DOUG LUBAHN, FROM CLEAR LIGHT TO THE SESSIONS OF "STRANGE DAYS"

 

On the album "Strange Days", the Doors wanted a session man to play bass in the recording studio (on live gigs, the electric bass was played by Ray Manzarek on a keyboard called Fender Rhodes Piano Bass).

The bassist they recruited was 19-year-old Doug Lubahn, who played bass in Clear Light, a little-known California band that played psychedelic pop-rock. Clear Light, like the Doors, had Paul Rothchild as their producer, and it was Rothchild himself who called upon Lubahn to play bass on "Strange Days”.

Clear Light will release just an album on the Elektra label, the Doors' record company, but it will not gain any success (the LP "Clear Light" reached the 127th spot in the USA without entering the UK charts).  This only album was released in September '67, the same month as "Strange Days".

A representative song of their sound is "Night Sounds Loud", written by Lubahn himself. The band's style is sometimes reminiscent of the Doors, and the quality of their performances remains at a good level throughout the album. Incidentally, on the cover of the LP you can see Lubhan in the lower left corner.

After recording "Strange Days" in August '67, the Doors and Rothchild consider bringing the bassist fulltime into the band. Anyway, he turned them down because of his loyalty to his own group. Unfortunately for him, Clear Light broke up the following year (in 1968), while the Doors remain to this day one of the most famous and best bands in modern music history.

As a kind of compensation, about five months after the recording of "Strange Days," Lubahn was called back to play on the recordings of "Waiting For The Sun" (the Doors' third LP), from February to May 1968. He plays on every track of that album except "Spanish Caravan”.

Finally, he plays electric bass again on "Wild Child": the best track on the 1969 album "The Soft Parade" (recorded by the Doors between late 1968 and spring '69). Lubahn also plays electric bass on "Easy Ride" and "Whishful Sinful", both of them included on “The Soft Parade”.