men' went unreleased. I'm not sure why, it sounds like classic Doors. 'Push Push' is a much bootlegged jam, presented here in an edited form.
Side 2 is a stretch of new, live Doors originals. For nearly a year between 1969 and 1970, The Doors recorded a lot of their performances to multitrack. The concept was to present an album of originals, including a definitive 'The Celebration of The Lizard', which was attempted during sessions for 'Waiting For The Sun'. The resulting album, 'Absolutely Live', was excellent, but the record label's insistence that the L.P. also include hits watered down the original concept. For this side of the re-imagined 'The Soft Parade' I have included songs from throughout the tour. It shows the band were not short on originals and already a wider picture of their 1969/70 output is revealed. 'The Woman Is A Devil' is actually a studio jam, but one I've always liked and it fits with the feel of this side.
Side 3 is for the string and horn overdubs material. It was producer Paul A. Rothcild that insisted on the overdubs, as well as multiple takes in an attempt for perfection. Presented together on one side, they provide another theme to an already sprawling album. 'Tell All The People', 'Touch Me', 'Runnin' Blue' and 'Wishful Sinful' are all from the original LP, but now with the horns and strings removed, as mentioned earlier. 'Who Scared You' was originally the b-side to the 'Wishful Sinful' single, bizarrely left off the album.
Side 4 is a come down of sorts, but contains longer and more strung out pieces. 'Orange County Suite' was infamously overdubbed by the surviving Doors in the 1990's. It is an original from 1969 and it remains a mystery as to why it never appeared on any contemporary Doors release. 'Whiskey, Mystics & Men' appears for a second time, slightly more demented than the first. The album finishes like the original, with its title track.
So, what The Doors might of done in 1969.

Track listing

Side 1
01 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #1)
02 Wild Child
03 Shamen's Blues
04 Easy Ride
05 Do It
06 Push Push

Side 2
07 Away In India
08 Universal Mind
09 I Will Never Be Untrue
10 Someday Soon
11 The Woman Is A Devil

Side 3
12 Tell All the People
13 Touch Me
14 Who Scared You
15 Runnin' Blue
16 Wishful Sinful

Side 4
17 Orange County Suite
18 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #2)
19 The Soft Parade

Rick & The Ravens - Rampage (1965)

Rick & The Ravens was an American surf rock band founded in 1961 by Rick Manczarek on guitar, Jim Manczarek on organ and harmonica, Patrick Stonier on saxophone, Roland Biscaluz on bass, and Vince Thomas on drums. The drummer and bass player were initially not permanent members, but asked to join whenever a gig was upcoming, and the name stemmed from leader Rick Manczarek. In 1962, Ricks' brother Ray moved to Los Angeles from Chicago, and joined the band on vocals and occasional piano. The band performed on weekends for college crowds, mostly from UCLA Film School, at a bar called the Turkey Joint West on Santa Monica Boulevard, and they played their own original songs, padded with covered versions of blues standards such as 'I'm Your Doctor, I Know What You Need' by Muddy Waters, 'Louie Louie' by Richard Berry, Barrett Strong's 'Money', and Willie Dixon's 'Hoochie Coochie Man'. Jim Morrison did perform with Rick & the Ravens, when Ray Manzarek (now using a different spelling) invited his former college colleague on stage, much to everyone's surprise. Morrison was reportedly not prepared for this, and sang himself hoarse. Rick & The Ravens released three singles in 1965, two on the Aura label and one on Posae Records, with the 'Soul Train' single being released under the name of Ray Daniels featuring Rick & The Ravens. This was an attempt by the record label to promote Ray Manzarek (under the name Ray Daniels) as the lead artist in the group, but these plans were discarded when Morrison joined the band. 

On 2 September 1965 the band entered World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles and recorded six songs that would eventually be re-recorded for Doors albums, with two as late as 1968 when Morrison suffered writer's block: 'Moonlight Drive', 'My Eyes Have Seen You', 'Hello, I Love You', 'Go Insane' (known simply as 'Insane' on the acetate), 'End Of The Night', and 'Summer's Almost Gone', The recording session was a relatively quick affair, only lasting three hours in total, and five acetate were made, one of which is still owned by Ray Manzarek. The 1965 demo features Jim Morrison on vocals, Ray Manzarek on piano and background vocals, John Densmore on drums, Rick Manczarek on guitar, Jim Manczarek on harmonica, and Patricia "Pat" Hansen on bass guitar. Both Morrison and Rick Manczarek were disappointed by the response the demo received after attempting to promote it, and Manczarek and Sullivan were additionally not impressed with Morrison's songs, leading to both Rick and Jim Manczarek later quitting the band. At Morrison's suggestion, they changed the name of the group to The Doors, and in October 1965 Robby Krieger joined on guitar, having earlier performed with Densmore in the Psychedelic Rangers. The Doors were initially a quintet, but when Manzarek decided to handle the bass duties with the newly introduced Fender Rhodes Piano Bass, Sullivan was dropped from the line-up in December 1965, ultimately ending up with the classic Doors line-up of Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger, and Densmore. To hear how they reached that stage in their career, here are the three singles recorded by Rick & The Ravens, plus the 1965 demos, including two previously unreleased recordings.

