The Doors
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- For the Oliver Stone film, The Doors; see The Doors (film). For their self-titled debut album, see The Doors (album).
| The Doors
<tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">Image:The doors.jpg </td></tr> | ||
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| Background information
<tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">Los Angeles, California</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Psychedelic rock</td></tr><tr><td>Years active</td><td colspan="2">1965—1973</td></tr><tr><td style="padding-right: 1em;">Label(s)</td><td colspan="2">Elektra Records |
The Doors were an American rock band that formed in 1965 in Los Angeles. The Doors' music included socially, psychologically, and politically influenced lyrics mostly written by 'The Lizard King', Jim Morrison. The precise drumming of John Densmore, the organ and bass organ of Ray Manzarek, and Robby Krieger's innovative guitar style, which showed the influence of flamenco, jazz, Indian, the blues and classical music, combined with Morrison's deep, expressive vocals to form a distinctive sound.
Contents |
[edit] Line-up
- Jim Morrison — Lead vocals
- Ray Manzarek — Organ, piano, keyboard, keyboard bass
- Robby Krieger — Guitars
- John Densmore — Drums, percussion
[edit] History
[edit] Origins: 1965–1966
A chance meeting between acquaintances and UCLA film school students Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice beach in July 1965 led to the founding of The Doors, one of the premier acts of the late 1960s, in 1965 in Los Angeles, California. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek's encouragement, sang "Moonlight Drive." Impressed by the quality of Morrison's lyric, Manzarek immediately suggested they form a band.
Vox-Organ-Player Ray Manzarek was already in the band called Rick And The Ravens with his brother Rick Manzarek while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from shared meditation instruction. In August Densmore joined the group and, along with members of the Ravens and an unidentified female bass player, recorded a six-song demo on September 2. This was widely bootlegged and appeared in full on the 1997 Doors box set.
That month the group recruited talented guitarist Robby Krieger and the final lineup—Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore—was complete. The band took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, which was in turn borrowed from a line of poetry by the 18th century artist and poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite."
The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar in concert. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, and keyboards with his right hand. However, the group used bass players such as Jerry Scheff, Doug Lubahn, Harvey Brooks, Kerry Magness, Lonnie Mack, and Ray Neapolitan on their albums.
Many of The Doors' originals were composed communally with Morrison usually contributing the lyrics and some melody and the others hammering out the beat and flow of the song. While Morrison and Manzarek were walking on the beach in California, they passed a black woman, and Morrison wrote the lyrics to "Hello, I Love You" in a single night, referring to her as the "dusky jewel." Some criticized the song for its resemblance to The Kinks' 1965 hit "All Day and All of the Night," and The Kinks' lead singer, Ray Davies, sued The Doors.
By 1966 the group was playing The London Fog club and soon graduated to the prestigious Whisky a Go Go. On August 10 they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman on the insistence of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was on Elektra. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at Whisky A Go Go, the first uneven but the second mesmerizing, they signed the band to the Elektra Records label on August 18—the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick. The timing was particularly fortuitous because on August 21 the club fired the band after a profanity-filled performance of "The End" In an incident that foreshadowed the controversy that would follow the group, a tripping Morrison bellowed during the "Oedipal" section of the song, "Mother? I want to...".
[edit] 1967–1970
[edit] 1967: The Doors
The Doors' self-titled debut LP, released in January 1967, caused a major sensation in music circles. It featured most of the major songs from their set, including the 11-minute musical drama, "The End." The band—at peak form and bristling with energy and ambition—recorded the album in only a few days in late August and early September 1966, almost entirely live in the studio with most songs captured in a single take. Morrison and Manzarek also directed an innovative promotional film for their first single, "Break on Through," a significant advance in the development of the music video genre.
Their second single, "Light My Fire," established the group along with The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead as a top new American band of 1967. It was released in April but did not hit the top (with the long middle solo cut out) until July.
In May 1967, the group made their "National" debut by recording a dazzling version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at their Yorkville Studios in Toronto (Yorkville was Canada's version of Haight-Ashbury). It remained unreleased until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in the early 2000s.
