ALIVE, SHE CRIED

This album, released in late 1983, from "tapes long lost but re- discovered", is a good live album, but it has, as Krieger and Manzarek said in interviews then, it has several overdubs, and some songs were edited in parts using recordings from several shows.

"Gloria" is a cover of the Van Morrison & Them song, recorded during a sound check, with somewhat "obscene" lyrics by Jim Morrison, and with overdubs (the backing vocals). It also had a promotional video shown on T.V. many times.

"Light My Fire" is a very good live version, better that the one which was released in "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" in 1987. Morrison improvises a poem in the mid of the song.

"You Make Me Real" lacks the piano from the studio version, and is played on organ. It is a good version, but still sounds a bit "empty" without the piano. Why The Doors didn`t use a bass player on stage to allow Manzarek concentrate on the keyboards instead of having to play the piano bass?

"Texas Radio and the Big Beat" is a slow blues with a poem by Morrison which also was used again in the song of the same name in the "L.A. Woman" album.

"Love Me Two Times" is a good live version. This song and "Texas" were "found" in the archives, and this led to search for more live recordings to be used in this album. The audio is taken from a T.V.programme of The Doors in Denmark.

"Little Red Rooster" is another slow blues with guest John Sebastian on harmonica (one of the hippies-musicians who appeared in the "Woodstock Festival" film and album, singing a very good song called "I Had a Dream"; IMO, if one person is very representative in image of the" Woodstock Generation" is John Sebastian).

"Moonlight Drive" is a good live version, but, again, but played without the piano. Morrison also recitates the lyrics from "Horse Latitudes" in an instrumental section of the song.

The most interesting songs in this album are "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive".

With the abundance of live album releases from the archives in recent years by The Doors (the "Bright Midnight" series), why they waited for many years to release them on albums? I think that the songs from this album were better used when they were included in the "In Concert" 2 CD package which also has the "Absolutely Live" album tracks and "Unknown Soldier" from the "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" EP.

Yes, this is a much overdubbed live album but nevertheless it holds up with certain songs and certain great riffs.Check out the masterfully talented version of Van Morrison's ' Gloria', better than the original, the epic ' Light My Fire' ( those were the days) and the clever ' Love Me Two Times'. A good live album at best not nearly as good as Absolutely Live. Go out and buy if you want a generically good Doors compilation.

As we know the first live album that Elektra released was "Absolutely Live" which is really great because of the performance of the whole Celebration of the Lizard as the main act. This time they recorded another live album called "Alive , she cried" which was taken by a concert in New York in 1970, it has only 7 songs and the album´s lenght is over 35 minutes, as you can imagine this is a good live album, but not as good as Absolutely Live, though.

The songs taken from this concert are: "Gloria" an excellent Van Morrison cover which actually i believe is better known with The Doors´ version. "Light my Fire", a very nice interpretation of the song, is the longest song of the album and probably the best, not only for being a single or a well known song, actually it is pretty good performanced. "You Make me Real" is a short but nice song, probably an unknown song with nothing outstanding to add. "Texas Radio and the Big Beat" remember "the Wasp"? well this is only a little piece of that song, another o Jim´s poems. "Love Me Two Times" is the other single or hit whatever you call it, that you will find here, great song and excellent vocal and guitar playing. "Little red Rooster" is a kind of surprise in the album, excellent interpretation of this bluesy song with as the credits say, John Sebastian as a guest musician in the harmonica, this is the secong longer song here, pretty good. "Moonight Drive" is another classic song, i ike it very much and it is good to see it as the final song of this nice live album.

Well, this live album doesn´t have enough elements to be highly recommended, i would recommend it only for fans or that people who want to discover another live performance of the band, the album is good for me , but definitely non - essential, so 3 stars.

Not as good as "Absolutely Live", "Alive She Cried" is still a decent live recording from the time they worked on "Morrison Hotel" album. Cover versions of "Gloria" and "Little Red Rooster" (with John B. Sebastian on mouth harp) are highlights and definitely recommended for Doors fans, while extended "Light My Fire" is excellent performance - much better than that found on "Live at Hollywood Bowl". This is a good live record, but unless you are a devoted fan it is probably not so essential.

