The Doors |
Formed 1965 in Los Angeles, Calif. Disbanded 1973
Who but the Doors could have comfortably covered both Weill/Brecht ("Alabama Song") and Howlin' Wolf ("Back Door Man") on the same album? That they did it on their debut, in between their own masterpieces like "Break on Through" and "Light My Fire" only makes it all the more impressive. The Doors were true originals--nobody before or after has ever sounded quite like them. The band's music tended toward the dark even while most of their peers were preaching all-we-need-is-love utopianism, prefiguring the grisly, violent end of the peace-and-love era. They also brought the seamy underside of Southern California to light at a time when the nation was California dreamin'. The focus rightly tends to go to Morrison, the hyper-charismatic and super-pretty frontman who was also a commanding, dramatic singer and fine rock poet--which should not be confused with a real poet, by the way. The minimalist, atmospheric music created by Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore created the perfect frame for Morrison's lyrics. The band's love for the blues became increasingly clear over the course of their amazingly prolific career--six studio albums in five years. In a strange way, the band's sloppy original take captured the spirit of the blues better than any of their peers' slavish, overly reverential imitations. It's pointless to speculate what the future may have held for the Doors, but the fact that the band's last album before Morrison's death, L.A. Woman, was one of its best certainly indicates that there was plenty of good music left.
Source: MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide
Personnel
|
THE DOORSOrder from: |
Break On Through (To The Other Side) |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals), Robby Krieger (guitar), Ray Manzarek (keyboards), John Densmore (drums). Recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California. All songs written by The Doors except "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" (Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht) and "Back Door Man" (Willie Dixon/Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett). The debut album by The Doors was greeted with critical raves for the Los Angeles band: both for Jim Morrison's powerful vocal style and the band's psychedlic-blues sound. THE DOORS were named after Aldous Huxley's book about mescaline, "The Doors Of Perception." Signed to Elektra records after months of gigs at L.A.'s Whiskey A-Go-Go, they were an underground phenomenon with an aura of danger. The album mixed blues-rock (the pounding "Soul Kitchen," and Howlin' Wolf's "Back Door Man") with psychedelic textures. An edited version of "Light My Fire" became a number-1 hit, while Morrison's Oedipal lyrics caused controversy on the extended arrangement of "The End." |
|
STRANGE DAYSOrder from: |
Strange Days |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (keyboards, marimba); John Densmore (drums). Additional personnel: Douglas Lubahn (bass). Recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California. All songs written by The Doors. The Doors' second album redefined their uncompromising art. The disturbing timbre of Ray Manzarek's organ work provided the musical cloak through which guitarist Robbie Kreiger and vocalist Jim Morrison projected. Few singers in rock possessed his authority, where every nuance and inflection bore an emotional intensity. Strange Days contains some of the quartet's finest work, from the apocolyptical vision of 'When The Music's Over' to the memorable quirkiness of 'People Are Strange' and 'Moonlight Drive'. The graphic 'Horse Latitudes', meanwhile, confirmed Morrison's wish to be viewed as a poet, a stance ensuring the Doors were always more than just another rock band. |
|
WAITING FOR THE SUNOrder from: |
Hello, I Love You |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); John Densmore (drums). Additional personnel: Douglas Lubahn, Kerry Magness (electric bass); Leroy Vinegar (acoustic bass). The Doors' third album showed the band in transition, even as "Hello, I Love You" became the Doors' second number-1 hit. The band's songs set Morrison's poetic and often bizarre lyrical imagery against the spiraling keyboards of Manzarek and Krieger's bluesy guitar. Their chart success, however, alienated them from their original audience, who no longer considered them "underground" enough, while their concert audiences increasingly consisted of teenage girls, drawn by Morrison's sexual performing style. "Hello, I Love You" pushed them firmly into the rock mainstream. |
|
THE SOFT PARADEOrder from: |
Tell All The People |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar, background vocals); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); John Densmore (drums). Additional personnel: Jesse McReynolds (mandolin); Jimmy Buchanan (fiddle); Champ Webb (English horn); Curtis Amy (saxophone); George Bohannan (trombone); Harvey Brooks, Doug Lubahn (bass), Reinol Andino (conga). Recorded at Elektra Sound Recorders, Los Angeles. Dismissed by the benighted as the Doors' "pop album," Soft Parade is one of the band's most adventurous recordings, utilizing strings and horns without resorting to schlocky over-production and moving far beyond their blues roots. Morrison was fully into his shaman phase by 1969, and his obsession with that image is reflected in the proselytizing air of "Tell All the People," and of course "Shaman's Blues." The album's biggest hit "Touch Me," while easily the group's most radio-friendly offering, is a pop classic that ranks among the great '60s AM radio tunes. "Wild Child" is a brief return to the blues-rock of yore, but the title track is a sophisticated, extended piece that moves through several different moods and textures, full of the elliptical, poetic lyrics that were Morrison's trademark. |