Track listing

01 Just For You
02 Hello I Love You
03 Rampage
04 Moonlight Drive
05 Summer's Almost Gone
06 Big Bucket 'T'
07 My Eyes Have Seen You
08 Circle Twist
09 End Of The Night
10 Henrietta
11 Insane
12 Geraldine
13 Blow Top
14 Soul Train

The Doors - L.A. Woman Sessions (1971)

This album features seven alternative versions of songs from the Doors' 1971 album 'LA Woman', plus a never-before-heard song 'She Smells So Nice', which captures the band joyfully barreling through a full-throttle original before segueing into the blues standard 'Rock Me'. As the song closes, Jim Morrison can be heard chanting 'Mr. Mojo Risin' (an anagram of his name that was made famous during the bridge of 'L.A. Woman'). The track was recently discovered by producer Bruce Botnick while reviewing the L.A. Woman session tapes. Dave Horn reviewed it on Amazon, and it's worth hearing his view on it:
This one isn't just another reissue of the well known album but also one for the discerning Doors fans and collectors, featuring as it does different versions of 7 of the 10 tunes plus the unissued 'She Smells So Nice'/'Rock me Baby', all recorded in The Doors Workshop at the time of the 'LA Woman' sessions. The quality of the alternative versions is, as one would expect, excellent of course and I'm surprised that they have never appeared before. Enough has been said about the original album so I'll concentrate here on the alternative versions. I haven't actually compared any of them to the originals, merely listened to the unreleased ones and said what comes to mind, but I can say with certainty that most of the alternate versions are less polished than those used on the album and, indeed, sound at times like demos rather than alternate takes or versions. 'The Changeling', which Jim tells the band is his favourite number, is longer at nearly 5 minutes and powers along at around the same speed as the album version but with a different keyboard riff. It is, perhaps, more powerful and certainly bluesier with more raucous lead guitar. 'Love Her Madly' features a lazier Morrison vocal with different lyrics and a totally different keyboard section in the middle. 'Been Down So Long' is probably the least different alternative, much the same as the album version apart from being a bit rougher and longer. 
The slow, dirty, blues of 'Cars Hiss By My Window' seems to feature somewhat more prominent guitar than the LP version and is 30 seconds longer. 'LA Woman' meanwhile features different lead guitar riffs and a weird bit of extra vocalising brings it to a sudden end at 8.45. 'The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)' features different lyrics and is 1.20 longer than the album version but this comprises a cacophony of jazzy guitar and drums with no discernible tune. Clocking in at 2 minutes longer than the original, 'Riders on the Storm' could have been the jewel in the crown here, were it not for the fact that the extra time is occupied by a throw away Morrison ditty, false start and chat occupying the first 2 minutes plus a somewhat flat Morrison vocal, especially evident at the start of the tune proper. Finally, music-wise, you get the addition of an actual unreleased song 'She Smells So Nice', which morphs into 'Rock Me', but both are pretty much filler and it`s no wonder they were not used on the 'LA Woman' album proper. One further song is reputed to have been recorded at these sessions, but 'Paris Blues' is only known to exist on a cassette tape that was originally in Ray Manzarek's possession, but somehow, over time, the cassette was inadvertently recorded over in parts by his son Pablo. Efforts are apparently being made to repair/restore it, with a view to adding it to a future box set, but as there isn't even a copy of the damaged tape online, we'll just have to bide our time and wait to hear it. I usually edit out the studio chatter on albums like this, but as it's The Doors I thought that I'd leave it in, although I have also included an edited version in case you only want to hear the chatter the once.

Track listing

01 The Changling
02 Love Her Madly
03 Cars Hiss By My Window
04 LA Woman
05 The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)
06 Been Down So Long
07 Riders On The Storm
08 She Smells So Nice >
09 Rock Me

The Doors - Rock Is Dead (1969)

