Doors – L.A. Woman (SACD, Analogue Productions)

The title track from this, the last Doors album recorded with Jim Morrison, who died shortly after it was released, has, said one reviewer, ”maybe the best Chuck Berry riffs since the Stones.” And that’s not even mentioning ”Love Her Madly,” which became one of the highest charting hits for The Doors. The song peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and reached No. 3 in Canada. L.A. Woman was hailed by Rolling Stone as, ”The Doors’ greatest album, including their first.” Now it is paid tribute as part of Analogue Productions’ SACD series of six Doors albums, all cut from the original analog masters by Doug Sax, with the exception of The Doors, which was made from the best analog tape copy. The surround sound program on the Doors SACDs comes from the original 96K, 24-bit files mixed and mastered by Bruce Botnick for the DVD Audio Doors/Perception release. Those mixes were made from the original one-inch, eight track, 15 i.p.s. analog master tapes. For the SACDs, the mixes were then up-sampled without filters to DSD using the Weiss Saracon format converter and authored by Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center.