"JIM MORRISON BEYOND THE DOORS" HERVE MULLER (Albin Michel, 1978) 7 ° 33 rpm albums 1971 Ref: 75011 Elektra EKS us - Elektra WEA 42090 ..... This album is often compared to their first, and shares the qualities of unity and extreme spontaneity. It is not a coincidence, the group wanted to find this brute force of his beginnings. For this, he had decided not to record in a real studio, but to work in a familiar part of their rehearsal room, located in the same building as the group's offices, at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard, they 8 tracks were equipped with a mixer. Check in took just over a week and was essentially carried out directly, without using the recording, except when the voice of Jim was recorded separately in a bathroom on the first floor which acoustics lent itself to a particular effect! Perhaps because of this simple technical approach, the Doors judged that it was time to part with Paul Rothchild, the producer of all their previous albums, but still retained Bruce Botnick, the sound engineer to help to perform themselves. As if to emphasize this return to the past, all the songs are allocated collectively to the new Doors. In fact, it is the collaborative work of Krieger and Morrison continues, the other two also contributing a bit to the level of the music. The lyrics, by cons, are all Morrison, except those of "Love Her Maldy" Krieger wrote. It is however the musical direction of Morrison that largely prevails here: simple rock'n'roll riffs, and a lot of blues. Two titles resume even directly plans hackneyed blues: "Cars Hiss By My Window" and "Been Down So Long", and in the latter, once will not hurt, even the words essentially repeat clichés borrowed from the blues. The disc also includes a piece that is not the Doors, but Jim, this king of reptiles should be well interpreted one day, "Crawling King Snake" blues-man John Lee Hooker. But there are also a lot of finesse on this album. There is particularly delicate "Hyacinth House", the mysterious charm, in the same vein as that of "Love Street" is enhanced by the sinuous organ Manzarek game. This proves the instrumentalist the most interesting of the album and, in retrospect, we see that grew beyond all expectations. He plays electric piano and many seem to have discovered a much deeper interest in jazz. This is especially noticeable in "Riders On The Storm" long piece very refined and largely instrumental, in which he sharply eclipsed Krieger became very discreet. This new Manzarek keyboard finesse game, which is not without sometimes think of another musician from Los Angeles, John Locke (1) of Spirit, is found in small touches throughout the album and especially on "LA Woman" and "The Changeling." Four tracks The Doors have appealed to Marc Benno, a friend of Leon Russell, with whom he recorded an album on A & M to take on rhythm guitar, leaving a little more freedom of action to Robbie Krieger, who sometimes wears sparingly but always with taste, especially in "The Changeling" and "Love Her Madly". When the bassist, is that of Elvis Presley, Jerry Scheff. But the most special part of the album, it may be Morrison's words became, on several tracks, more disjointed than ever. This culminates in the amazing "The Wasp". Morrison recites almost without shades on an obsessive rhythm, a series of strange images, and then said: - "Listen to me, I'll tell you about heartache" - "I will tell you about heartache and the loss of God" - "I will tell you about the night without hope" - "From the pittance that my soul has forgotten" - "You mean the girl with the soul of wrought iron." Whether it Morrison or the other three, they all agreed to recognize that they had a blast recording this album. Many saw it as the beginning of a revival of the Doors, the band seemed to have found a second wind that made all hopes permit. In fact, it was a final apotheosis. First of all the group's contract with Elektra was over, but especially the decision of Jim Morrison was taken before the album's release. He did not want to have anything to do with the Doors, nothing to do with rock music in general. Since 69, he told anyone who would listen that rock was dead. ... This, Jim had foreseen in 1967, when he said: - "The rock will very quickly be but a hollow mode if we do not shake the spirit of jazz returns there, which will make many good egocentric group of virtuoso musicians.." . (1) in the first five albums Spirit
