The Doors are to release a new album, London Fog 1966, which will consist of recently discovered live recordings, the earliest known to exist.
Available From Rhino/Bright Midnight Archives on December 9th, they will be released in a Collector’s Edition Boxed Set on CD And Vinyl along with 8 x 10 prints of unseen photos and replica memorabilia.
The music was recorded during the Doors tenure as the house band at the London Fog, a Sunset Strip dive bar located close to Whisky a Go Go. The seven song set has been remastered by Doors engineer Bruce Botnick.
The set includes covers of standards like Muddy Waters’ “Rock Me” and “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man”. The set also includes performances of “Baby, Please Don’t Go” (Big Joe Williams), “Don’t Fight It” (Wilson Pickett) and “Lucille” (Little Richard) alongside two originals: “Strange Days” and “You Make Me Real”, which wasn’t officially released on a studio album until Morrison Hotel in 1970.
Many of the countless Doors live albums are far from essential, but this one feels genuinely important. The recently discovered 1966 audience recording from a gig at the London Fog in Los Angeles, captures the band in their lesser-known embryonic period. Their sound is already in place and Jim Morrison is on the verge of becoming the Lizard King, using the near-empty Sunset Strip venue to develop the necessary stagecraft to get his mojo rising. The various covers range from smouldering, sensual blues (BB King’s Rock Me) to raw, roughhouse rockers (Big Joe Williams’ Baby Please Don’t Go). The two originals – a tightly wound, thrillingly focused You Make Me Real and a particularly ominous, spooked and spooky Strange Days – may be respectively two and four years away from their studio versions, but already sound eerily fully formed. Throughout, disinterested audience chatter and the chink of glasses belies the fact that within months, the London Fog’s unknown house band would be among the hottest groups in the world.
London Fog 1966 track Listing:
“Rock Me”
“Baby, Please Don’t Go”
“You Make Me Real”
“Don’t Fight It”
“I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man”
“Strange Days”
“Lucille”
The Fat Angel Sings 