Music Review: Various Artists, A Classic Rock Salute to The Doors: Light My Fire

By Jeffery X Martin

It’s one of those burning musical questions, the kind of thing that keeps you up at night, losing sleep. What exactly would it sound like if a bunch of classic rock artists covered the songs of a classic rock band they were never members of? It’s a staggering premise, to be sure. I mean, is that even legal? Won’t that push the limits of rockitude past its previously agreed upon limits?

Short answer: no, it won’t. The good news is, it doesn’t completely suck.

A Classic Rock Salute to The Doors: Light My Fire is like the Dad-Rock version of the Now That’s What I Call Music series. It has 16 tunes from the iconic Doors catalog, all with different lead singers and musicians, mostly prog rock guys from the Sixties and Seventies. You might know some of them. Your dad will know all of them, if he was a cool dad. Uncool dads need not apply.

The Doors were best known for having Jim Morrison as their lead singer. He was dreamy, a mystic, drug-using, penis-exposing beat poet trapped in the wrong generation. That image is so beloved by people that most covers of their songs are lifeless, filled with the existential fear that the spirit of Morrison will be upset somehow. Heaven forbid we piss off the dead guy by playing one of his songs in a different key, or at a faster tempo.

This collection, which suffers from an insanely long title, also suffers from this fear of ghosts. Most of the songs are presented in a respectful manner, with no real chances taken. The orchestration is pretty much the same as it ever was. That’s a shame, because The Doors were essentially a blues band, and there’s always room for crazy riffs and improvisation, even within a standard 12-bar blues progression.

What this album does offer is a pretty substantial stable of influential musicians playing songs you’ve never not known.

Keyboard virtuoso Keith Emerson shows up for an intro to “People Are Strange” that recalls his soundtrack work, while David Johansen takes over the song with his trademark burlesque vocals. Joe Lynn Turner (Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow) turns in a sweetly creepy version of “Riders on the Storm.” Former Survivor frontman Jimi Jamison provides the best channeling of Jim Morrison with leadoff track “L.A. Woman. ”

The list of musicians is stellar. Patrick Moraz, Graham Bonnet, Elliot Easton, Todd Rundgren, Geoff Downes, and Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad all make appearances on the album, and that doesn’t even really scratch the surface of studio and session players.

Musically, it’s perfect. Honestly, you’ve got to work really hard to screw up a Doors song. And yet, the listener is left wishing that somebody had at least tried to really botch one, grab an old familiar song by the throat, and really attempt to make it his own. Instead, what we get resembles a really tight late-night bar jam, everyone taking their proper turns, but not wanting to screw themselves out of a decent split from the tip jar.

Your cool dad won’t care, though. Now, that’s what he calls music.

A Classic Rock Salute To The Doors: Light My Fire was released on June 24 via Purple Pyramid Records.