The Doors quickly earned a reputation as a challenging, rebellious, and entertaining live act. With his saturnine good looks, magnetic stage presence, and skin-tight leather trousers, Morrison quickly became a major pop sex symbol, although he soon became frustrated with the strictures of stardom. Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network censors demanded that Morrison change the lyrics to Light My Fire, by altering the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" (because of the possible reference to drugs) before the band performed the song live on September 17, 1967, on the Ed Sullivan Show. However, Morrison sang the original line instead, and on live television with no delay, CBS was powerless to stop it. A furious Ed Sullivan refused to shake the band members' hands, and they were never invited back. According to one account, Morrison was told he'd never appear on the program again; he replied, "Baby, we've already been on the Ed Sullivan Show"—at the time, an appearance was a hallmark of success. Morrison later insisted that nervousness caused him to forget to change the line. They also performed a new single, "People Are Strange," which they repeated for DJ Murray The K's TV show on September 22.
Morrison further cemented his status as a rebel on December 10 when he was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut, for badmouthing the police to the audience. Morrison said he had been maced by an overzealous police officer after he was caught backstage with a girl. The group finished a successful year. On December 24, the band taped "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for the Jonathan Winters Show. From December 26 to December 28 the group played at The Winterland San Francisco. An excpert taken from Stephen Davis' book on Jim Morrison p.219-220: "The next night at Winterland, a TV set was wheeled onstage during the Doors set so the band could see themselves on the Jonathan Winters Show. They stopped playing Back Door Man when their song came on (there are no home VCRs as yet). The audience wathced the Doors wathcing themselves on TV. They finished the song when their bit was done, and Ray walked over and turned the TV off. The next night was their last ever in Winterland." They played two more dates in Denver on December 30 and December 31, capping off a year of almost constant touring.
[edit] 1967: Strange Days
The second Doors LP, Strange Days, was more subdued and less spontaneous than their debut, but the album was notable for its evocative lyrics and atmosphere. Closing track "When The Music's Over" was, like "The End," lengthy and dramatic and helped establish Morrison's reputation as the wild shaman of rock. Yet the album was also strongly commercial and featured well-known Doors songs "Love Me Two Times" and "Moonlight Drive."
As a result of their success, The Doors forfeited their status as underground heroes. They allowed Sixteen magazine to portray them as teen idols and their "spontaneous" stage-show was exposed as not-so-spontaneous. An article by Jerry Hopkins in the February 10, 1968 edition of Rolling Stone typified the fall from grace:
"One shtick, or piece of stage-business, missing at the Shrine performance, was Morrison's carefully-executed 'accidental' fall from the stage into the crowd. For months this had been a part of the act. It got a lot of screams from the teenyboppers. Then a review appeared in a local newspaper which called the fall one of the phoniest things ever. Morrison was asked if he'd read the article. 'Yeah,' said Morrison, 'and I guess he's right.' Morrison did not take the fall that night at the Shrine."
[edit] 1968: Waiting For The Sun
Tense recording sessions for the group's third album took place in April as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol. Approaching the height of their popularity The Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form in their third LP, Waiting for the Sun, (1968), because they had exhausted their original repertoire and began writing new material. It became their first #1 LP and the single "Hello, I Love You" was their second and last US #1 single. It further isolated them from the underground cognoscenti[citation needed]. As Lilian Roxon described it in her 1969 Rock Encyclopaedia, the album "strengthened dreadful suspicion that the Doors were in it just for the money." It also included the song "The Unknown Soldier," for which they created another self-directed music video, and "Not to Touch the Earth," excerpted from their legendary 30-minute concept piece Celebration of the Lizard, although they were reportedly unable to record a satisfactory version of the entire piece for the LP. This was eventually released on a greatest hits CD compilation.
A month after riotous scenes at the Singer Bowl in New York, the group flew to England for its first dates outside of North America. The group held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at The Roundhouse Theatre. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open and were later released on video. The group then played dates in Europe, including a show in Amsterdam without Morrison after he collapsed from a drug binge. Morrison returned to London on September 20 and stayed for a month.
The group played nine more US dates and got to work in November on their fourth LP. 1969 would be a difficult year for the group, but it started well with a sold out show at the prestigious Madison Square Garden in New York on January 24 and with a successful new single, "Touch Me," (released in December 1968), which hit US #3.
That month Morrison attended a theatre production that changed the course of his and the group's life. At the University of Southern California's Bovard Auditorium The Living Theatre took to the stage for a highly charged show that urged people to cast aside their inhibitions to freedom.
The show appealed to Morrison's quest for personal freedom, resulting in a studio jam the next evening, February 25, which became the legendary "Rock Is Dead" session, later released on the 1997 Doors box set, and set the stage for the most controversial episode of Morrison's life and one of rock's most notorious stories.
