The Doors’ ‘Waiting For the Sun’ Gets Deluxe for 50th

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The Doors’ ongoing 50th anniversary celebration continues with a Deluxe Edition of their third studio album, Waiting For The Sun. In an announcement on June 26, Rhino outlined how it will commemorate the album’s golden anniversary on Sept. 14 with a 2-CD/1-LP collection featuring 14 previously unreleased tracks and a new version of the 1968 album’s original stereo mix on both CD and 180-gram vinyl LP, which has been newly remastered from the original master tapes by Bruce Botnick, the Doors’ longtime engineer/mixer and producer.

Waiting For The Sun, released on July 3, 1968, was the band’s third platinum album in less than two years, and the first to top the album chart. The album contributed to the Doors’ repertoire with classics like “The Unknown Soldier,” “Five To One” and the #1 smash, “Hello, I Love You.”

The set also includes a second disc of 14 previously unreleased tracks: nine recently discovered “rough mixes” from the album recording sessions and five live songs from a 1968 concert that the band’s Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore performed in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Hello, I Love You” took two more weeks to reach the top in Record World. Check out that Top 10!

“Hello, I Love You” became the band’s second #1 hit when it topped the Billboard singles chart for two weeks beginning on Aug. 3. Now, exactly 50 years later, Rhino will release a new 7” version of the single with its b-side “Love Street.” For this anniversary release, Rhino will use mono radio mixes of the songs that were given exclusively to radio stations for airplay in 1968. This version of “Hello, I Love You” was first available last year as part of The Singles CD collection and is making its vinyl debut here, while the “Love Street” mix is being released commercially for the first time.

While going through his archive, Botnick uncovered a cache of rough mixes from the sessions that hadn’t been played in 50 years. Botnick says: “I prefer some of these rough mixes to the finals, as they represent all of the elements and additional background vocals, different sensibilities on balances, and some intangible roughness, all of which are quite attractive and refreshing.”

The deluxe edition of the album also features unreleased live recordings of five songs from the Doors’ September 17, 1968 concert in Copenhagen. The performance includes three songs from the band’s latest album – “Hello, I Love You,” “Five To One,” and “The Unknown Soldier” – plus the classics “Back Door Man” and “The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat).” (See full track listing below.)

Related: See where Waiting For The Sun ranks among 1968’s biggest albums

When the Doors recorded Waiting For The Sun in 1968, they were among the first bands to use Dolby A301 noise reduction processors, which was cutting-edge recording tech at the time. Similarly, the most advanced sound recording innovations were used to make the anniversary edition of Waiting For The Sun. The new release has been encoded with the MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) process. An MQA disc plays back on all CD players as standard CD quality. But if a conventional CD player is connected to an MQA-enabled device, it can play the same disc back at its original sample rate.

Watch the official lyric video for “Hello, I Love You”

The Doors original 1968 concert program has been reprinted for the first time, and made available exclusively in the Doors webstore. This was the only official tour program ever created by the band.

The program was originally produced for their 1968 U.S. tour but only sold at a few select shows and via mail order. Designed by Paul Ferrara, the 24-page program includes many color and black-and-white images taken by Ferrara, plus poetry by Jim Morrison, astrology charts for each band member, and more.

The Deluxe Edition, “Hello, I Love You” 7-inch and concert program are available here.

Waiting For The Sun 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Track Listing

Disc One
“Hello, I Love You”
“Love Street”
“Not To Touch The Earth”
“Summer’s Almost Gone”
“Wintertime Love”
“The Unknown Soldier”
“Spanish Caravan”
“My Wild Love”
“We Could Be So Good Together”
“Yes, The River Knows”
“Five To One”

Disc Two (All Tracks Previously Unreleased)
Rough Mixes
“Hello, I Love You”
“Summer’s Almost Gone”
“Yes, The River Knows”
“Spanish Caravan”
“Love Street”
“Wintertime Love”
“Not To Touch The Earth”
“Five To One”
“My Wild Love”

Live In Copenhagen
“The WASP (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)”
“Hello, I Love You”
“Back Door Man”
“Five To One”
“The Unknown Soldier”

 

Best Classic Bands Staff

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  1. randolphr
    #1 randolphr 2 July, 2018, 09:53

    I’d really like to know if the Plangent Process was utilized.

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