L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by the Doors, released in April 1971. It is the last to feature the group's lead singer, Jim Morrison, who died three months after the album's release. Critics have called L.A. Woman one of the Doors' best albums, citing the band's stripped-down return to their blues rock roots.

In November 1970, the Doors entered Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles to record early versions of "L.A. Woman", "Riders on the Storm" and "Love Her Madly", three songs they had recently written. The new songs were a departure from the heavily orchestrated pieces on the earlier album The Soft Parade.

Record producer Paul A. Rothchild, who worked with the band on their first five albums, attended the early sessions but quit following friction with the band. This included his dissatisfaction with the song "Love Her Madly," which "drove him out of the studio." He felt that recording the composition was a step backwards artistically, calling it "cocktail music." Rothchild has denied a popular rumor that he directed the remark toward "Riders On The Storm," explaining that he thought that song and "L.A. Woman" were "excellent in rehearsal". He maintains that his cocktail music comment was said to "make the group angry enough to do something good."

Rothchild left before any master takes were complete, recommending that the Doors co-produce L.A. Woman with Bruce Botnick, the sound engineer who had worked with Rothchild on the band's previous recordings. The group and Botnick organized a makeshift recording studio at their private rehearsal space in a two-story building at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard.

To compensate for the lack of an isolated vocal booth, Morrison recorded in the bathroom doorway. For the recording, the Doors hired Elvis Presley's bassist, Jerry Scheff and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno to round out their sound. By all accounts, Morrison, a huge Presley fan, was excited by Scheff’s’ participation. In addition, Benno was asked to participate as a result of his recent notoriety from working with Leon Russell.

The songs were completed in a few takes and the album was finished in six days. The final track was "Riders on the Storm", a collective effort by the Doors. The song was based on the arrangement of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and the line "delicate riders of the storm", taken from Hart Crane's poem "Praise for an Urn". The track melded Morrison's hitchhiker imagery from his own poetry projects.

The faint, ghostly backdrop heard throughout the song was the last recording of Morrison with the Doors. Morrison left on an extended trip to Paris as the final mixes were being prepared. He would never return: The singer died there in July 1971.

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