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The Reasons Paul Rothchild Quit as Producer of L.A. Woman
Paul didn’t really have anything more to say that we didn’t already think of ourselves, so he wasn’t really a necessary factor any more.
—Robby Krieger
Paul Rothchild, who had produced the Doors’ first five studio albums, quit early in the production of L.A. Woman. He had just finished producing the final Janis Joplin album, Pearl, which was completed after she died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, and included the hit single “Me and Bobby McGee.” Producing Pearl was a “labor of love” for Rothchild. In contrast, according to Rothchild, the rehearsals with the Doors were “a joke.” Half the time, Morrison would not even bother to show up. The rest of the Doors showed no enthusiasm about the material and were “drugged on their own boredom,” according to Rothchild, who was totally disgusted by the atmosphere at the recording sessions.
“Cocktail Music”
According to Rothchild, the band had only developed rough versions of four or five songs that he thought were awful such as “Riders on the Storm,” which sounded to him like “cocktail music.” However, Rothchild later remarked in a 1981 interview with BAM magazine that his main problem was with the Krieger-penned “Love Her Madly.” According to Rothchild, “Love Her Madly” was “the song that drove me out of the studio. That it sold a million copies means nothing to me.” Last but not least, Rothchild had grown tired of “dragging the Doors from one album to another” and dealing with a drunken Morrison, who would often intentionally disrupt the recording sessions for his own amusement. Rothchild finally told engineer Bruce Botnick that he just didn’t have the desire to “get it up again” and make the new album. After Rothchild’s departure, Botnick agreed to coproduce the album with the Doors. According to John Densmore in Riders on the Storm, “We hadn’t played the songs very well, and they weren’t rehearsed enough, but I knew we had some good ones … They were more blues-based, and the blues takes you to the root of your angst.”
A Makeshift Recording Studio
After Rothchild’s departure, the Doors and Botnick transformed the two-story Doors Office at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard into a makeshift recording studio. The Doors Office, which had been used as a rehearsal studio for the first five Doors albums, featured unpainted walls, dirty carpets, and empty beer bottles littered on the floor, as well as copies of music magazines such as Jazz & Pop strewn about, recording equipment everywhere, and an old Doors poster unceremoniously tacked to one wall. The Doors installed a jukebox, pinball machine, and couch in the recording studio. The laid-back surroundings contributed to the relaxed feel of the album.
Album Tracks
Since the Doors were totally out of material, they had to once again come up with songs in the recording studio. The lyrics for “Cars Hiss by My Window” were actually taken from Morrison’s Venice notebooks. “L’America” was originally supposed to appear on the soundtrack of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1969 film Zabriskie Point, but the director rejected the song. “Been Down So Long” was inspired by Richard Farina’s cult novel. Morrison came up with “Riders on the Storm” after the band started playing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” for fun in the studio one day. Another song, “Paris Blues,” which featured the prophetic lines “Goin’ to the city of love, gonna start my life over again” and “Once I was warm, now I feel cold,” was recorded during the L.A. Woman sessions but never released. In a letter to Dave Marsh, editor of CREEM magazine, Morrison remarked, “This is a blues album. We’ve even included a John Lee Hooker cut called Crawling King Snake which was part of our set in the earliest club days. The songs have a lot to do w/America & what it’s like to live these years in L.A.—& by extension—the United States.”
Recording Session
The Doors hired Elvis Presley’s bassist Jerry Scheff and well-known rhythm guitarist Marc Benno for the L.A. Woman recording sessions. Scheff played bass on every song except “L’America.” In an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Densmore commented, “Jerry was incredible; an in-the pocket man. He allowed me to communicate rhythmically with Morrison, and he slowed Ray down, when his right hand on the keyboards got too darn fast.” Benno played on four of the songs on the album, including “L.A. Woman.” The Doors would come up with the tunes “on the spot,” according to Benno, and did very few takes, resulting in a “very spontaneous album.”
In fact, the entire L.A. Woman album was recorded in just six days (in contrast to The Soft Parade, which took nine months to complete). Most of the songs for L.A. Woman were recorded live except for a few overdubbed keyboard parts by Manzarek. According to Botnick, “The overall concept for the recording session was to go back to our early roots and try to get everything live in the studio with as few overdubs as possible.”
Doors producer Paul Rothchild later admitted that it was the Robby Krieger song “Love Her Madly” that drove him from the studio during the early L.A. Woman studio sessions. The Doors ended up completing the album with the help of audio engineer Bruce Botnick.
Courtesy of Robert Rodriguez
Thirty-Six Beers
Excited by the music, Morrison for the most part showed up on time for the recording sessions and cut back on his alcohol consumption somewhat. However, Siddons did recall Morrison drinking thirty-six beers one day during rehearsal. In addition, Doors road manager Vince Treanor has remarked that Morrison began snorting cocaine regularly during the L.A. Woman sessions. However, Manzarek, in Light My Fire, paints a totally different picture of the recording sessions: “A few beers, that was all … We were all happy … And it was beginning to feel like L.A. Woman was going to be one of our best albums ever. Maybe even a ‘comeback’ album.” The finished product had a bluesy sound, which suited Morrison just fine. He later remarked in an interview that “Our music has returned to the earlier form, just using the four instruments. We felt that we had come too far in the other direction, i.e., orchestration, and wanted to get back to the basic format.” To Densmore, the L.A. Woman recording sessions had the same feel as when the Doors started out as “a garage band.” In addition, the band decided to drop the individual writing credits and have all songs written by the Doors just like on the first three albums.
Critical Reaction
Released in April 1971, L.A. Woman peaked at No 9 and spent thirty-four weeks on the charts. In addition, “Love Her Madly” skyrocketed to No. 11 on the charts. The single’s B-side, Willie Dixon’s “(You Need Meat) Don’t Go No Further,” was sung by Manzarek and did not appear on the album. L.A. Woman generally received high praise from the critics, including R. Meltzer of Rolling Stone magazine, who remarked, “You can kick me in the ass for saying this (I don’t mind): this is the Doors’ greatest album and (including their first) the best album so far this year. A landmark worthy of dancing in the streets.” Playboy remarked that “the usual irritating pretentiousness that’s part of any Doors album is kept to a minimum here” and referred to “L’America” as the album’s one clunker, “an unsuccessful apocalyptic melange of Thirties German mock opera, Fifties rock and Seventies doom.” Elektra Records president Jac Holzman remarked, “I had been worried about the material because of [Rothchild’s] negative comments, but the album knocked me out, song after song.”
In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked L.A. Woman No. 362 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” A new version of the album, L.A. Woman (40th Anniversary Mixes), was released in 2007 and featured two bonus tracks: “Orange County Suite” and “(You Need Meat) Don’t Go No Further.”