The incident occurred at the March 1, 1969, Dinner Key Auditorium concert in Miami, Florida. Morrison allegedly exposed himself during the performance. Morrison had been drinking since missing his flight to the show. The 6,900 seat auditorium had been oversold by almost double the hall's capacity, and fans were sweltering without air conditioning. From the moment the band walked on stage Morrison started bellowing into the microphone:
"Now listen here, I ain't talking 'bout no revolution, and I'm not talkin' about no demonstrations.
"I'm talking about having a good time, I'm talking about having a good time this summer. And you all come out to L.A., you all get out there, we're gonna lie down there in the sand and rub our toes in the ocean, and we're gonna have a good time, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready, are you ready?
"Now listen! I used to think the whole thing was a big joke. I used to think it was something to laugh about. And then the last couple of nights I met some people who were doing somethin'! They're tryin' to change the world! And I wanna get on that trip! I wanna change the world. Wanna change it. Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhh - change it."
Within a few minutes Morrison had changed his tune:
"Now listen, I'm not talkin' about no revolution, an' I'm not talkin' about no demonstration! I'm talkin' about having fun! I'm talkin' about dancin'! I wanna see you people get up and dance! I wanna see you people dancin' in the street this summer! I wanna see you have some fun. I wanna see you run around. I wanna see you paint the town. I wanna see you ringin' out. I wanna see you shout. I wanna see some fun. I wanna see some fun from everyone."
The recording nears its end with the ominous words: "ANYTHING YOU WANT! LET'S DO IT! LET'S DO IT! LET'S DO IT!"
The incident remains inconclusive. Morrison said: "I wasted a lot of time with the Miami trial. About a year and a half. But I guess it was a valuable experience because before the trial I had a very unrealistic schoolboy attitude about the American judicial system. My eyes have been opened up a bit."
Although the Miami incident damaged the band's reputation, Morrison was quietly relieved by its results. He later said: "I think I was just fed up with the image that had been created around me...and so I put an end to it in one glorious evening".
Released from the chain of touring Morrison recorded some of his poetry that month and in April began shooting footage for HWY, an experimental film about a hitchhiker, played by Morrison. The Doors set the poetry session to music for the 1978 album An American Prayer. HWY, which contains virtually no dialogue, circulates among collectors and may eventually be officially released.
Although Morrison received the most attention, including getting a far larger image on album covers, he was adamant that all the band members should get recognition. Before one concert when the announcer introduced the group as "Jim Morrison and The Doors," Morrison refused to appear unless he announced the group again as "The Doors." While he never felt close to his real life family, he was extremely protective of his band members. Reportedly, he once told Ray Manzarek that he never felt comfortable in a social setting unless Ray or another band member was with him. Many people have concluded that he viewed The Doors as his surrogate family. He repeatedly turned down every solo album opportunity he was offered, and after his death the remaining band members refused to replace him.
In the last two years of his life Morrison curtailed his prodigious intake of psychedelic drugs and began drinking heavily, which soon affected his stage and studio performances. Apparently trying to escape the image of "The Lizard King" that had come to dominate him, Morrison put on weight and grew a thick beard, forcing Elektra to use photos taken earlier in his career for the cover of the Absolutely Live LP, released in 1970. The album features performances recorded on The Doors' 1970 American tour and at the 1969 Aquarius Theatre gig and includes a full-length live performance of "The Celebration of the Lizard."
The group's only public appearance was on a PBS television special recorded late in April and broadcast the following month. The group performed songs from the upcoming Soft Parade album, including a stunning version of the title track.
The group resumed touring at Chicago Auditorium Theater on June 14 and played two dates at The Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood on July 21 and July 22, both later released on CD. The shows were typical of a new kind of Doors concert where the emphasis was more on the band and fans having a good time than having a shamanistic experience. The bearded Morrison wore loose fitting clothes and steered the band toward a bluesier direction with songs like "Build Me A Woman." "I Will Never Be Untrue," and "Who Do You Love." Yet his voice had lost none of its power, and the band could still dazzle with performances of "When The Music's Over" and "Celebration of the Lizard."
[edit] 1969: The Soft Parade
Their fourth album, The Soft Parade (1969), released in July, further distanced the group from the underground, containing extremely pop-oriented arrangements complete with "Vegas-style" horn sections (their single, "Touch Me," featured saxophonist Curtis Amy). Morrison's excessive drinking made him increasingly difficult and unreliable in the studio, and the recording sessions dragged on for weeks when they had previously only taken days. Studio costs piled up, and the group came close to disintegrating.
