L.A. Woman by The Doors

L.A. Woman, the Doors' sixth album, hit the racks on April 19, 1971, on Elektra, and it's the last one Jim Morrison made with them in his lifetime. Paul A. Rothchild had walked out, fed up with what he heard as sloppy playing in the studio, so the band produced it themselves alongside their longtime engineer Bruce Botnick, and the result sounds loose, lived-in and drenched in the blues, more than anything they had cut before.

Morrison's voice has gone deep and weathered, a barroom baritone that suits the grit. Ray Manzarek works the keyboards and keyboard bass, Robby Krieger's guitar slinks and stings, and John Densmore keeps the drums and percussion rolling like a long night on the highway. The title track is a rattling, high-speed rave-up, "Love Her Madly" is a jaunty, sly single that went out in March 1971 ahead of the album and cracked the Hot 100's top 20, "The Wasp" is a snarling curio, and "Riders on the Storm" is a slow, spooky prowl that found chart success of its own.

Critics including Richie Unterberger and David Quantick have ranked it among the Doors' finest, singling out Morrison's singing and the band's stripped-down homecoming to blues rock. It reached the top ten of the Billboard 200 and number 28 in the UK.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.