Live at the Matrix 1967

Live at the Matrix 1967
Live album by The Doors
Released November 18, 2008
Recorded March 7 & 10, 1967
Genre Psychedelic rock, acid rock, blues-rock
Length 125:46
Label Rhino - Bright Midnight Archives
Producer Bruce Botnick
The Doors chronology

Live Pittsburgh Civic Arena
(2008)		 Live at the Matrix 1967
(2008)		 Live in New York
(2009)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
BBC (?)[2]
CHARTattack [3]
Crawdaddy (?)[4]
PopMatters (?)[5]
Rolling Stone [6]
San Francisco Chronicle (?)[7]

Live at the Matrix 1967 is a double live album by The Doors, compiled and resequenced from recordings made on March 7 and 10, 1967 at The Matrix in San Francisco by club co-owner Peter Abram.[8] The recording is notable because it is one of the earliest live recordings of the band known to exist: The Doors had recorded only one album by March 1967, "Light My Fire" had yet to be released as a single,[9] and they were still relatively unknown outside Southern California.

This is part of previously unreleased material of the Bright Midnight Archives collection of live albums by The Doors.

Recording equipment

On November 22, 2008, recording engineer Peter Abram revealed in an online posting [10] the equipment he used to record The Doors at The Matrix. "I used an Akai tape recorder (tubes), 4 Calrad mics on the stage and a Calrad mic mixer on the instrumental channel. On the vocal channel: a Knight mixer with 3 Electrovoice 676 and Shure mics. The Calrad mics that I used on the instrumental track were model DM-21" said Abram.

The original master 1/4 track stereo tapes were recorded at 7.5 ips on Abram's Akai reel-to-reel vacuum tube tape recorder.

Master Tape issues

PopMatters music critic Steve Horowitz observed in his review of Live at the Matrix 1967, entitled "Money...That's What I Want,"[11] that the Rhino CD was not sourced from Peter Abram's master tapes, despite Rhino's press release claim that "first generation tapes" were used.[12][13]

On December 2, 2008, Peter Abram allowed photos to be taken of his master tape boxes. These photos were published online at the Steve Hoffman Forums on December 4, 2008.[14]

Abram's notations on the master tape boxes indicate that a 'jam' was performed between "Soul Kitchen" and "Get Out of My Life Woman" during the March 7, 1967 show.

Since that time, the Doors management has purchased the original master tapes and are planning on re-releasing the concert as a gold-disc limited edition box set due out sometime in 2012.[15]

Track listing

Disc one

All songs written by Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, except where noted.

  1. "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" (Jim Morrison) – 3:47
  2. "Soul Kitchen" (Morrison) – 5:51
  3. "Money" (Janie Bradford, Berry Gordy) – 3:02
  4. "The Crystal Ship" (Morrison) – 2:50
  5. "Twentieth Century Fox" – 2:46
  6. "I'm a King Bee" (James Moore) – 3:48
  7. "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" (Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill) – 3:16
  8. "Summer's Almost Gone" (Morrison) – 3:46
  9. "Light My Fire" (Robby Krieger) – 8:14
  10. "Get Out of My Life, Woman" (Allen Toussaint) – 3:58
  11. "Back Door Man" (Willie Dixon, Chester Burnett) – 5:14
  12. "Who Do You Love" (Bo Diddley) – 4:31
  13. "The End" – 13:54

Disc two

  1. "Unhappy Girl" (Morrison) – 3:56
  2. "Moonlight Drive" (Morrison) – 5:39
  3. "Woman Is a Devil/Rock Me Baby" (B.B. King) – 8:08
  4. "People Are Strange" (Morrison, Krieger) – 2:14
  5. "Close to You" (Dixon) – 2:56
  6. "My Eyes Have Seen You" (Morrison) – 2:56
  7. "Crawling King Snake" (Anon, arr. by John Lee Hooker) – 4:53
  8. "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind" (Morrison) – 3:07
  9. "Summertime" (George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) – 8:29
  10. "When the Music's Over" – 11:11
  11. "Gloria" (Van Morrison) – 5:36

Personnel

Production

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ BBC review
  3. ↑ CHARTattack review
  4. ↑ Crawdaddy review
  5. ↑ PopMatters review
  6. ↑ Rolling Stone review
  7. ↑ San Francisco Chronicle review
  8. ↑ Selvin, Joel (August 17, 2010). "San Francisco Chronicle, Early S.F. Doors show breaks on through to CD". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  9. ↑ "Official Rhino Entertainment Press Release for "Live at the Matrix 1967"".
  10. ↑ "Steve Hoffman Music Forums".
  11. ↑ "The Doors Live at the Matrix 1967".
  12. ↑ "PopMatters review".
  13. ↑ "Rhino press release".
  14. ↑ "Steve Hoffman forums".
  15. ↑ "The Doors Official Message Boards".