01. Roadhouse Blues 	05:09  
02. Introduction 	  00:13  
03. Back Door Man	 04:17  
04. Break On Through (To The Other Side)  04:46  
05. When The Music's Over  13:28  
06. Ship Of Fools  	07:17  
07. Light My Fire  	14:02
08. The End       15:52

Drums – John Densmore
Guitar – Robby Krieger
Keyboards – Ray Manzarek
Vocals – Jim Morrison

More than 50 years after their debut LP, the Doors remain one of the most intriguing, distinct and powerful bands to ever roam the earth. Even though their lifespan was short (just a little more than years with singer Jim Morrison), their legend and legacy have grown and thrived in the decades that followed. An array of live Doors recordings and video has made its way to fans over the years, but their ever-elusive Isle of Wight performance has been out of reach in its entirety until now.

The legendary British festival was held over five days in late August 1970, a year after Woodstock, and with a lineup of music legends ranging from the Who and Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell and jazz great Miles Davis. The Doors were among the main draws of the festival, and their performance, as captured on Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (available as DVD and Blu-ray, as well as on CD), shows the band slightly fatigued but still delivering a powerful set to the 600,000 fans in attendance.

It’s no wonder they looked and sounded tired at times. Not only was Morrison in the midst of an ongoing obscenity trial stemming from an infamous performance in Miami the previous year, but the band didn't hit the stage until 2AM. Still, the Doors put on a great, if slightly restrained, show. “Our set was subdued but very intense," keyboardist Ray Manzarek once said of the gig. “We played with a controlled fury, and Jim was in fine vocal form. He sang for all he was worth but moved nary a muscle. Dionysus had been shackled.” This was the last Doors concert to be filmed. And while it doesn't document the band at its peak, they're a powerful presence onstage throughout this great collection.

The audio, remastered to 5.1 surround, was mixed from the original multi-track tapes by longtime Doors collaborator Bruce Botnick, who gives the new mix a sharp and clear upgrade that eclipses any of the bootlegs that have surfaced over the years. Powerful versions of classic like "Light My Fire," "When the Music's Over" and an especially swinging version of "Ship of Fools" grace the set, which focuses on the band's first two albums rather than its most recent offering, Morrison Hotel. ---ultimateclassicrock.com

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1 	Get Up And Dance 	
2 	4 Billion Souls 	
3 	The Piano Bird 	
4 	The Mosquito 	
5 	It Slipped My Mind 	
6 	Verdilac 	
7 	Good Rockin' 	
8 	Hardwood Floor 	
9 	The Peking King And The New York Queen

Bass - Chris Ethridge, Jack Conrad, Charles Larkey, Leland Sklar
Drums – John Densmore
Flute – Charles Lloyd
Guitar, Vocals – Robby Krieger
Keyboards, Vocals – Ray Manzarek
Saxophone [Tenor] – Charles Lloyd
Percussion – Chico Batera
Vocals [The Other Voices] – Clydie King, Melissa Mackay, Venetta Fields 

