The Doors: Mr. Mojo Risin': The Story of L.A. Woman

For the second year in a row The Doors have released a documentary on film about the band. Last year it was "When You're Strange" with footage taken mostly from Jim Morrison's film "HWY." This year to kick off the self described "The Year of The Doors" is the film "The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin': The Making of L.A. Woman."

"The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin': The Making of L.A. Woman" tells the story of the making of The Doors seminal album, "L.A. Woman". Relying on mostly footage taken from The Doors documentary, "Feast of Friends", (that was shot in the 60's and has been used for most other video projects since then) and new interviews with the surviving members of The Doors, including Bruce Botnick, and Paul Rothchild explaining why he decided not to produce L.A. Woman (every previous Doors album was produced by Rothchild) and exactly which song he considered "cocktail music". Other interviews include Morrison's film school friend, Frank Lisciandro, early Doors advocate DJ, Jim Ladd and music journalists, Ben Fong-Torres and David Fricke.

"Mr. Mojo Risin' is a good mixture of discussions of the songs and putting "L.A. Woman" in the cultural context of the times when it was recorded and released without getting bogged down in the technicalities of either.

All the songs on "L.A. Woman" are discussed in the film with the exception of "L'America", but interesting facts and stories surrounding the genesis and recording are included, with demonstrations by The Doors on their instrumental contributions. Ray Manzarek tells of how Jerry Scheff, who played bass for Elvis Presley, got involved in the recording and of the contortions he had to got through to play the bass lines Manzarek showed him.

The DVD also features more than the usual amount of bonus features usually found on The Doors DVD's. There's the raw footage of John Densmore's and Ray Manzarek's interviews, a tour of The Doors L.A., set to the song "L.A. Woman" and a video of "She Smells so Nice/Rock Me" that includes a lot of pictures of the early Doors.

Jim Cherry writes The Doors Examiner.

Forty years ago in 1971, I bought L.A.Woman, and as all Doors fans back then, was completely blown away by their yet- another amazing sound. As like the Classic Albums dvd THE DOORS from 2008, this dvd also takes us into the making of the Doors L.A. Woman, with amazing stories and footage. The surviving Doors John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger tell us the stories behind 9 of their 10 songs- The Changeling, Been Down So Long, Crawling King Snake, Love Her Madly, L.A. Woman, The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat), Riders On The Storm, Cars Hiss By My Window and Hyacinth House. The only song not covered is L'America.

Jim Morrison was and would never be the same after the Miami arrest, and his lyrics on this album especially attest to that fact. When The Doors went to begin recording this album at the Sunset Sound Studios in LA, Paul Rothchild didn't like one sound they were playing and walked out saying he would not record any of it. Paul Rothchild recorded all The Doors albums, so this really came as a shock to all of them. Bruce Botnick ignored Rothchild's walk out and took The Doors to their rehearsal studio and asked if they had anything else to record. As always, Jim and Robbie always had plenty of material for songs.

Unlike being in the Elektra Studio at Sunset Sound, where it took dozens of takes ending up in weeks or months to get the songs just right for one album, The Doors finished this album in their rehearsal studio on Santa Monica Blvd. in 4 days! All the songs were finished after one or two takes, making this a true garage band album. Bruce Botnick brought in some extra talent with Jerry Scheff on bass guitar and Marc Benno on rhythm guitar. All 4 Doors were excited, especially Jim, to be working with Jerry Scheff, who was bass guitarist for Elvis Presley's TCB band. I'm sure the heavy blues sounds on L.A. Woman came from the addition of these two highly talented guitarists.

Riders On the Storm came from the old cowboy classic Ghost Riders In The Sky, of which I still love the Johnny Cash and other old cowboy versions. The Doors and Botnick dissect the songs for us and let us hear Jim sing with the different rhythms, which is really fantastic. Crawling King Snake, John Lee Hooker's huge hit, really brings out the blues in The Doors. The big bonus on this dvd, is the song, She Smells So Nice- another blues song that I have never heard before- and Jim can sing with the best of the bluesmen on this recording. Robbie tells of writing Love Her Madly based on watching his girlfriend walking out after a fight. The Changeling is truly Jim Morrison's farewell to his life, family and friends here in America, and so sadly to The Doors.

There is plenty of seen-before footage and photos of The Doors- about 70%, but another 30% I have never seen before, and I have everything on The Doors since 1967! The talks about the music and stories I have never heard before, from The Doors, Botnick, Rothchild, Jac Holzman, Bill Siddons and other friends and associates are very interesting. Another great bonus feature is The Doors Guide to L.A.- seeing the places The Doors were at, back in 1971 and now, really added to the dvd. For a Doors fan, this inside look into the making of The Doors last album with Jim Morrison is well worth buying. On this blu-ray's 103 minutes running time, I viewed a good 30% of never been seen before photos and footage, heard stories about 9 of the 10 songs that I have never heard before, got a view of The Doors LA hangouts from both 1971 and how they look now, and got to hear for the first time The Doors song She Smells So Nice- a fabulous blues song that goes well with Crawling King Snake.

This dvd is bittersweet because it would be Jim's last album with the Doors, as after the 4 days of recording, he would join Pam in Paris, never to return, but it also brings a lot of happiness in listening to these great stories from the surviving Doors and the fact that this album was finished in 4 days in a garage type studio is testament to the sheer genius that was and always will be The Doors. I hope the surviving Doors keep making dvd's taking us into the creation of their other albums, as I can never get enough of their pure magic, that even after 40 years is still there!

I loved this documentary, with as some others have said is basically the same style as the Classic Albums series. It's an hour long, but the bonus features run a total of forty or so minutes - which really adds value to the release. I immediately went to check out the newly rediscovered song recorded during the album sessions: "She Smells So Nice." Don't expect much if you haven't heard it yet, but it was still a fun piece of history to hear. It's basically a blues jam with what sounds like improvised lyrics (with unfortunate distortion marring the vocal track).

But the main documentary goes through the album, song by song (minus "L'America" for some weird reason), with the surviving Doors offering lots of interesting anecdotes. They also - separately - play their individual parts for some of the songs, which is cool. Producer Bruce Botnick isolates separate tracks from the master tapes - allowing the viewer to hear portions of some songs with just one instrument, unaccompanied. I actually wish there was more of that. Fans will recognize most of the old vintage footage of the band performing, and I wasn't wild about the few scenes where they attempted to sort of sync L.A. Woman songs with older performance footage.

Over all, if you love the Doors and especially the L.A. Woman album, you should check out this documentary. The music sounds awesome on Blu-ray in 5.1 surround sound too.

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