The Doors - Other Voices (1971, LP)

When I was younger and more cynical (cough), I used to refer to this version of The Doors as "the remaining 3/8 of the group." This was the first album they released after Morrison's death (or disappearance to some of you). Listening to the instrumentation, it is very clearly The Doors. But without Morrison's voice and unique...energy, it just isn't the same. I ran across this by accident one day at Sundance Records in San Marcos back in the 80s and bought it as a curiosity. They did one more album after this, called Full Circle, but I never chanced across it and never wanted it bad enough to ask for a special order. I'm not terribly interested in hearing it, but I wouldn't cross buying it off my list of possibilities.

UPDATE: A word on the singing. Robby Krieger can carry a tune in roughly the same way that Bob Dylan carries a tune. Ray Manzarek can also sing, but his vocal style leans heavily toward the blues shouter. According to some of the comments at Amazon, these songs were already in the working-up stages before Morrison died, and were all intended to be sung by him. So it might be interesting trying to re-imagine what Morrison would have sounded like with these songs. Anyway, that didn't happen and it's pure speculation as to where they may have headed if he had lived longer. I read that Full Circle has a jazzier sound to it, which interests me a little more, and seems a logical direction for them to have headed next.

This is another of those records that I didn't get a totally perfect rip of, but it's close enough that I doubt I'll notice the very minor flaws during casual listening. It will go into the archives but I don't plan on burning it to audio CD. Favorite song from it I guess is "Ships w/ Sails." I think I'll add that one to my general favorites playlist just for kicks.