Critics of the record see the band as struggling to maintain momentum and attempting to expand their sound with a horn section and strings, resulting in a weak, overproduced record.
In its defense, The Soft Parade was a successful experiment in "quasi-prog-pop" despite Morrison's erratic behavior and numerous technical challenges. The more commercially-oriented songs such as "Touch Me" and "Tell All The People" are memorable; tracks such as "Wild Child" and "Shaman's Blues" are as stripped down and imaginative as ever, with excellent guitar and lyrics.
During the recording of their next album, in November 1969, Morrison found himself in trouble with the law again after becoming drunk and abusive to airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see The Rolling Stones in concert. He was acquitted the following April after a steward mistakenly identified Morrison as his traveling companion, American actor Tom Baker (not the Tom Baker who played Doctor Who.)
The group started its year in New York again with two well-received nights at The Felt Forum.
[edit] 1970: Morrison Hotel
The group staged a strong return to form with their excellent 1970 LP "Morrison Hotel." Featuring a consistent, hard rock sound the album contains the memorable opener "Roadhouse Blues," which typified the high-spirited assuredness of the entire album. Morrison Hotel had a buoyancy and optimism that the band had never had before with a host of celebratory songs and a couple of lovely ballads. It hit US #4.
The group continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Although Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, the group managed to make it to Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. At the festival, the band performed alongside other legendary artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis and Sly & The Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message To Love .
On September 16, Morrison took to the stand, but the jury returned a guilty verdict for profanity and indecent exposure on September 20. Morrison was sentenced to eight months' custody but was allowed to go free pending an appeal.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session.
[edit] 1971: L.A. Woman
During the Doors' last public performance, at the "Warehouse" in New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a mental breakdown on stage, slamming the microphone numerous times into the stage floor. Nevertheless, the group looked set to regain its crown as a premier act with the superb L.A. Woman in 1971. The Doors conceived it as a "back to basics" album that would explore their blues and R&B roots, although during rehearsals the group had a serious falling-out with Rothchild. Denouncing the new repertoire as "cocktail music," he quit and handed the production reins to Botnick. The result was widely considered a classic, featuring some of the strongest material and performances since their 1967 debut. Some dissenters, however, consider nearly half the album to be lackluster blues material that detracts severely from the album's overall quality. However the song "Changeling" has been stated the most underrated song The Doors ever released. The atmospheric single "Riders On The Storm" became a mainstay of rock radio programming for decades.
[edit] Morrison's death and its aftermath: 1971–1989
In 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison decided to take some time off and moved to Paris with girlfriend, Pamela Courson, in March. He had visited the previous summer and, for a time, seemed contented to write and explore the city. But by June he was again drinking heavily and fell from a second story window in May. On June 16 the last known recording of Morrison was made when he befriended two street musicians at a bar and invited them to a recording studio. The results were later released in 1994 on a bootleg CD titled The Lost Paris Tapes.
Morrison died under mysterious circumstances on 3 July 1971; his body was found in the bathtub of his apartment. It was concluded that he died of a heart attack, although it was later revealed that no autopsy had been performed before Morrison's body was buried at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Rumors persisted for many years that Morrison had faked his death to escape the spotlight or had died at a Paris nightclub and that his body had been surreptitiously taken to his apartment. However, in his book Wonderland Avenue, Morrison's former associate Danny Sugerman states that during his last meeting with Courson -- which took place shortly before her own death from a heroin overdose -- she confessed that she had introduced Morrison to the drug and because he had a fear of needles, she had injected him with the dose that killed him.
The remaining Doors continued for some time. After initially considering replacing Morrison with a new singer, and it has been reported that Iggy Pop was one of the singers considered as a possible relacement. Krieger and Manzarek took over on vocals and released two more albums, Other Voices and Full Circle, and went on tour.
Both albums sold well but not in the numbers of the Morrison era releases, and The Doors stopped performing and recording at the end of 1972. While the first is unmistakably Doors in sound and style, the last album expanded into jazz territory. While neither album have been reissued on CD in the US, they have been released on 2-on-1 CDs in Germany and Russia, are being heard via Internet P2P networks, and are undergoing fan reevaluation.
