"the Doors" London

More than 30 years after the death of Jim Morrison, interest in The Doors is as strong as ever. They have been the posthumous subject of both a best-selling biography and a cinema film. 'Maximum Doors' presents the complete and unauthorised audio-biography of this ground-breaking quartet from their earliest days, through their rise to fame and enormous success, to the death of Morrison in Paris and the demise of the band. A perfect addition to every Doors fan's collection.

The Doors had one of the most extraordinary debut years in music history in 1967, releasing a string of hit singles and two platinum albums, beginning in January with the band’s self-titled debut, followed by Strange Days in September. The latter peaked at #3 on the Billboard album chart and featured classics like “Love Me Two Times,” “When The Music’s Over,” and the title track “Strange Days.”

The final album with Jim Morrison in the lineup is by far their most blues-oriented, and the singer's poetic ardor is undiminished, though his voice sounds increasingly worn and craggy on some numbers. Actually, some of the straight blues items sound kind of turgid, but that's more than made up for by several cuts that rate among their finest and most disturbing work…

Pop standards vocalist/actress Julie London was definitely at a transitional phase in her career when she cut Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (1969) - the final entry in her decade-and-a-half long relationship with Liberty Records. Modern listeners will revel in the obvious kitsch factor of a middle-aged, old-school female who is crooning rock & roll. Rightly so, as the two musical universes rarely collided with a lucrative outcome. However, just below the genre-bending veneer lie interesting interpretations of concurrently well-known selections with the occasional sleeper gem thrown in. The lush and admittedly antiquated orchestration doesn't mask London's smoky and smouldering pipes, and some scores definitely work better than others…