5 FAMOUS DEATHS ON THE ROAD TO "STRANGE DAYS" (PART 1)

 

The Doors recorded their second LP, "Strange Days," starting from April 1967 through the second half of August, apart from an isolated studio session held in February of that year. The resulting magnificent album would later be released on September 25, 1967.

The path the band took to record this album is punctuated with deaths of famous figures, which mark the ongoing progress of the studio recordings. This is a special circumstance that brings some interesting surprises (we’ll discover them through the five episodes of this series of articles).

The beginning of the work on "Strange Days" is marked by the death of J.B. Lenoir on April 29th at the age of 38. He was a bluesman active mainly in the fifties, although he was artistically rediscovered during the blues revival of the second half of the sixties that happened in England and the United States.

He belonged to the subgenre of blues known as "Chicago blues," characterized by a usually clean sound and several rhythmical elements shared with the Rhythm and Blues.

His lyrics were more politically engaged than the average of the genre to which he belonged. Moreover, he is best known for the high pitch and velvety timbre of his voice.

Don’t be misled by his extravagant clothes, the words written and sung by the bluesman are strong and bold lyrics of social protest. In this respect, it is worth listening to his "Vietnam Blues" and "Korea Blues", the content of which is even more courageous for being sung by a Afro-American man in the USA of the 1950s.

Virtually all his body of work, the two albums recorded in the 1960s included, is still more than pleasant and constitutes a quality listening.

Although the Doors never drew directly from his repertoire, the link between the California band and the blues remains strong. A bond that is temporarily broken within the album "Strange Days" in favor of Psychedelic Rock. However, this connection was still existing during concerts. In fact, the quartet continued to offer several blues songs in their live performances during the recording sessions of “Strange Days” (spring-summer 1967).

We wrap up with a curiosity. After his death in April 1967, J.B. Lenoir is explicitly commemorated with two songs written by John Mayall.

The first one is "The Death Of J.B. Lenoir" from the 1967 album "Crusade", recorded just a few days after the death of the bluesman. The second one is "I'm Gonna Fight For You J.B.", included by Mayall on the live album "The Turning Point", recorded in New York in July 1969 and released the same year in October.