The remaining Doors recorded a third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, released in 1978, that provided backup music to recently rediscovered spoken-word recordings of Morrison reciting his own poetry. The hybrid album was a considerable commercial success and it was followed by successful releases of a mini-album of previously unreleased live material. Their profile remained high in the 1980s thanks to the fact that there was a considerable amount of good-quality colour film and video footage of the group's concert and TV performances, and the advent of MTV and the music video genre introduced younger audiences to The Doors' music, thanks to the specially-produced music videos created from existing footage, as well as the original clips made by the group in the Sixties.
In 1979 Francis Ford Coppola released Apocalypse Now with "The End" used prominently in the sound track, leading new fans to discover The Doors. In 1983, Alive, She Cried was released, which included a cover version of the Them hit "Gloria," adding it officially to the Elektra Records discography.
[edit] The 1990s and beyond
In 1991, director Oliver Stone released his film The Doors, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison and with cameos by Krieger and Densmore. British vocalist Ian Astbury of The Cult was Stone's preferred choice to play Morrison, but Astbury decided not to enter the acting world. While all were amazed at Kilmer's impersonation, the film had numerous inaccuracies, and members of the group later criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison, which at times made him look like an out-of-control sociopath.
In 2002 Manzarek and Krieger reunited and created a new version of The Doors, called "The Doors of the 21st Century." The new lineup was fronted by Astbury with Angelo Barbera from Krieger's band on bass. At their first concert the group announced that drummer John Densmore would not perform, and it was later reported that he was unable to play because he suffered from tinnitus. Densmore was initially replaced by Stewart Copeland, formerly of The Police, but after Copeland broke his arm falling off a bicycle, the arrangement ended in mutual lawsuits, and he was replaced by Ty Dennis, drummer with Krieger's band.
Densmore subsequently claimed that he had in fact not been invited to take part in the reunion. In February 2003 he filed an injunction against his former bandmates hoping to prevent them from using the name "The Doors of the 21st Century." His motion was denied in court in May that year, although Manzarek publicly stated that the invitation for Densmore to return to the group still stood. It was also reported that both Morrison's family and that of Pamela Courson had joined Densmore in seeking to prevent Manzarek and Krieger from using The Doors' name. In July 2005, Densmore and the Morrison estate won a permanent injunction, causing the new band to switch to the name "D21C." It now plays under the name Riders on the Storm, which is itself the name of a Doors tribute band in the northeastern US. They are allowed to play under names such as "former Doors" and "members of The Doors." Densmore has also been steadfast in refusing to license The Doors' music for use in television commercials, including an offer of $15 million by Cadillac to lease the song "Break on Through (to the Other Side)," feeling that that would be in violation of the spirit in which the music was created. Densmore wrote about this subject for The Nation, noting,
- People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music. I've had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to this music, other people say they know someone who didn't commit suicide because of this music…. On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That's not for rent. [1]
Manzarek and Krieger maintain that touring as a Doors revival and licensing the music to advertisements are a means to keep The Doors from fading into history. Manzarek was quoted as saying, "We're all getting older. We should, the three of us, be playing these songs because, hey, the end is always near. Morrison was a poet, and above all, a poet wants his words heard."[2]
The Doors are remembered for shamanistic live performances. Some members of the "establishment", however, felt that they were merely American rock music rebels. Jim Morrison said: "I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something."
Their enduring popularity is reflected by continuing sales of their early work.
The surviving members of the Doors are hosting a contest to win their new box-set at http://m30.ca/contest/?doors
[edit] Recorded output
The Doors left a reasonably concise discography for an era dominated by groups that seemed to rush out an album every six months and a high number of non-album singles. The first, self-titled album is generally thought to be the strongest and is a regular sight in greatest 100 album lists. Strange Days, Morrison Hotel, and L.A Woman are all highly rated by fans and, due to their different styles, (psychedelic pop, hard rock, blues) appeal to some more than others. Waiting For The Sun contains some strong tracks but is by some considered thematically weak, while others (the Allmusic Guide review, for instance) think of it as another classic. The Soft Parade is considered by some to be "plain bad and for fans only" [citation needed], but does at the same time include their third greatest hit, "Touch Me", as well as the classics "Soft Parade", "Wild Child" and "Shaman's Blues".
1970's Absolutely Live and 1983's Alive, She Cried are good examples of the band's live show and are available on CD. The 2CD, In Concert, is better value for money. It contains both concerts including an interesting version of "The End" from the Hollywood Bowl show in 1968.
