A 3-album replay: The Doors’ 1971 record L.A. Woman, Bad Company’s Desolation Angels from 1979 and The Beatles’ 1964 album A Hard Day’s Night (UK version). My album commentaries are below each record’s track list.

The Doors – L.A. Woman

1. The Changeling
2. Love Her Madly
3. Been Down So Long
4. Cars Hiss By My Window
5. L.A. Woman
6. L’America
7. Hyacinth House
8. Crawling King Snake
9. The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)
10. Riders On The Storm

L.A. Woman is probably my favorite Doors record although the 1967 self-titled debut album, with Break On Through (To The Other Side), Light My Fire, Back Door Man and The End on it, is right up there but while I like all the band’s work, L.A. Woman is one I most consistently listen to straight through. From the opening cut The Changeling, the classic title track placed, intentionally or not, smack in the middle of the 10-song album, anchoring the record, to the closing, brooding Riders On The Storm. I just like the dark, bluesy vibe that is enhanced by, some critics have suggested, Jim Morrison’s worn-out, rough hewn vocals – but that’s what makes them, and the album, great. It was the last Doors album to feature Morrison on lead vocals, during his lifetime, as he died two months after its release. The title track, brilliant vocal and propulsive band performance, always sticks in my mind and often reminds me of an old high school and college friend and football teammate who would, impromptu, often break into song. L.A. Woman, with its evocative opening line “Well I just got into town about an hour ago, took a look around see which way the wind blow. . .” was one of them.

So was The Rolling Stones’ If You Really Want To Be My Friend, from the It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll album, which back then confirmed to me that, ‘this is a guy worth knowing; he actually, like me, knows Stones’ deep cuts’. As for the present day, that memory made me think of playing the Stones’ album but it wouldn’t fit into this 3-album play in my 2-hour slot and I didn’t want to play just two albums and fill the rest with random tracks, as the three albums I’m playing fit the slot perfectly. So, perhaps next time, or soon, for It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, in whole or in part.

Bad Company – Desolation Angels

1. Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy
2. Crazy Circles
3. Gone, Gone, Gone
4. Evil Wind
5. Early In The Morning
6. Lonely For Your Love
7. Oh, Atlanta
8. Take The Time
9. Rhythm Machine
10. She Brings Me Love

Desolation Angels is the fifth of six studio albums by the original Bad Company, with Paul Rodgers on lead vocals. The less said about the later Brian Howe (RIP) lead singer version – aside from, I’ll grant you, the song Holy Water, title cut from Howe-fronted 1990 album – the better. But I’ll say a lot, anyway. The Howe period, from 1986 to 1992, was actually quite commercially successful but there’s no accounting for why and how millions of people apparently like that overproduced post-Terry Kath Chicago, or Foreigner’s sappy period, type schlock. And I like a fair bit of early Foreigner, the rocking stuff. But then, acts like Bon Jovi, with that same annoying (to me) sound, are hugely successful, too. It’s all subjective to personal taste, of course and I mean no harm by it, enjoy what you enjoy, of course, as will I, just having a little fun.

I remember when Bad Company – which still did feature original members Mick Ralphs on guitar and Simon Kirke on drums – reconvened with Howe, who had fronted Ted Nugent’s band for a time, on lead vocals, telling a work colleague who replied “no Paul Rodgers, no Bad Company.” Hey, I agree, was just advising in case you might be interested. In fairness, apparently the record company insisted to Ralphs and Kirke that the new project still be called Bad Company, as it’s arguably easier to sell (or tarnish?) a known brand name. Later on, Bad Company replaced Howe with Rodgers sound-alike Robert Hart for the 1995 album Company Of Strangers which I truly do like – because it sounds like Paul Rodgers singing and also isn’t buried under the Howe-era production murk – and have played on the show on occasion and will again. Rodgers did later rejoin Bad Co. for some tours and live albums, as well as the excellent 1999 2-CD The ‘Original’ Bad Co. Anthology which featured four new studio tracks and led to a reunion tour.
All that self-indulgent verbosity to bring us back to Desolation Angels which, propelled by the hit single Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy, did good business for Bad Co. As it should have, because, while fans and critics, from what I’ve seen, tend to lean to the first two albums as being Bad Company’s best, I think the band, with Rodgers, released consistently solid front-to-back albums and Desolation Angels is another of them. I find merit every song on it, Crazy Circles probably being my second favorite, after Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy.

The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night

1. A Hard Day’s Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can’t Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I’ll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can’t Do That
13. I’ll Be Back

A Hard Day’s Night was the third studio album and first that was all band-penned, no cover tunes, all songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s the first and only Beatles album that featured songs from that musical partnership and none from their bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr. It is, however, a Lennon-dominated album given that he lead-composed and/or sang on 10 of the 13 tracks but that’s not to take away from McCartney’s contributions like And I Love Her and Things We Said Today. A remarkable record, in any event, not only for its excellent songs – essentially it could be a greatest hits album – but particularly given the time pressures under which it was produced by this remarkable band. The Beatles had just returned from their first U.S. appearances, then had to write and record songs for the film, and more to fill out the album, while shooting the movie. As the saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person. There are, as often happened in the early days of British Invasion bands, two versions of the record. There’s the UK release, which I’m playing, whose first seven songs – side one of the original vinyl – were used in the film A Hard Day’s Night. And the U.S./North American album – subtitled Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – which spreads the songs used in the film over the original vinyl’s two sides, interspersed with record producer George Martin’s orchestral contributions.