The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception,[3] which itself was a reference to a William Blake quotation: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."[4] They were among the most controversial rock acts of the 1960s, due mostly to Morrison's wild, poetic lyrics and charismatic but unpredictable stage persona. After Morrison's death in 1971, the remaining members continued as a trio until finally disbanding in 1973.[1]
The origins of The Doors lie in a chance meeting between acquaintances and fellow UCLA film school alumni Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in Los Angeles in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs (Morrison said "I was taking notes at a fantastic rock-n-roll concert going on in my head") and, with Manzarek's encouragement, sang "Moonlight Drive".
Keyboardist Manzarek was in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim Manzarek, while drummer John Densmore was playing with The Psychedelic Rangers, and knew Manzarek from meditation classes.[10] In August, Densmore joined the group, renamed The Doors, and the five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan (later credited using her married name Patricia Hansen in the 1997 box CD release) recorded a six-song demo in September 1965. This has since then circulated widely as a bootleg recording. The band took their name from a line in Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception; "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite".[11] The line comes originally from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
That month the group recruited guitarist Robby Krieger, and the final lineup — Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore — was complete.
By 1966, the group was playing the LA club London Fog and soon graduated to the prestigious Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band, supporting acts including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of Them's "Gloria".[12] Prior to graduating to Whisky a Go Go, Morrison went to many record labels trying to land a deal. He did score one but it did not pan out. On August 10, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18—the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick. Later that month, the club fired the band after a profanity-filled performance of "The End".
[edit]Debut album
The band recorded their first album from August 24 to 31, 1966 at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The Doors' self-titled debut LP was released in the first week of January 1967. It featured most of the major songs from their set, including the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End".
In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)." To promote the single, the Doors made their television debut on a Los Angeles TV show called Boss City, circa 1966, possibly early 1967 and then on a Los Angeles TV show called Shebang, miming to "Break On Through," on New Year's Day 1967. This clip has never been officially released by the Doors.
In early 1967 The Doors appeared on The Clay Cole Show (Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of NYC) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Research has determined that the tapes were all wiped, the only shows that still exist are the final ones copied by an employee of the station, unfortunately this was long after The Doors' appearance. The Doors returned to The Clay Cole Show a second time on June 24 where they most likely performed "Light My Fire."[citation needed]
Since "Break on Through" was not very successful on the radio, the band turned to "Light My Fire". The problem with this song was that it was seven minutes long, so producer Paul Rothchild cut it down to a three minute song by editing out the lengthy keyboard and guitar solos in the center section. "Light My Fire" became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over a million copies.[13] "Light My Fire" was the first song ever written by Robby Krieger and was the beginning of the band's success.
[edit]Early live recordings at The Matrix
From March 7 to March 11, 1967, The Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of The Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, The Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
[edit]Early television performances
The Doors appeared on American television on August 25, 1967, guest-starring on the variety TV series, Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire." They did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and are performing the song in play back. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance was more or less forgotten.[14] It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.[15]
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, recording a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centrein Toronto.[16] But after its initial broadcasts, it remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002.[16] As "Light My Fire" climbed the charts in June and early July, The Doors were on the East Coast as an opening act for Simon and Garfunkel in Forest Hills, Queens and as headliners in a Greenwich, Connecticut, high-school auditorium.
On September 17, 1967, The Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show.[15] According to Ray Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed in favor of "better." The group initially agreed to this, but nonetheless performed the song in its original form, either because they had never intended to comply with the request, or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (Manzarek has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national TV, and a furious Ed Sullivan canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the show's producer told the band they would "never do the Ed Sullivan show again", Jim Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."[15]
On December 24, The Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show, their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to December 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. An excerpt taken from Stephen Davis' book on Jim Morrison (p. 219–220):
On December 9, 1967, The Doors performed a now infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police.[23] Morrison became the first rock artist ever to be arrested onstage during a concert performance.[24][25]
Morrison had been "making out" with a fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the girl to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it."[26][27] There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the girl ran and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Jim and the fan were sprayed and that the concert was delayed for an hour while Jim recovered.[26][28][29]
Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to go on an obscenity-laced tirade to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was abruptly ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police; he was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later due to lack of evidence.[25][28]
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami, and by the time he eventually arrived the concert was over an hour late in starting, and he was, according to Manzarek, "overly fortified with alcohol".[32][34] Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group, The Living Theatre, and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art.[35] The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to Morrison's lack of interest in singing shortly into "Break On Through".[36] Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.[37][38][34] At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer, in turn, removed Morrison's hat and threw it.[39] Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen".[40] Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off."[40] Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it.[41] Manzarek later described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".[41]
Morrison died on July 3, 1971. In the official account of his death, he was found in a Paris apartment bathtub by Courson. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy, and the death certificate not having a reason of death besides heart failure has left many questions regarding the cause of death. Morrison was buried in the "Poets Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7. The epitaph on his headstone bears the Greek inscription "ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ", literally meaning "According to his own daimōn" and usually interpreted as "True to his own spirit".[52][53]
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. Morrison's girlfriend, Pamela Courson, also died at the age of 27.
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