|
MORRISON HOTELOrder from: |
HARD ROCK CAFE: |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); John Densmore (drums). Feted first as underground heroes, then reviled as teeny-bop stars, the Doors threw off such conundrums with this magnificent release. Morrison Hotel reaffirmed their blues roots, opening with the powerful 'Roadhouse Blues' before unfolding through a succession of songs showcasing all the group members' considerable strengths. Distinctively tight instrumental playing underscores memorable material, while Jim Morrison's authoritative vocal ranges from the demonstrative ('Maggie McGill') to the melancholic ('The Spy'). Despite contemporary problems, the Doors emerged with an album the equal of their first two stunning releases. |
|
ABSOLUTELY LIVEOrder from: |
House Announcer |
Producers: Bruce Botnick, Paul Rothchild, The Doors. ABSOLUTELY LIVE shows off The Doors' strengths as a live band and the way in which they simultaneously challenged their audiences and kept sets interesting by including a broad cross-section of music. Where else could you hear Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" sidling up next to Kurt Weill's "Alabama Song?" ABSOLUTELY LIVE was taped during a United State tour that took place between August 1969 and June 1970 and showed the band to be in peak form. Ray Manzarek's organ and John Densmore's drumming keep pace throughout as Robbie Krieger's guitar playing show him to be as much of a force in the Doors as Morrison. As for the Lizard King, his blues growl is put to perfect use on "Backdoor Man" whereas his inner poet takes over on the prophetic "When The Music's Over" and the jazzy, metaphysical "Universal Mind." Morrison's most dramatic turn comes in the personage of a Southern preacher on the intro "Petition The Lord With Prayer" that leads into a medley of "Dead Cats, Dead Rats" and "Break On Through #2." |
|
L.A. WOMANOrder from: |
The Changeling |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (piano, keyboards); John Densmore (drums). Additional personnel: Marc Benno (guitar); Jerry Scheff (bass). Recorded at The Doors Workshop, Los Angeles, California. All songs written by The Doors except "Crawling King Snake" (John Lee Hooker). The final Doors album to feature vocalist Jim Morrison reaffirmed the quartet's grasp of blues/rock. Beset by personal and professional problems, they retreated to a rehearsal room, cast such pressures aside and recorded several of their most memorable compositions. The musicianship is uniformly excellent, the interplay between guitarist Robbie Krieger and keyboard player Ray Manzarek exudes confidence and empathy, while the strength and nuances of Morrison's voice add an unmistakable resonance. His death within weeks of the album's completion inevitably casts a pall over its content, especially the eerie rain and the funereal electric piano of 'Riders On The Storm'. |
|
AN AMERICAN PRAYER
|
Awake |
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); John Densmore (drums). AN AMERICAN PRAYER is made up of recordings of Jim Morrison reading his own poetry, to which the remaining members of the Doors added musical tracks, after his death. The CD reissue of AN AMERICAN PRAYER includes a newly recorded backing for "The Ghost Song." "I'll tell you every place and person that I've been." Cobalt blue and dour all over, AN AMERICAN PRAYER is primarily an up-close studio collage of Jim Morrison's verse (read by the author) spread over glorious Doors-rock, interspersed with live snatches of the singer/poet's on-stage antics. The images here evoke the seedy underbelly of post-hippie America, the disturbingly familiar manifestations of a troubled national conscience. The recording does, however, manage to maintain a sparkling psychedelic quality throughout. Several of the songs will be familiar to those who own the soundtrack to the 1991 film The Doors, but the original context gives them more weight. The title track is like a combined reprise to "Ghost Song" and the classic "The End," replete with Morrison's strange questions and even strangers assertions. The band sounds crisp, playing music that has a distinctively '70s thrust. Robby Krieger's guitar rips as fluidly as ever. All in all, a candid tour through the dimly lit passages of a haunted soul--at once personal and quite American. |
|
IN CONCERTOrder from: |
||||
Disc 1
Disc 2
|
