The Doors had great chemistry and this is something that you just can't recreate.

"Classic Rock stars have come together to salute The Doors". Various musicians and artists hailing from some of the best Classic Rock bands around, such as Deep Purple, Yes, Grand Funk and Rainbow, have created a sixteen track tribute album full of The Doors' major hits.

The great thing about TD, and perhaps a reason as to why their sound is really hard to re-create, is how each version performed differs from the last. It's what made each released track and live performance so unique; it was a captured essence of their emotion at that time of being played.

Jimi Jamison (Survivor), guitarist Ted Turner (Wishbone Ash) and pianist Patrick Moraz (Moody Blues) take on the first track, 'L.A. Woman', which is sadly an instant let down from what you would be expecting when you hear about a salute to The Doors. This is a heavily produced composition, especially for a song that originally has a real raw and exposed feeling about it - the guitar and keyboard are far too clean cut; so much so that it strays too far from a 'Doors-esque' track. The over-production seems to flow throughout the album - with the use of vocal effects to achieve that lower octave than Jim Morrison can reach; a prime example being 'The Crystal Ship'.

'Roadhouse Blues' is somewhat different. With Leslie West playing guitar and Rod Piazza on harmonica and vocals, there is also one overwhelming groove thrown into the mix. Brain Auger, a Jazz and Rock keyboardist, really hits the accents and pronunciations that Ray Manzarek knocks out.

One of the best representations on the record would be 'Touch Me'. The Rockabilly twang from Robert Gorden points to the original mood of the song. His drone and tone works extremely well for 'Touch...' and with Nik Turner (Hawkwind) on sax it is "Halleluiah" like praise when it comes to the sax solo.

There are a lot of interpretations of what these artists think could be The Doors; the music is something that is so hard to analyse, understand and interpret, yet is never so clear; but that is the beauty. Here there are some first-class portrayals and there are some like 'People Are Strange' that miss the mark completely. Jim Morrison and The Doors had great chemistry, they really knew how to play with the dynamics in a song and this is something that you just can't recreate.

Lara Kisel