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The Doors Check Into the 'Morrison Hotel'

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PopMatters is moving to WordPress. We will publish a few essays daily while we develop the new site. We hope the beta will be up sometime late next week.

Fifty years after its original release, the Doors' Morrison Hotel is reissued as a two-CD /one-vinyl set that includes 19 bonus cuts.

Soul singer Bette Smith teamed with Matt Patton of Drive-by Truckers for new album, The Good, the Bad and the Bette, that strikes several deeply personal chords. Hear her latest blistering single, "I'm a Sinner".

Almost 50 years on, the rock star excess on display on the Rolling Stones' Goats Head Soup still resonates.

Fleetwood Mac are the rare group that feature both a fine discography and a successful series of solo LPs from their many members. Here are ten examples of the latter.

Australian rockers Datura4 take inspiration from the never-ending coastal landscape of their home country to deliver a well-grounded album between blues, hard rock, and psychedelia.

Screenwriter and musician John Fusco pens a soulful anti-street fighting man song, "It Takes a Man". "As a trained fighter, one of the greatest lessons I have ever learned is to walk away from a fight without letting ego get the best of you."

Before you slip into unconsciousness, Counterbalance has put together a few thoughts on the Doors' 1967 debut album. It's number 24 on the Big List.

“Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?" Counterbalance's Eric Klinger and Jason Mendelsohn have, and they file this report.

Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip features some of the most obscure sides on the planet, including this 1969 blues-based ripper that imagines what Motörhead might have sounded like as the house band at a Toledo Holiday Inn.

Larkin Poe pack Self Made Man with unadulterated power. The multi-instrumentalist sisters strut their musicality while firmly rooting their sound in Southern rock 'n roll.

Australia's Datura4 deliver a highway anthem for a new generation with "West Coast Highway Cosmic". Take a trip without leaving the couch.

Able to write and sing the blues, gospel, folk, rock and alt-country with the same amount of true grit and passion, Lucinda Williams comes out swinging while discussing her explosive new album during these troubled times.

On her new searing album, Good Souls Better Angels, Lucinda Williams rages against the darkness of our era and seeks the strength to get through it.

From apocalyptic blues boasts to backwoods chant-alongs, here are 15 songs that encapsulate Tom Waits' incredibly varied career.

In 1972, the Rolling Stones were holed up in a rickety mansion in the South of France, writing an epic love letter to American music. Counterbalance examines the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St and separates the fever from the funk house—now!

Daniel Pearson retains the knack for atmospheric melodies that garnered his reputation while confidently strutting back to his grittier rock roots on "Brother".

Hot Tuna is power trio rock at its finest as sonic sparks fly in the band's astonishing seventh decade of performing at rock's most sacred venue.

Forty years into his career, Robert Cray has been steadily building one of the most consistent catalogs of pure soul and smooth blues with the help of his stinging Stratocaster and a voice that somehow gets even better with age.

If Greta Van Fleet are that wonderful horrible thing called zeitgeisty, that zeitgeist is defined by desire to escape to a fantasized past where the battles were cleaner and the battle lines simpler than today's appear to be.

Marcus King has a raw ache in his throat that makes him sound as if he's coarsely whispering the words. Even when he's singing about a "Young Man's Dream", King's vocals suggest the experience of age.

Big Band of Brothers is a truly remarkable and imaginative take on the music of the legendary Allman Brothers Band, rendered with affection and imagination, it asks us to appreciate the true genius of Macon, Georgia's finest.

On their sophomore album, Trigger Hippy cement their reputation as a hard-working American rock band with a bright future. Co-founder Steve Gorman says, "This feels special and that's worth protecting."

The Doors' fourth album was a deeply polarizing work and perhaps their most difficult to love. But the 50th anniversary deluxe edition goes a long way in spotlighting its many highlights.

Although created in the midst of personal and global turmoil, the Rolling Stones' 1969 studio album is routinely considered one of their best. A 50th anniversary deluxe edition is now out and celebrates this masterpiece.

Blues rocker Mike Zito pairs with axeman Walter Trout for an incendiary version of Chuck Berry's seminal rock 'n' roll song, "Johnny B. Goode".

Powerhouse blues vocalist Beth Hart teams with producer Rob Cavallo to confront her own sense of spirituality on her intensely personal new release, War in My Mind. She tells us that story.

As part of the upcoming benefit album Blanket the Homeless, the Stone Foxes shine through the atmospheric, rhythmic rock of "Million Dollar Shoes", a song that sets the spotlight on the San Francisco Bay Area's homelessness crisis.

For an artist whose discography spans continents both literally and stylistically, there was one reliable thing: Ginger Baker knew what was needed, and if he had to invent new ways of forcing rhythm to the forefront, that was his job. It will remain his legacy.

Bad Company's albums have been fairly and consistently good -- all of them crucial to the development and popularity of album-oriented rock. The Swan Song Years is a perfect and convenient way to get all of the band's first six albums in one package.

Oumar Konaté shreds, howls, and loves his job on new Malian blues rock release I Love You Inna.

Saharan collective Tinariwen reign over a star-studded album of sincere desert blues on their latest gem Amadjar.

In 1969, the deeply strange musician known as Captain Beefheart released an album that is still ahead of its time a half-century later. PopMatters spoke with musicians and writers about this landmark work of art and why it continues to fascinate.

Legendary soul singer P.P. Arnold's new adventures include recording new baroque, soul-pop hybrids and a wild take on an old Dylan poem with Ocean Colour Scene's Steve Cradock and Paul Weller.

More than 50 years after her last solo album, Northern soul legend P.P. Arnold returns with a magnum opus produced by Ocean Colour Scene's Steve Cradock. Arnold discusses this and her long musical history working with the likes of the Small Faces, Ike & Tina Turner, and the Rolling Stones.

Blues guitar legend Jimmie Vaughan reflects on his latest album, Baby, Please Come Home, the greatness of T-Bone Walker, and the importance of remaining curious about your instrument.

The Black Keys loudly rock out with Let's Rock, an album celebrating the directness and enjoyment of the electric guitar.

Moving from Mahavishnu Orchestra-style to '70s-style rock sees the trio move from being Sand to becoming Ether Feather on "Your Half in the Middle".

The Doors' fourth album was a deeply polarizing work and perhaps their most difficult to love. But the 50^th anniversary deluxe edition goes a long way in spotlighting its many highlights.