Full Circle (1972) is definitely an appropriate name for this last project of original material to be issued under the Doors moniker. After the loss of Jim Morrison the previous year, the remaining trio culled their respective ideas -- some of which had been gathering dust in anticipation of Morrison's reappearance. Once that wasn't an option, John Densmore (drums/vocals), Ray Manzarek (keyboards/bass pedals/vocals), and Robbie Krieger (guitar/vocals) completed Other Voices (1971). Ultimately, the album made it into the Top 40 rock survey less than six months after L.A. Woman (1971) -- the Doors' final studio release with Morrison. While there are a handful of undeniably remarkable cuts scattered throughout, Full Circle is increasingly sporadic and less focused than its predecessor. Case in point is the somewhat dated Age of Aquarius anthem "Get Up and Dance" that kicks off the platter. Krieger's "4 Billion Souls" is a happy little ditty about global survival and ecology, proclaiming "Don't cha see that we could be the first in history/leaving all that we don't need behind." Among the highlights is the slinky blues "Verdilac" with Manzarek conjuring up voodoo and Charles Lloyd (flute/tenor sax) making his first of two guest appearances on Full Circle during the tasty jazz-fusion informed instrumental section between the verses. The whimsical "Hardwood Floor" is sonically stamped by Manzarek's jangle piano. Instead of being a psychedelic anachronism as heard on "Love Her Madly" and "You Make Me Real," it comes off as comparatively lightweight. A similar fate befalls the cover of Roy Brown's R&B jump classic "Good Rocking Tonight" -- titled simply "Good Rocking." While there is nothing ostensibly wrong with the performance, it fails to catch fire and the lack of inspiration gives the track a sense of being little more than filler. "The Mosquito" is an undeniably peculiar recording and it is difficult to conceive what Jim Morrison could or would have been able to bring to lyrics such as "No me moleste mosquito/just let me eat my burrito." The centerpiece of the number is the nearly four-minute jam tacked on at the end. Manzarek's impassioned electric organ, Densmore's tricky timekeeping, and Krieger's transcendent string work are all worth mentioning as the intensity of their interplay hearkens back to former glories. "The Piano Bird" was co-penned by Manzarek and Jack Conrad (bass) and is the second selection to include contributions by Charles Lloyd (flute). The laid-back and Zen "It Slipped My Mind" is fairly lackluster with the exception of the quirky melody and very tasty and trippy runs from Krieger. Manzarek's musical multi-cultural fairytale of "The Peking King and the New York Queen" concludes the disc with an ode to the Aquarian Age of racial harmony and a touch of "We are the World" thrown in for good measure. ---Lindsay Planer, AllMusic Review

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01 – The Changeling
02 – Love Her Madly
03 – Cars Hiss By My Window
04 – L.A. Woman
05 – The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)
06 – Been Down So Long
07 – Riders On The Storm
08 – Rock Me

Jim Morrison – lead vocals, maracas, tambourine, piano
Robby Krieger – guitar
John Densmore – drums
Ray Manzarek – Hammond C-3, piano,rhythm guitar, Wurlitzer electric piano,
 Fender Rhodes Electric Piano, lead vocals 
+
Jerry Scheff – bass
Marc Benno – rhythm guitar on tracks 3, 4, 5, 8

Rhino's double-disc 40th Anniversary Edition of the Doors' final album, L.A. Woman, may not have the two bonus cuts from the 2007 reissue of the record -- "Orange County Suite" and "(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further" -- but it does have a full disc of bonus material, including alternate takes of every one of the album's ten songs, plus the unreleased original "She Smells So Nice" and a cover of Muddy Waters' "Rock Me." (This bonus material was released separately as The Workshop Sessions.) Neither of the new discoveries feels finished -- there's little polish on the cover, while "She Smells So Nice" seems invented as the Doors play -- but the charm of this edition is that the unreleased material is considerably looser than the finished album. Given that there are no great differences in either arrangements or lyrics -- almost none on the former, nothing notable on the latter -- it is the general vibe of these rough run-throughs that counts, as each alternate take amplifies the comfortably assured virility that is L.A. Woman's calling card. --- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

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1 	Roadhouse Blues		4:04
2 	Waiting For The Sun 	3:58
3 	You Make Me Real 	2:50
4 	Peace Frog 	2:52
5 	Blue Sunday 	2:08
6 	Ship Of Fools 	3:06
7 	Land Ho! 	4:08
8 	The Spy 	4:15
9 	Queen Of The Highway 	2:47
10 	Indian Summer 	2:33
11	Maggie M'Gill	4:24

Bass – Lonnie Mack (tracks: 1, 11), Ray Neopolitan (tracks: 2 to 10)
Drums – John Densmore
Guitar – Robbie Krieger
Harp - G. Puglese (track 1)
Piano, Organ – Ray Manzarek
Vocals – Jim Morrison

The Doors returned to crunching, straightforward hard rock on Morrison Hotel, an album that, despite yielding no major hit singles, returned them to critical favor with hip listeners. An increasingly bluesy flavor began to color the songwriting and arrangements, especially on the party'n'booze anthem "Roadhouse Blues." Airy mysticism was still present on "Waiting for the Sun," "Queen of the Highway," and "Indian Summer"; "Ship of Fools" and "Land Ho!" struck effective balances between the hard rock arrangements and the narrative reach of the lyrics. "Peace Frog" was the most political and controversial track, documenting the domestic unrest of late-'60s America before unexpectedly segueing into the restful ballad "Blue Sunday." "The Spy," by contrast, was a slow blues that pointed to the direction that would fully blossom on L.A. Woman. ---Richie Unterberger, AllMusic Review

