Last session at the Doors Workshop, rain on the tape
In December 1970, The Doors set up in their rehearsal room at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard, a space they called the Doors Workshop, and began the album that would be released as L.A. Woman. Paul Rothchild, producer of the earlier records, listened to the new songs and left. He told the band the music sounded like cocktail jazz. Bruce Botnick, the engineer who had been with them since the first album, stayed on and produced the record with the group.
“Riders on the Storm” was the last piece they completed with Jim Morrison. Ray Manzarek has traced the music to a loose play on the cowboy song “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Morrison answered it the same day with his own lyric. The track opens with rain and thunder, then Manzarek’s electric piano, Robby Krieger’s guitar, and John Densmore on a slow, even beat. Jerry Scheff, who had played bass for Elvis Presley, plays bass here. The Doors had never kept a bass guitarist. Manzarek usually covered that low part on a keyboard. For this album they hired a player, and on a few other songs Marc Benno added rhythm guitar. Scheff’s line is what carries “Riders.”
Morrison sings the verse in a low voice, then a second take of the same vocal sits under it, close to a whisper. The words move from a killer on the highway to a lover in the same weather. Botnick put the rain on the tape as a sound effect, not as a field recording from the street outside. The finished track runs a little over seven minutes. Elektra released L.A. Woman on 19 April 1971. The album reached No. 9 on the Billboard 200 and No. 28 in Britain. The single came out in June, with “The Changeling” on the other side, and climbed to No. 14 on the Hot 100 and No. 22 in the UK.
We started from that old cowboy song, and Jim said he could write a better one. He had the words the same day.
(Ray Manzarek, recalling the L.A. Woman sessions)
Morrison had flown to Paris in March 1971, before the album was in the shops. He died there on 3 July, a few weeks after the single appeared. The four of them never played “Riders on the Storm” on a tour. There was no performance film from 1971, only the studio take and later still photographs. People still name it as the last Doors song with Morrison because that is what the session log says: it was the final recording they finished with him, not a later myth pasted on an older track.
What keeps the record on the radio is how plain the picture is. A road, bad weather, a piano figure that does not hurry, and a voice that never shouts. Krieger’s guitar answer stays short. Densmore does not push the tempo. When Elektra and later editions returned to the tape, the piece they were reprinting was this one, cut in that Santa Monica room in the winter of 1970-71.
Pierre | 13 October 2026
|
First time I heard Riders on the Storm was on a burned CD. Still got the scratches in my head.
Noah | 14 October 2026
|
I came for The Doors, stayed for how clean this write-up is. Riders on the Storm hits different after reading. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable.
Rosa | 14 October 2026
|
Cool. Now I want the deep cuts around Riders on the Storm too. Ok bye.
Alex | 15 October 2026
|
Still puts Riders on the Storm on whenever I need a reset. Never gets old.
Marc G. | 15 October 2026
|
I show Riders on the Storm to friends who say they hate that era. Works every time.