THE DOORS’ "STRANGE DAYS": THE COVERS PLAYED AT "THE MATRIX"

 

About a month before The Doors start recording their second album ("Strange Days", September 1967), they are captured live at "The Matrix" in San Francisco (March 7-10, '67). Still little known outside California, the band includes, as usual, several songs taken from other artists and reinterpreted according to their own sensibilities.

Although on "Strange Days" The Doors record only original tunes, it was customary for the band to include covers in their concerts. It is therefore not surprising that among the 37 tracks that have come down to us from “The Matrix” concerts, 14 are covers of other artists’ tunes. Most of them date from the second half of the 1950s and the early 1960s.

Talking about musical genres, those covers belong predominantly to the realms of Blues and Rhythm and Blues, a fact that would seem at odds with the psychedelic Rock they would play a few weeks later in the recording sessions of "Strange Days". Despite this may seem a contradiction, throughout the band's history, both in the studio and on stage, different genres have always co-existed.

The best track among the covers recorded at "The Matrix" is surely the version of "Gloria" (Them, 1964), capable of creating that interchange between muted sounds and electric explosions that makes The Doors unmistakable.

Also of interest is the slide technique used by Robby Krieger in "Money" (Barret Strong, 1959) and "I'm a King Bee" (Slim Harpo, 1957). As for Morrison's vocals, besides the already mentioned "Gloria", the most engaging performance is the one he gives on "Who Do You Love" (Bo Diddley, 1956).

Among the curiosities of this live shows there is "Crawlin' King Snake" (Big Joe Williams, 1941), which anticipates by three and a half years the arrangement it will have on the group's last LP (L.A. Woman) and in which appears for a few seconds the harmonica played by Morrison.

Finally, an unusual touch is represented by the long instrumental version of the timeless "Summertime", in which Ray Manzarek launches in a creative and protracted electric organ solo.