As promised in my last Doors post, here is an album made up from the legendary 'Rock Is Dead' sessions. The story of the recording is fascinating, so here is an excerpt taken from Stephen Davis's book 'Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend'.
On Tuesday, February 25, 1969, the Doors were recording at Sunset Sound. Jim laid down two stentorian versions of 'When I Was Back in Seminary School', his scary southern gospel radio riff, plus a blues titled 'Build Me a Woman' - also known as 'The Devil Is a Woman', lifted from Robert Johnson's 'Me And The Devil'. A new bootleg record of the unreleased Robert Johnson recordings had just appeared, and Jim immediately reworked 'Love in Vain'' which the Rolling Stones would soon appropriate. He also cut a sing song fragment called 'Whiskey, Mystics, and Men', with accompaniment by the band. That evening the Doors and their entourage went out to supper together at a local Mexican joint, the Blue Boar, where they stuffed themselves in a private dining room and drank beer and tequila for a couple of hours. Well lubed, they returned to the studio, and started jamming. Jim sang Elvis's 'Love Me Tender' and, as the band played free form R & B, started improvising about the death of rock and roll. He kepr repeating 'Rock is dead', and 'Listen, listen, I don't wanna hear no more talk about revolution'. as if trying to damn the rock movement as something that was definitely over. 'I'm not talking about no revolution'. Jim sang. 'I'm not talking about no demonstration. I'm talking about...the death of rock and roll....The death is rock, is the death of me....And rock is dead,...We're dead! All right! Yeah....Rock is dead!'. The "Rock Is Dead" jam - forty-five minutes of primal bar-band R & B - was Jim Morrison's disgusted, explicit farewell to the rock movement that had launched him into immortality. It summed up the depressive, changing climate of the youth movement of 1969, when the Haight-Asbury had become a slum of panhandlers, burnouts and runaways. Led Zeppelin was hammering its way to the top. Ken Kesey had denounced LSD. The Nixon presidency escalated the war in Vietnam and started persecuting its critics. The Doors had lost the avant-garde, and were now hated by the same writers who had fawned on them the year before. Jim Morrison's original audience - college students and bohemians who responded to the long silences and mannered gestures of rock theater - had been replaced by dopey high school kids, pressed together like goats, giggling at 'The End' and catcalling to Jim, "Hey, you wanna @#$%& me?" It was all too much. For Jim, rock was truly dead. Jim later explained: 'We needed another song for this album. We were wrecking our brains trying to think - what song? We started throwing up these old songs in the studio. Blues trips. Rock classics. Finally we just started playing, and went through the whole history of rock music - blues, rock and roll, Latin jazz, surf music, the whole thing. I called it 'Rock Is Dead.' I doubt if anyone will ever hear it.' The 'Rock Is Dead' session remained officially unreleased for almost thirty years, but was notoriously bootlegged and became familiar to fans of the Doors. 
Eventually a heavily-edited 16-minute version appeared on the 1997 'The Doors Box Set', but this often only included snippets of full songs that were recorded, so by adding the full versions of those tracks from the various bootlegs, I've come up with a surprisingly listenable album. Obviously it's nowhere near their best work, but it's also not as bad as some critics have made out (mainly because I've excised the worst excesses and self-indulgent nonsense from the session, and just left the more or less completed songs). If you listen to this solely as a historical archive recording, and don't expect too much from it, you might actually enjoy it.

Track listing

01 Love Me Tender / Save The Whole World
02 Rock Is Dead
03 Boogie All Night Long
04 Naked Woman Jam
05 Me And The Devil (a.k.a. Build Me A Woman)
06 Queen Of The Magazines
07 Rock And Roll Woman
08 Pipeline
09 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (with 'Petition' intro)

The Doors - Whiskey, Mystics And Men (1969)

Following Jim Morrison's arrest and subsequent trial for indecent exposure at a Miami concert in March 1969, The Doors found it hard to get gigs, and so with time on their hands they visited various studios around Los Angeles and New York to come up with some ideas and record possible songs for their follow-up to 'The Soft Parade'. In July they were booked for two gigs at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood, and so to prepare for that they played a private rehearsal there, which was taped for posterity. Both the studio sessions and the live rehearsal produced songs which never actually made to to 'Morrison Hotel', as well as providing alternate versions of songs that did, and so the best of those recordings are gathered here. In February of the same year they recorded the infamous 'Rock Is Dead' sessions following a drunken dinner at The Blue Boar Mexican restaurant, and while those recordings are nowhere near as polished as these, I will be posting an edited version of that at some point in the future, if only as a historical artifact.  

Track listing

01 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Elektra Studios 1969)
02 Gloria (Aquarius Theatre Rehearsal 1969)
03 I Will Never Be Untrue (Aquarius Theatre Rehearsal 1969)
04 Build Me A Woman (PBS Studios 1969)
05 Blues For Lonnie (Elektra Studios 1969)
06 Who Scared You? (b-side of 'Wishful Sinful' 1969)
07 Queen Of The Highway (Jazz Version) (Elektra Studios 1969)
08 Woman Is A Devil (Elektra Studios 1969)
09 Mystery Train / Crossroads (Aquarius Theatre Rehearsal 1969)