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1 	Break On Through (To The Other Side) 	2:27
2 	Soul Kitchen 	3:32
3 	The Crystal Ship 	2:32
4 	Twentieth Century Fox 	2:32
5 	Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)	3:17
6 	Light My Fire 	7:00
7 	Back Door Man	3:34
8 	I Looked At You 	2:22
9 	End Of The Night 	2:50
10 	Take It As It Comes 	2:18
11 	The End 	11:41
+
12 	Moonlight Drive (Version 1) 	2:43
13 	Moonlight Drive (Version 2) 	2:30
14 	Indian Summer (8/19/66 Vocal) 	2:36

Drums – John Densmore
Guitar – Robbie Krieger
Organ, Piano, Bass – Ray Manzarek
Vocals – Jim Morrison 

A tremendous debut album, and indeed one of the best first-time outings in rock history, introducing the band's fusion of rock, blues, classical, jazz, and poetry with a knockout punch. The lean, spidery guitar and organ riffs interweave with a hypnotic menace, providing a seductive backdrop for Jim Morrison's captivating vocals and probing prose. "Light My Fire" was the cut that topped the charts and established the group as stars, but most of the rest of the album is just as impressive, including some of their best songs: the propulsive "Break on Through" (their first single), the beguiling mystery of "The Crystal Ship," the mysterious "End of the Night," "Take It as It Comes" (one of several tunes besides "Light My Fire" that also had hit potential), and the stomping rock of "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox." The 11-minute Oedipal drama "The End" was the group at its most daring and, some would contend, overambitious. It was nonetheless a haunting cap to an album whose nonstop melodicism and dynamic tension would never be equaled by the group again, let alone bettered. ---Richie Unterberger, AllMusic Review

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1. Break On Through
2. Light My Fire
3. Love Me Two Times
4. Hello I Love You
5. People Are Strange
6. Strange Days
7. Riders On The Storm
8. LA Woman
9. Touch Me
10. Roadhouse Blues
11. Peace Frog
12. Love Street
13. The Crystal Ship
14. Soul Kitchen
15. Love Her Madly
16. Back Door Man
17. Alabama
18. Moonlight Drive
19. The Unknown Soldier
20. The End

Drums – John Densmore
Guitar – Robby Krieger
Mixed By [40th Anniversary Mixes] – Bruce Botnick
Piano, Organ – Ray Manzarek
Producer – Paul A. Rothchild
Vocals – Jim Morrison

The various releases of The Very Best of the Doors during 2001 and 2007 in the U.S. and the U.K. are very similar, both in their single-disc and double-disc permutations -- as well as a limited edition that adds a DVD to the two-CD version -- so it's very easy to get all three compilations confused. That said, there are notable differences between all three U.K. comps and the original U.S. set. The American disc from 2007 weighs in at 16 tracks while the single-disc U.K. set is longer at 20 tracks and, in fact, boasts a stronger overall selection of songs, making this arguably the best single-disc introduction to the band yet assembled. The double-disc U.K. set doesn't just add a second disc, it has a different sequencing as well and consequently feels like a very different beast than the original set. It's a compilation that digs deeper into album tracks and radio favorites, sometimes getting songs that maybe should have been on the U.K. single disc -- such as "Five to One," for instance, a Doors standard that's on the U.S. single disc but not the U.K. -- but its real strength is how it paints a richer portrait of the band. It's for the listener who wants a bigger picture of the Doors without investing in the actual albums or a box set and, in that sense, this Very Best of the Doors (along with the version with the DVD) does its job well. So, choose wisely: if you're looking for an introduction or just the hits, take either of the 2001 or 2007 single discs; if you're looking for most of the best, pick the double-disc set, either with or without the DVD; if you know you love the band already, go for Perception. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