Only three non-album tracks were released in the band's lifetime, the b-sides "Who Scared You," "Tree Trunk," and a cover of Willie Dixon's "(You Need Meat) Don't Go Further" sung by Ray. "Who Scared You" and "(You Need Meat) Don't Go Further" appeared on the 1972 compilation Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine. "Who Scared You" was also released on CD in the 1997 box set.
In 1978 the surviving Doors re-united to add music to poetry recorded by Morrison in 1969 and 1970. The resulting album was An American Prayer and was re-issued on CD in 1995 with bonus tracks "Hour For Magic", "Freedom Exists", "A Feast Of Friends", "Babylon Fading", "Bird Of Prey" and "The Ghost Song (extended version)".
The group had always shied away from releasing archive Doors material but in 1997 relented with the release of The Doors box set. While hardcore fans complained that most of the material had been previously released on bootlegs, the 4CD set, one of which was a "greatest hits" type CD, proved popular. It was notable for a CD of highlights from the 1970 Felt Forum concert and a cleaned-up recording of the (edited) 1969 "Rock Is Dead" session. The surviving members again re-united to add new musical backing to the solo Morrison song "Orange County Suite".
In November 2000 came the announcement many fans had dreamed of when The Doors announced the creation of Bright Midnight Records, a label through which 36 albums and 90 hours of previously unreleased Morrison-era Doors material would be made available on CD. This was launched with a sampler of forthcoming material, mostly from live concerts. The first full release was a 2CD set of the May 1970 show at Detroit Cobo Arena. It was followed by two CDs of interviews, mostly with Morrison, and the two 1969 Aquarius shows and one of the rehearsals. A 4CD set "Boot Yer Butt" unashamedly used bootleg quality material but sold out nevertheless. It was notable for the inclusion of the only known performances of songs from L.A Woman including the title track and "The Changeling" from The Doors' last but one show, in December 1970, Dallas, Texas. In 2005 a 2CD concert from Philadelphia in 1970 was released.
Many illegal bootleg recordings are available of the group. Most impressive is a wealth of shows from March 1967 at the legendary Matrix Club in San Francisco. Many shows are available from 1968 when the band reached the height of its popularity, notably two shows in Stockholm, Sweden. The infamous Miami show has become widely available while many 1970 shows, notably a radio broadcast of the June 6 Vancouver show, make the rounds. The complete 1969 "Rock Is Dead" studio jam was discovered in the mid 1990s.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Studio albums
(January 1967) US #2, UK #43 |
 (October 1967) US #3 |
(July 1968) US #1, UK #16 |
 (July 1969) US #6 |
 (February 1970) US #4, UK #12 |
 (April 1971) US #9, UK #26 |
 (October 1971) US #31 |
 (July 1972) US #68 |
 (November 1978) US #54 |
[edit] Live albums
 (July 1970) US #8, UK #69 |
 (1983) |
 (June 1987) |
[edit] Compilations
 (January 1972) |
 (November 1970) US #25 |
 (1996) |
 (August 2003) US #63 |
[edit] Singles
| Date of release | Title | Label | US # | UK # |
| January 1967 | Break on Through (To The Other Side) | Elektra Recordings | 106 | |
| April 1967 | Light My Fire | Elektra Recordings | 1 | |
| September 1967 | People Are Strange | Elektra Recordings | 12 | |
| November 1967 | Love Me Two Times | Elektra Recordings | 25 | |
| March 1968 | The Unknown Soldier | Elektra Recordings | 39 | |
| June 1968 | Hello, I Love You | Elektra Recordings | 1 | 15 |
| December 1968 | Touch Me | Elektra Recordings | 3 | |
| March 1969 | Wishful Sinful | Elektra Recordings | 44 | |
| May 1969 | Tell All the People | Elektra Recordings | 57 | |
| August 1969 | Running Blue | Elektra Recordings | 64 | |
| March 1970 | You Make Me Real | Elektra Recordings | 50 | |
| 1970 | Roadhouse Blues | Elektra Recordings | 50 | |
| March 1971 | Love Her Madly | Elektra Recordings | 11 | |
| June 1971 | Riders on the Storm | Elektra Recordings | 14 | |
| November 1971 | Tightrope Ride | Elektra Recordings | 71 | |
| January 1972 | Ships with Sails | Elektra Recordings | ||
| July 1972 | Get Up and Dance | Elektra Recordings | ||
| August 1972 | The Mosquito | Elektra Recordings | 85 | |
| November 1972 | The Piano Bird | Elektra Recordings | ||
| 1983 | Gloria | Elektra Recordings | 18 |
[edit] Remixes
The Doors have recently allowed several dance/electronic music producers to remix their songs. Many believe that this is to introduce their music to a new generation. The remixes and their appearances are:
- The 2002 compilation 'The Best of the Doors' was released with a Limited Edition Bonus Disc featuring several remixes of 'Riders on the Storm': Baez & Cornell 'Tunnel' Club Mix; Nightmares on Wax Remix; Ibizarre Remix, and; Spacebats Remix.
