brand new/never opened/ltd
This
is the first in-depth radio special for which all three Doors agreed to
speak on the record about their whirlwind career from 1966 through Jim
Morrison's death in 1971 and the mysterious circumstances under which
he lived and died. Throughout the 1970s, L.A.'s top disc jockey, Jim
Ladd, had made no secret of his love for The Doors and always played
them nightly on his shift. Ladd was also one of the very first pioneers
of the "syndicated radio special," meaning he wrote, interviewed,
hosted, and distributed to 135 cities a weekly radio production about a
band of his choice. In 1979, following the release of the An American Prayer album and preceding the release of the bestselling No One Here Gets Out Alive book,
I approached Jim about doing a four-hour special on The Doors. He
almost laughed at me. The longest special he had previously done was a
two-part two-hour one for Pink Floyd and another two hours on Led
Zeppelin. "Do The Doors even have four hours of music?" he asked. I
told him I'd be able to deliver outtakes then-never-before-heard as
well as interviews with the key players to be included in this special.
I told him my goal was to have its airing be the same month as the No One Here Gets Out Alive book, was to be published. We came very close.
So in the spring and summer of 1979 the show aired, every Monday night for an hour, in 135 markets. No One Here Gets Out Alive
soon became the best selling rock book ever written; Warner Books
bought commercial time on the special and Ladd used the book as the
basis for the show he ultimately produced. Since that time Jim Ladd has
become the unofficial "voice" of The Doors (as of this writing, he has
just completed another special, on the tribute album of Doors music, Stoned Immaculate, featuring Creed, Stone Temple Pilots, Smash Mouth, The Cult, and others performing their favorite Doors songs). No One Here Gets Out Alive,
this CD box set of the original Jim Ladd radio show which has now
adopted the name of the book, remains the most enduring and definitive
Doors story ever produced.
Bootleg
copies of this radio special, in its original 4-LP format, go for
upwards of five hundred dollars -- and they are third- and
fourth-generation copies with horrible sound. Only 150 copies of the
4-LP set were originally produced in 1979 and there never was a
repressing. Almost without exception, the personnel at the radio
stations that received those original copies kept them, and the black
box which contained them, for their personal collections. They are
impossible to find. My last copy went to Oliver Stone for research for The Doors film.
Fortunately, my younger brother, Chip, had a copy he had only played
once and taped. That original is the basis from which Bruce Botnick has
worked his magic to turn out this compact disc edition.