IN CONCERT is a 2-disc set containing ABSOLUTELY LIVE (1970), ALIVE SHE CRIED, and part of the LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL EP. "Roadhouse Blues" from AN AMERICAN PRAYER is also included. This set does not contain any previously unreleased tracks. The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (organ, keyboard bass, background vocals); John Densmore (drums). Additional personnel: John Sebastian (harmonica). Recorded live in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Copenhagen between 1968 and 1970 . This two-disc set contains almost all of the material from the band's live releases, and paints an accurate picture of the magic these trailblazing iconoclasts were capable of making onstage. Free from the strictures of the recording studio, the Doors were able to stretch out both musically and conceptually, with extended jams and Morrison's spontaneous poetics making once-familiar songs into exciting new explorations. Speaking of extended pieces, the full version of the legendary "Celebration of the Lizard" is included here, in all its extended, suite-like glory. In front of an audience, the band's more visceral side prospered as well, as witnessed by versions of "Roadhouse Blues" and "Love Me Two Times" that make the studio versions seem almost tame in comparison. |
|
THE BEST OF THE DOORSOrder from: |
||||
Disc 1
Disc 2
|
The Doors: Jim Morrison (vocals); Robby Krieger (guitar); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); John Densmore (drums). Digitally remastered by Bruce Botnick, the engineer on the original sessions. In 1965, University of California student Ray Manzarek invited a fellow student, singer/songwriter Jim Morrison, to join his and his two brothers' R&B band, Rick And The Ravens. Manzarek then recruited drummer John Densmore. His brothers then dropped out of the group, replaced by guitarist Robbie Krieger. The group, now named the Doors, became popular on the Los Angeles club scene. Elektra recording artists Love recommended the group to their label, which signed them in 1966. The Doors, released in 1967, showcased Manzarek's flowing organ and Morrison's dramatic voice. The group achieved massive success, but Morrison's frustration with his role as a pop idol grew ever more pronounced. In July 1969, following a concert in Miami, he was indicted for indecent exposure, public intoxication and profane, lewd and lascivious conduct. Although he was later acquitted of all but the minor charges, the incident forced the group to cancel its next few months of concerts. Morrison Hotel, a tough R&B-based collection, matched the best of their early releases. However, Morrison now preferred to write poetry. Having completed sessions for a new album, he escaped to Paris to pursue a literary career. On 3 July 1971, he was found dead in his bathtub. The official cause was a heart attack. LA Woman, Morrison's final recording with the Doors, is one of their finest achievements, including 'Riders On The Storm'. The surviving Doors soldiered on for two more albums before disbanding. Interest in the Doors flourished throughout the 70s and in 1991, the film biography The Doors appeared. |
THE DOORS BOX SET
Order from: THE DOORS BOX SET is a four disc compilation of both new and old material. The first three discs consist mostly of demos, live and unreleased tracks, while the fourth disc features the band's hand-picked favorites from the band's previously released albums. The Doors: Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore. Additional personnel includes: Albert King. Producers: Bruce Botnick, The Doors (compilation). Includes liner notes by Michael Ventura and Paul Rothchild, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. Though they've been out of commission for decades, The Doors have a continuing influence on the development of rock & roll, as this four disc set of mostly unreleased material reminds us. In the sixties, they provided a West Coast alternative to the decadent, urban visions of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. Jim Morrison's position as rock Bacchus was the stuff of prime rock mythology, providing the blueprint for countless self-styled enfants terrible in the '70s. His Rimbaud-with-leather-pants lyrics were arguably a precedent-setter for the likes of punk grandparents Richard Hell and Patti Smith. The band's combination of psychedelic, jazz and classical influences created a unique musical tapestry. Doors fans both rabid and casual will find plenty of reasons to be cheerful here. Live tracks, studio outtakes, and other rarities provide a unique glimpse into the legacy of a band whose fire burned out far too soon. The fourth disc is a testament to the staying power of the band's catalogue. It consists of favorites from The Doors recorded canon, handpicked by John Densmore, Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek. Don't miss this chance to get a fresh perspective on a ground-breaking band. Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
|
Order from:
Canada
| United
States | United
Kingdom
The Doors continue to inspire interest and idolatry on the cusp of the new millennium for two reasons. First, like Perry Farrell is becoming now, Jim Morrison became the shaman of the rock pantheon, a strange seer who sang about what he saw. Second, the songs themselves were like nothing else heard between 1967 and Morrison’s death in 1971. It was rock in its wildest abandon, something Mick Jagger couldn’t have postured if he tried. The Complete Studio Recordings captures this legacy by compiling all six of the studio records in newly remastered quality. The seventh disc contains unreleased, live, alternate and demo tracks. This last disc, along with a 60-page book telling the band’s story, caps this boxed set well.
