The Doors announce ‘Waiting For The Sun 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition’

2-CD/1-LP Edition Of The Doors’ First No. 1 Album

Rhino Records has announced the release The Doors Waiting On The Sun: 50th Anniversary Edition for September 14th. This 2 CD/1 LP collection features a new version of the group’s first No. 1 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. The set also includes a second disc of 14 completely unreleased tracks: nine recently discovered “rough mixes” from the album recording sessions and five live songs from a 1968 Copenhagen show. The audio will also be available on digital download and streaming services.

“Hello, I Love You” became the band’s second No. 1 hit when it topped the Billboard singles chart for two weeks beginning on August 3, 1968. 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. The 7″ single will be available on August 3rd.

Botnick’s newly remastered stereo mix of Waiting For The Sun adds new sonic dimensions to songs like “The Unknown Soldier” and “Spanish Caravan,” but that wasn’t his only contribution to the project. While going through his archive, he uncovered a cache of rough mixes from the sessions that hadn’t been played in 50 years.

“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,” Botnick says.

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).”

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.

In other Doors news, the band has reprinted their original 1968 Doors concert program for the first time, which will be 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, this 24-page program includes many color and black & white images taken by Ferrara, plus poetry by Jim Morrison, astrology charts for each band member, and more.

2 CD/1 LP