- Snoop Dogg vs. The Doors - "Riders on the Storm (Fredwreck Remix)" Appeared in the video game Need for Speed Underground 2.
- The Doors - "L.A. Woman (Paul Oakenfold Remix)" appears on the mix album "Perfecto Presents: The Club".
- BT vs. The Doors - "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" Originally released as an iTunes exclusive download, this remix also made an appearance on the Burnout Revenge soundtrack.
- The Doors - "Roadhouse Blues (The Crystal Method Remix)" made its debut on "Community Service II" by The Crystal Method.
- "Roadhouse Blues" was also remixed with John Lee Hooker on the album "Stoned Immaculate"
- The Doors - "Hello, I love You (Adam Freeland Mix)". This remix has yet to be released, but can be heard on Adam Freeland's myspace. Freeland recently won a Grammy for his remixing work on Sarah Vaughan's "Fever". Freeland personally requested to remix "Hello, I love You".
- The Doors - "Strange Days (Thievery Corporation Mix)" This remix is released on Thievery Corporations "Versions" on May 16, 2006.
- On the Album Freekshow by Twiztid, a remake of "People Are Strange", in 2000
- There's a mash-up of the Doors with Blondie entitled "Rapture Riders", which was actually authorized by the Doors.
- There is also a bootlegged mash-up of "Flashdance" by Deep Dish and "Riders on the Storm" called "Stormy Dance".
[edit] Samples
- Hip hop artist Jay-Z sampled The Doors' "Five to One" in "The Takeover" on The Blueprint album in 2001.
- Artist Mos Def, in what is considered a parody on "The Takeover," also sampled "Five to One" on his song "The Rape Over" from his 2004 album The New Danger.
- The music from "Peace Frog" (originally titled "Abortion Stories") was sampled by rappers 3rd Bass as the title track from their album "The Cactus"
- DJ Lethal sampled "When The Music's Over" for a track on his upcoming solo album. The song features rapping from Cypress Hill.
- Fatboy Slim sampled "Bird of Prey" on his song entitled "Sunset" on the album "Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars".
[edit] References and appearances in popular culture
- Jim Morrison (played by Michael A. Nickles) 'appears' in the 1993 movie Wayne's World 2 to tell Wayne to put on a rock concert.
- In 2004 the video game Need for Speed Underground 2 contained a remix of "Riders on the Storm" featuring rapper Snoop Dogg, remixed by Fredwreck.
- The song "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" is included on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube game Tony Hawk's Underground 2, and its PSP counterpart, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix.
- In the 2005 EA game Burnout Revenge contained a remix of "Break on Through (To the Other Side)".
- The song "Peace Frog" is featured on the video game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, and was played in an episode of My Name is Earl. It was also featured in the Adam Sandler comedy The Waterboy.
- The film Forrest Gump featured several Doors' songs during a montage of Forrest's recovery from his wound he received in Vietnam.
- In the film Apocalypse Now the song "The End" is also featured.
- Strange Days (1995) the film's title comes from the song (and album) of the same name by The Doors. Metal band Prong performs a cover version of the song on the movie soundtrack, accompanied by original Doors member Ray Manzarek.
- In the 1987 movie The Lost Boys the soundtrack features a cover version of The Doors' song "People are Strange" by Echo & the Bunnymen. There is also a picture of Jim Morrison in the vampires lair.
- In the 2005 war movie, Jarhead, Break On Through was played in a helicopter and one of the marines referred it to Vietnam music.
- In Stephen King's book, The Stand: Complete and Un-cut, one of the main characters, Stuart Redmen, relates a tale of meeting Jim Morrison in a small town gas station after his death. Although whether or not it was actually Jim Morrison is never revealed.
[edit] The Lizard King
- There is a character resembling Jim Morrison and the Lizard King in George R. R. Martin's short story collection Wild Cards. The collection is written by various authors, and set in a world where a genetically engineered virus has been released upon Earth, killing many but also transforming some characters, granting them superhuman powers. One of these characters, in the short story Transfigurations by Victor Milan, is referred to as "Tom Douglas" and "The Lizard King," but he obviously represents Jim Morrison:
- His voice soared in a sudden shriek, and the lights and the band boomed suddenly about him like storm surf breaking against the rocks, and they were launched on an odyssey to the furthest reaches of the night.