CAUTION This album has been included on the double CD "In Concert" (released in 1995). If you are interested in The Doors, this is the one you need. "Alive, She Cried" although being a fragment of it, is still a valuable recording. It can be found in the CD format, but it is very expensive. My recommendation therefore is only to bother with "In Concert". This live album is made of several recordings. Actually, the reason it took so long to put these on the market, was not a marketing tool to help the sales of the book "The Doors" by Danny Sugerman (one of their former manager). The surviving trio knew about those tapes but could never found them. They offered a (financial) reward to several storage facilities to eventually find them. And they did. The tapes were actually wrongly labelled and therefore nobody put attention to these for a very long time (almost fifteen years). About dubbing, here is what Ray will say : "We fixed a few glaring errors. There were a few F chords when there should have been G chords on my part ... "whoops" ... "look out there, hold it" ... Inebriation takes over when you're on stage and sometimes you don't quite hit the right chord ... so that's the only thing we did ... correct some glaring errors". This album opens with "Gloria". The rock anthem from the band "Them". Krieger recalls about the date : "Late '66 before we really made an album or anything and then ... so what happened was we were doing a show in L.A. at the Aquarius Theater at our soundcheck. We were gonna record the show you know, so at the soundcheck we ended up doing "Gloria" and that's where this cut came from. I only have one source from a concert at the Aquarius (excellent sound by the way) but it dates from 1969, so I do not know about the one Krieger is referring to. About "Them", he will add : "Well, we played the Whiskey-A-Go-Go with Them when Van Morrison was still with Them, and one night at, I think it was the last night of the gig, we all got pretty soused and we ended up all getting on stage together and playing "Gloria". It's too bad nobody taped it". Lyrics from this song are rather sexual-oriented (you can read more about them in my review of "In Concert". This version of The Doors is very good and fits perfectly with their repertoire. The version of "Light My Fire" is really brilliant (clocking at almost ten minutes, which according to Ray is the longest available. He said : ""Light My Fire". The longest version of "Light My Fire" - 10 minutes; 9 minutes and 51 seconds worth of music. Jim does "The Graveyard Poem" in there ... A great moment of rock music. "You Make Real" is a great and violent rock song (almost punkish during the first part). The rhythm is tuely rocking like hell. It is a confirmation (if needed) how great the band was on stage. There is no comparison with the studio version available on "Morrison Hotel" which sounded like an old revival song.

"Texas Radio and the Big Beat" featured here, is an earlier release of the track from their last album "L.A. Woman". As Krieger will mention in an interview (1983), this might well be their first ever recordings of that song (1968). It will evolve quite a bit till 1971 to give birth to the full track as we know it.

"Love Me Two Times" was recorded for a TV live session (in Denmark). During the same interview I already have referred to, Ray will add : "Yeah, it's live from TV. They were filming it and recording it at the same time" while Robbie recalls :"It's ten o'clock in the morning. No people there. It's quite odd really".

"Little Red Rooster" is a cover version from a song written by Willie Dixon (Led Zep will also cover a few of his songs). It will be performed with the folk singer John B. Sebastian (which I know only from his Woodstock appearence). This song is a heavy bluesy one : with sliding guitar, harmonica and tutti quanti. Like early Led Zep bluesy ones (not talking about their own like "Since I've Been Loving You" of course) have never been my cup of tea. Same feeling with one. Still, Manzarek adds some nice keyboards here, which makes this track a little more bearable. This track was recorded at Felt Forum, New York (no dates provided).

The album closes with "Moonlight Drive". This version is also rather different from the studio recording ("Strange Days"). Almost double in lenght. The slide guitar effects are more in the foreground and the piano sound has been replaced by the typical organ sound. Nice though.

Three stars for this good document.

This album was my real introduction to the captivating sound of The Doors. Of course I knew the classic compositions You Light My Fire and Riders On The Storm but I never had the urge to a further investigation. Until I was at the home of my best friend who had bought this just released live album. In those early Eighties we were heavy into Fish-Marillion but we also shared a love for good rock and blues music. And there is a lot to enjoy in that field on Alive She Cried: the band plays a strong rendition of the bluesrock classic Gloria (powerful and raw vocals by Jim), John Sebastian joins The Doors on harmonica during the other classic Little Red Rooster and the tracks You Make Me Real and Love Me Two Times rock and swing. I am delighted about the great guitarwork by the underrated Robby Krieger, an outstanding performance, from groovy riffs to fiery soli and slide guitar. But my man is keyboardplayer Ray Manzarek, his swirling and distinctive organ sound was an extra dimension to the sound of The Doors, perhaps at its best during the middle part of Light My Fire when the interplay with the other musicians is so exciting and what a tension, you can feel the adrenaline of all members! This track list of this live LP is also on the live 2-CD In Concert that contains live tracks from other live albums Abosulety Live and Live At The Hollywood Bowl. A big hand for The Doors on stage!