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1 Hello, I Love You 02:22 
2 Love Street. 03:06 
3 Not To Touch the Earth. 03:54 
4 Summer's Almost Gone. 03:20 
5 Wintertime Love. 01:52 
6 The Unknown Soldier. 03:10 
7 Spanish Caravan. 02:58 
8 My Wild Love. 02:50 
9 We Could Be So Good Together. 02:20 
10 Yes, The River Knows. 02:35 
11 Five To One. 04:22

Bass [Occasional] – Douglas Lubahn
Drums – John Densmore
Guitar – Robby Krieger
Keyboards – Ray Manzarek
Vocals – Jim Morrison 

The Doors' 1967 albums had raised expectations so high that their third effort was greeted as a major disappointment. With a few exceptions, the material was much mellower, and while this yielded some fine melodic ballad rock in "Love Street," "Wintertime Love," "Summer's Almost Gone," and "Yes, the River Knows," there was no denying that the songwriting was not as impressive as it had been on the first two records. On the other hand, there were first-rate tunes such as the spooky "The Unknown Soldier," with antiwar lyrics as uncompromisingly forceful as anything the band did, and the compulsively riff-driven "Hello, I Love You," which nonetheless bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night." The flamenco guitar of "Spanish Caravan," the all-out weirdness of "Not to Touch the Earth" (which was a snippet of a legendary abandoned opus, "The Celebration of the Lizard"), and the menacing closer "Five to One" were also interesting. In fact, time's been fairly kind to the record, which is quite enjoyable and diverse, just not as powerful a full-length statement as the group's best albums. ---Richie Unterberger, AllMusic Review

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CD 1 
1. Break On Through (To The Other Side)
2. Light My Fire
3. Hello, I Love You
4. Love Her Madly
5. Strange Days
6. Love Street
7. Riders On The Storm
8. Queen Of The Highway
9. Unhappy Girl
10. Yes, The River Knows
11. The Crystal Ship
12. You’re Lost Little Girl
13. Wintertime Love
14. Blue Sunday
15. Summer’s Almost Gone
16. I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind
17. Touch Me
18. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)
19. People Are Strange
20. Spanish Caravan
21. Take It As It Comes
22. I Looked At You
23. The End

CD 2 
1. Roadhouse Blues
2. You Make Me Real
3. Love Me Two Times
4. My Eyes Have Seen You
5. Twentieth Century Fox
6. Moonlight Drive
7. Waiting For The Sun
8. Back Door Man
9. Wild Child
10. Shaman’s Blues
11. Not To Touch The Earth
12. Five To One
13. The Unknown Soldier
14. The Spy
15. Soul Kitchen
16. Peace Frog
17. Easy Ride
18. L.A. Woman
19. Runnin’ Blue
20. When The Music’s Over

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01. Strange Days – 3:05				play
02. You're Lost Little Girl – 3:01
03. Love Me Two Times – 3:16
04. Unhappy Girl – 1:55
05. Horse Latitudes – 1:35
06. Moonlight Drive – 3:00
07. People Are Strange – 2:09
08. My Eyes Have Seen You – 2:25		play
09. I Can't See Your Face In My Mind – 3:22
10. When The Music's Over – 10:58
+
11. Love Me Two Times (Take 3 Previously Unreleased)	03:20 
12. People Are Strange (False Starts & Dialogue) (Previously Unreleased) 1:58

- Jim Morrison – lead vocals
- Ray Manzarek – Vox Continental organ, clavinet (03), marimba, Fender Rhodes, keyboard bass (05)   
- Robby Krieger – guitars
- John Densmore – drums
+
- Douglas Lubahn – bass (1-4 & 6-9)

Many of the songs on Strange Days had been written around the same time as the ones that appeared on The Doors, and with hindsight one has the sense that the best of the batch had already been cherry picked for the debut album. For that reason, the band's second effort isn't as consistently stunning as their debut, though overall it's a very successful continuation of the themes of their classic album. Besides the hit "Strange Days," highlights included the funky "Moonlight Drive," the eerie "You're Lost Little Girl," and the jerkily rhythmic "Love Me Two Times," which gave the band a small chart single. "My Eyes Have Seen You" and "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind" are minor but pleasing entries in the group's repertoire that share a subdued Eastern psychedelic air. The 11-minute "When the Music's Over" would often be featured as a live showstopper, yet it also illustrated their tendency to occasionally slip into drawn-out bombast. --- Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

