Geezerology Roundtable: The Doors struck out as a trio

The four members of The Doors had finished up recording LA Woman in January 1971. And their lead singer, Jim Morrison, was exhausted after a whirlwind five years of recording and touring and drinking and fighting the law -- all with the eyes of the Western world watching and recording and commenting on his every move.

So Morrison decided it was time for a break. He told his bandmates he was going to Paris to drop off the face of the earth for awhile. He wanted to clear his head, write some poetry, hide out and spend some quality time with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. And he told his buddies, the three guys who were the most important people in his life and his career, not to worry. He told them the move wasn't permanent, that he would be back home in a few months to face the music in his battle with Miami prosecutors and to make more music with The Doors, who seemed to have found a creative second wind with their move into their own rehearsal and studio space in West Hollywood, CA.

The Doors found magic in their powerful final album

For The Doors, the release of the album L.A. Woman 50 years ago, on April 19, 1971, would be a rebirth of their musical power and, sadly, at the same time, their swan song.

A scant three months after the album’s debut, the last studio album for the quartet, Jim Morrison -- poet, rock evangelist and shaman -- would be dead in a bathtub in his Paris apartment, ending the group’s four-year run as one of rock’s most prestigious chroniclers of life’s mysteries, pathos, chaos and transcendent beauty.

Geezerology on YouTube: Strange Days

Bob and I discussed our slightly differing opinions of Strange Days, the second album by The Doors, for the second video of our YouTube channel, recorded Jan. 24. Bob likes the album considerably more than I do.

We agree that producer Paul Rothschild's studio experimentations don't work very well. Our biggest disagreement was over the 11-minute closer, "When the Music's Over."

Please check it out. Please visit our channel and subscribe. We would love for you to contribute to the discussion through the comments section at the bottom of this page or on the channel. 

Geezerology on YouTube: A discussion of The Doors' debut

We two geezers decided a few weeks ago to test-drive a YouTube channel. We've done one video each of the past three Sundays, and we were happy enough with the results that we've made all three videos public and decided that we're going to make it a regular thing.

Our first video, recorded Jan. 17 as a test run, was a discussion on The Doors' debut album. Bob and I both have known that album pretty well for a few decades, so we thought it was a good place to start. We basically winged it, got about a 25-minute discussion out of it, and both of us were thrilled with the first effort. It was technically a little rough, but we put together a fairly substantive discussion.

Old friends, new perspectives: Revisiting The Doors

An outtake from the Morrison Hotel photo shoot, by Henry Diltz

I hadn't listened to any of The Doors' albums much in several years. I've known them all by heart since I was in high school -- especially the six studio albums from the Morrison years. But in the past 40 years or so, I probably have listened to Absolutely Live, the 1970 double LP that followed Morrison Hotel, significantly more often than any of the other Doors records.

That dry spell was broken a week or two ago when I streamed through The Soft Parade three or four times while working on the first post in this blog. The first couple times through, I got interested in how the album sounded different to me after all these years away.

Welcome to The Soft Parade

The Soft Parade might be the most impactful record of my life.