FINALLY!

After hunting for the LPs a few years ago, and trying to transfer them minus improved sound quality, they're out on CD. So what if Jim wasn't singing, he was there in spirit. The songs are fantastic!

OK, for what it is

This is the first attempt at a Doors LP made after the death of singer Jim Morrison. The original group is en tact, with regular producer Bruce Botnick behind the boards, so it basically "sounds" like a Doors album. The songwriting quality is comparable to that of Robby Krieger's songs on The Soft Parade - medicore, but somewhat consistent. Bassist Jerry Scheff, who played on much of their 1970 LP L.A. Woman plays on nearly half of the album. If you find this one in a $1 bin at the record store, check it out. Other than that, it's a minor curiousity, and you'd be better off with Ray Manzarek's The Golden Scarab.

When The Music's Over

3 July 1971 is a day indelibly etched within my mind. After spending the night fantasizing about a Vietnamese chambermaid at a cheap Paris hotel, my friend and traveling companion, Mike Minzer (Paris Records), and I headed to Gard du Nord on the morning of July 3 to catch a train to Madrid... whereupon we somehow became separated for several of the oddest weeks of my life. Oh yeah... another American in Paris died that morning.



From my perspective the Doors could do no wrong. They released little material I didn't like. They had magic; and, Jim Morrison was chief brujo. But, the Doors were more than Jim Morrison so I thought that after 3 decades I should investigate, finally, the two post-Morrison releases... conveniently issued on a single CD.



It was no so much disappointment or dreadful music... it simply was not The Doors. Actually, several Other Voices cuts such as Ships With Sails and In the Eye of the Sun exhibited the expected Doorsian texture. However, that rich Morrison aureole, the aura that so characterized The Doors, was missing... things seemed flat and rather lackluster. Within Full Circle, plays like The Peking King and the New York Queen strut some old Doors attitude but much of the album takes on new directions as evidenced by The Piano Bird. Poor Jimmy dead and gone... no one left to sing his song...