Even darker than their purple-hued debut, the Doors' follow-up, Strange Days, closed 1967 with an ominous flourish. Highlighted mostly by short, radio-friendly tunes such as the bluesy "Love Me Two Times" and the cabaret-style "People Are Strange" and featuring a smattering of edgy recitations ("Horse Latitudes") and smoky rockers ("My Eyes Have Seen You"), the album features a centerpiece that was another ambitious extended track, "When the Music's Over." On it, Morrison railed at everything from organized religion to pollution, and his rallying cry--"We want the world, and we want it now!"--became a call to arms for the counterculture rising up around the band. ---Billy Altman

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01. Tell All The People (Robby Krieger) – 3:19
02. Touch Me (Krieger) – 3:11
03. Shaman's Blues (Jim Morrison) – 4:47
04. Do It (Morrison/Krieger) – 3:08
05. Easy Ride (Morrison) – 2:40			play
06. Wild Child (Morrison) – 2:36			play
07. Runnin' Blue (Krieger) – 2:26
08. Wishful Sinful (Krieger) – 2:56
09. The Soft Parade (Morrison) – 8:38
+
10.Touch Me (40th Anniversary Remix) - 3:16
11.The Soft Parade (40th Anniversary Remix) - 9:36

Bass – Doug Lubahn, Harvey Brooks
Congas – Reinol Andino
Drums – John Densmore
English Horn – Champ Webb
Fiddle – Jimmy Buchanan
Guitar – Robby Krieger
Keyboards – Ray Manzarek
Mandolin – Jesse McReynolds
Mastered By [For This Compact Disc] – Steve Hoffman
Orchestrated By – Paul Harris
Saxophone – Curtis Amy
Trombone – George Bohanon
Vocals – Jim Morrison 

The album met with some controversy among fans and critics due to its inclusion of brass and string instrument arrangements, as opposed to the1969 was a tumultuous year for the The Doors. The main incident which caused their collective headache happened in Miami in March when vocalist Jim Morrison was arrested for allegedly exposing himself during a concert. Consequently, many major promoters began cancelling shows. The group, which had been a top international pop/rock coming into the year, selling out venues such as New York’s Madison Square Garden, suddenly found themselves scrambling to get gigs. In the midst of all this came the release of their fourth album The Soft Parade, which contained a radically different sound for the Doors and faced harsh criticism because of it. But when you remove all the fog surrounding it, The Soft Parade is a diverse, entertaining, and totally unique album of a great American band at a musical crossroads.

Recording for the album began in November 1968. From these initial sessions came a very successful Top 5 single (“Touch Me”/”Wild Child” in December 1968). In fact, more than half of The Soft Parade‘s material was released on singles prior to the album’s release in July of 1969, something totally unique for any Doors album. As Morrison struggled with substance abuse and erratic behavior, guitarist Robbie Kreiger stepped up and wrote half the material for the album including all four singles. Producer Paul Rothchild decided to enhance the group’s sound with the inclusion of brass and string arrangements, which was off-putting to many rock purists but (in this reviewer’s opinion) made for very interesting fusion with Morrison’s poetry and subject matter.

In fact, while the year was harmful for the band’s career momentum, it may well have been the height of The Door’s creativity. Further evidence of this can be found in the recent release of outtakes of unfinished songs. “Whiskey, Mystics and Men” is similar to the track “My Wild Love” from the previous album Waiting for the Sun, but this time Morrison’s poetic chant is complemented by a full band arrangement led by Ray Manzarek‘s harpsichord. “Push Push” is a jazzy Latin instrumental jam featuring Manzarek on piano and drummer John Densmore. Originally released as a ‘B Side’ of a single, “Who Scared You” is a good pop tune with a bluesy swing, some funky horn arrangements, and a cool solo by Krieger. ---classicrockreview.com

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