Released in 1983 on Elektra/Asylum Records Produced by Paul Rothchild
Recorded 1968-1969-1970, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Boston and Copenhagen.
Now one of the first things that impressed me about this record was how clean and modern it sounded, because music recorded in 1960’s/early ‘70s had never sounded so good. Initially I put this down to mastering. It wasn’t until many years later I learnt that the band had re-recorded their instruments on several songs, in order to give them a clearer and crisper edge. Mind you, the LP was released in 1983, a time when sanitised production was the norm, and where every instrument was practically dripping with disinfectant. Not so this album, despite the overdubs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oErfxU2Tqhc
Opening with a cover of Van Morrison’s “Gloria”, a song the band had been performing since their days at the Whiskey A Go Go, before they were famous. This recording was captured at a rehearsal made in July 1969 at the Aquarius Theatre in Los Angeles, Its an absolute revelation. Here we have Jim Morrison at some of his sensual best, hamming it up mid-stream with a sleazy intensity. “Light My Fire” is a composite of different performances preserved over several nights, not that anyone would notice, thanks to the masterful editing of Paul A. Rothchild, who was obviously wanting to create an ‘ultimate’ experience for the listener, even inserting Morrison’s “Graveyard Poem”, a performance which had nothing to do with the tune at all.
Side one ends with an exciting as well as vigorous “You Make Me Real”, again from the Aquarius Theatre, only with new guitar overdubs by Robby Krieger.
Turn the record over and we have a rare rendition of “Texas Radio and the Big Beat”, along with “Love Me Two Times”, both of which originate from a T.V. show the band performed for in Copenhagen Denmark in late 1968. Apparently it was the discovery of these tapes in a Los Angeles warehouse that prompted the group to initiate a search to see if there might be other live tapes in existence which had gone missing during the Seventies, hence the release of this LP, on which can also be heard a particularly convincing rendition of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster”, replete with John Sebastian (who had to re-record his harmonica due to a faulty microphone) and some great slide guitar by Krieger. “Moonlight Drive” is another notable highlight (even if the band did record a new instrumental track), where Morrison’s recitation of “Horse Latitudes” is especially haunting.
Alive She Cried was no doubt a quality release, even if the title was in itself a tad misleading and not quite genuine. Krieger himself admitted at the time that they had made a few “improvements”, as he put them, to the original, tapes and corrected the odd minor mistake as required. Yet if the listener is prepared to overlook such musical misdemeanours, Alive… was in its day an important and vital reminder of The Doors potency as a living entity in a world that was becoming increasingly synthetic. The Doors who were kicking into the establishment, challenging the status quo, and who would prove to make a far more profound and everlasting impact. Not to mention the romantic allure of the band’s mysterious front man, Jim Morrison, who seems just as much alive in death as he was when he walked the earth.
“Alive She Cried” was the first official live release since 1970’s “Absolutely Live”. With the 1980 release of the Morrison bio “No One Here Get’s Out Alive” along with a new “Greatest Hits”, the fans were hungry for new material. This was it. Although this is all live material, each song was heavily edited by Paul Rothchild, with new overdubs added to some of the songs. The source material comes from the Aquarius Theater, Felt Forum, Detroit and Boston shows. Fans would later get to hear the original source material when Bright Midnight Records (and later Bright Midnight Archives) released all of the original concerts unedited. They would also discover that although the version of “Little Red Rooster” on ‘Alive She Cried’ was credited to being from the Detroit show, it was actually from one of the New York Felt Forum shows.
The Fat Angel Sings 