- At last he took on an aspect of the Lizard King. A black aura beat from him like furnace heat and washed across the audience. Its effect was elusive, illusive, like some strange new drug: some onlookers it lifted to pinnacles of ecstasy, others it crammed down deep into hard-packed despair...
- Douglas' powers as a superhero/supervillain include super-strength, super-speed, and an ability to disorient people.
- At the end of the story, the Lizard King fights alongside the "Radical" against a Captain America-like "Hardhat."
- 'The Lizard King' is the alias of a fictional serial killer in the video game, Shadowman.
- In an episode of The Simpsons, "Selma's Choice", Lisa Simpson is dared by her brother to drink the water of an amusement park ride at Duff Gardens. Lisa then begins hallucinating and, completely intoxicated, shouts "I am the Lizard Queen!".
- In an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called "The Idiot Box," Patrick exclaims that he is the Lizard King.
- In the early 1990's, an anarchistic computer hacker nicknamed "The Lizard King" played havoc with computer systems from a suspected base in Gonic, New Hampshire, USA. The individual in question was never aprehended.
- In the Web Comic, Loserz, while the character Eric is at a party [3], he pretends to be drunk by running around with a lampshade on his head, and declares, 'I AM the Lizard Queen!'. He then demands Spam.
- In Aztek: The Ultimate Man #4 by DC Comics is introduced Aztek's nemesis, the Lizard King, and in #5 he shouts "I'm the Lizard King! I can do anything!"
- In the popular role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, Lizard Kings (or, if female, Lizard Queens) are the halfbreed offspring of lizardfolk and demons.
- In the popular online computer role playing game World of Warcraft there is monster by the name of Lord Serpentis inside the instance dungeon Wailing Caverns. He proclaims "I am the Serpent King! I can do anything!"
- In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, on one mission The Truth tells Carl "I took some fellow travellers deep into the desert on a peyote safari a few nights back. We faced the inner light and communed with the lizard king."
- In the controversial video game Postal², the Postal Dude says "I am the Lizard King!" when taking cat nip and going in slow motion.
- In the arcade game Dragon's Lair, one of the monsters is a humanoid lizard wearing a crown and wielding a sceptre. The game's introduction sequence identifies him as "The Lizard King."
- During the early 2000's in Jacksonville, Florida there was a minor league hockey team called "The Jacksonville Lizard Kings."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Light My Fire: My Life with the Doors, by Ray Manzarek, Berkeley Publishing Group, ISBN 0-425-17045-4
- No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-60228-0
- Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and The Doors]], by John Densmore, Delta Books, ISBN 0-385-30447-1
[edit] External links
- Official website
- The Doors discography from Music City
- The Doors Biography, Discography and Songs
- The Doors Lyrics Including song facts and sound section
- The Doors at MusicBrainz
| The Doors |
| Jim Morrison | Ray Manzarek | Robby Krieger | John Densmore |
| Discography |
|---|
| Albums : The Doors | Strange Days | Waiting for the Sun | The Soft Parade | Morrison Hotel | L.A. Woman | Other Voices | Full Circle | An American Prayer: Jim Morrison |
| Live albums: Absolutely Live | Alive, She Cried | Live At The Hollywood Bowl | Live In Hollywood |
| Compilation Albums: Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine | 13 | The Best Of The Doors | The Doors Greatest Hits | Legacy: The Absolute Best |
bs:The Doors br:The Doors bg:The Doors ca:The Doors cs:The Doors da:The Doors de:The Doors es:The Doors eo:The Doors fa:دورز fr:The Doors gl:The Doors hr:The Doors it:The Doors he:הדלתות ka:დორსი lt:The Doors li:Doors hu:The Doors mk:The Doors nl:The Doors ja:ドアーズ no:The Doors pl:The Doors pt:The Doors ro:The Doors ru:The Doors simple:The Doors sr:Дорс fi:The Doors sv:The Doors tr:The Doors
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements | Articles which may contain original research | Articles to be expanded | The Doors | American musical groups | California musical groups | Los Angeles musical groups | Obscenity controversies | Psychedelic groups | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees | Rock music groups | 1960s music groups | 1970s music groups
