The Doors: Morrison Hotel [RHINO/ELEKTRA]

Why you'll love it

This Rhino reissue presents the original stereo mixes on 180g vinyl, with lacquers cut at Bernie Grundman Mastering under the eye of Bruce Botnick and Jac Holzman. The album reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and No. 12 in the UK.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Original stereo mix
• Lacquers cut at Bernie Grundman Mastering
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

In September 1969 The Doors played the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival on a bill with John Lennon, who later said the Doors were supposedly top of the bill. That autumn they headed into Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles and made a lean, bluesy record with producer Paul A. Rothchild, splitting the LP into two titled sides, Hard Rock Café and Morrison Hotel.

"Roadhouse Blues" took two days to get right; it came together on the second, when blues guitarist Lonnie Mack sat in on bass and John Sebastian joined on harmonica under the name G. Puglese, with Ray Manzarek swapping his Wurlitzer for a tack piano. "Peace Frog" rides Robby Krieger's wah-wah hook straight into "Blue Sunday," "Waiting For The Sun" finally landed here after the album that shared its name, and "Indian Summer" dates all the way back to an August 1966 session. "The Spy" borrows its idea from Anaïs Nin's A Spy in the House of Love.

Henry Diltz shot the cover photo at a real Los Angeles hotel that happened to share the singer's surname, an omen far too good to waste.

Also at Kops: more The Doors on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Elektra / Rhino (cat# R1 519557), a reissue of the 1970 album.