|
"This book is the real story." - Robby Krieger "Densmore's is the first Doors biography that feels like it was written for the right reasons, and it is easily the most informed account of The Doors' brief but brilliant life as a group... Densmore is a fluent, articulate writer who both comprehends The Doors' unearthly power and is on familiar terms with their antecedants in literature, theater, and myth." - Rolling Stone "Well-written and touching... tells it all and tells it honestly." - New York Times Book Review |
also available in: |
The Doors. Arguably the most important rock-and-roll band of the sixties, unquestionably a catalyst for American music as we know it. Their music was the product of late-sixties southern California, with its idyllic facades. The Doors looked beyond these facades and wrote music about what they found, thus becoming the ultimate symbol for rebellion and alienation. Ray Manzarek. The driving force, leader, and, along with Jim Morrison, cofounder of The Doors in the summer of 1965. Together with Robby Krieger and John Densmore, they created a legend. Their original mix of jazz, classical, California surf, Flamenco guitar, and Chicago blues made an irreversible impact on the music of the day. When Light My Fire hit number one on the charts, the legend began. Their worldwide popularity was and still is remarkable. Today, The Doors sell nearly two million albums a year. Jim Morrison. A magnetic presence and rock icon in life, still a legend more than twenty-five years after his death. Manzarek and Morrison were both UCLA Film School graduates, best friends, and rarely apart until Morrison moved to Paris shortly before his death in 1971. What Ray Manzarek knows about Jim Morrison and The Doors, no one else does. His story gives illumination to the dark myths and lays to rest the rumors that have abounded about Jim Morrison and the band. Bright Midnight truly gives us an insight into the times, the enigmatic lead singer, and the magic circle that was The Doors. |
|
This comprehensive Illustrated History assembles interviews,
newspaper reports, record and concert reviews, trial transcripts, FBI reports and magazine
articles with hundreds of color and black and white photographs, to give a month by month,
album by album visual record of The Doors' amazing career. The story begins at UCLA where the band was first proposed and follows the members through time up to Jim Morrison's death in Paris in 1971. |
|
Over twenty five years after Jim Morrison's death, The Doors' story has blossomed into the realm of myth. Morrison remains, today, the poet who has been able to describe our alienation and feelings of isolation, dread, and disconnectedness. The Doors' music has always formed a world apart, a world beyond, whatever else was going on, and finally, in The Doors: The Complete Lyrics, the convinced and the curious will find all the lyrics - including live material and the posthumously issued poetry album, An American Prayer - in one place, illustrated by rare and previously unpublished photographs. |
| One of the most mythologized bands in modern music, the Doors and
their frontman, Jim Morrison, continue to be a source of inspiration, devotion, and
controversy. The Doors Companion draws on articles, poems, biographies, scholarly
monographs, and much more to give readers a foundation for understanding the band and its
members. A discography and brief chronology provide important supplementary material. Few rock groups of the '60s have been more influential and better remembered than the Doors. Led by shamanistic poet-visionary "Lizard King" Jim Morrison, the group has entered the pantheon of legendary popular performers, inspiring countless imitators, books, and even a film, while continuing to sell records nearly thirty years after the group disbanded. This is the first collection of articles, interviews, and reviews to cover the group's entire career, including newspaper accounts of the famous concert in Miami, as well as other concerts; extensive interviews with Morrison and the other group members; and even Morrison's own poetry and works by other writers, including Charles Baudelaire and Antonin Artaud, that influenced his thinking. This is a must-have for all fans of the greatest rock band ever. |
| The Complete Guide To The Music Of The Doors | The Doors On The
Road by Greg Shaw |
 Jim Morrison: An Hour For Magic by Frank Lisciandro |
 Angels Dance And Angels Die The Tragic Romance Of Pamela And Jim Morrison by Patricia Butler |
 The American Night (The Writings Of Jim Morrison Vol. 2) |
 Break On Through The Life And Death Of Jim Morrison by James Riordan |
 Images Of Jim Morrison by Ed Wincentsen |
 Jim Morrison (They Died Too Young) by Jon E. Lewis |
| Jim Morrison:
The End by Bob Seymore |
Jim Morrison:
Dark Star by Dylan Jones |
 The Lizard King The Essential Jim Morrison by Jerry Hopkins |
 The Lords, And The New Creatures, Poems by Jim Morrison |
 Mr. Mojo Risin' Jim Morrison, The Last Holy Fool by David Dalton, J.C. Suares, Nick Tosches |
 No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins, Danny Sugerman |
 Rimbaud And Jim Morrison The Rebel As Poet |
 Strange Days My Life With And Without Jim Morrison by Patricia Keanealy |
 Wilderness The Lost Writings Of Jim Morrison |
 Wild Child Life With Jim Morrison by Linda Ashcroft |
From the greatest hits to
exclusive rarities, with live performances to television and filmed appearances, this
Doors collection has it all. The Best Of The Doors includes the controversial
MTV-banned clip for 'Gloria' and 1995's 'The Ghost Song', a never-before released homage
to Jim Morrison from his band mates. The Doors have opened their private archives to
present rare on-the-road footage, candid backstage scenes and the last known filmed
interview with Jim Morrison. |
|
If you are a new or original fan of the Doors, this spectacular DVD should give you enough incentive to jump on the DVD bandwagon without reservation. It's quite simply the finest single audio-visual source of Doors music and history, presented with the full participation of the band's surviving members (Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger, John Densmore) and featuring a variety of bonus features that will send any Doors-phile into a state of rock & roll euphoria. We're not kidding, folks--this is a must-have disc for anyone who's ever been mesmerized by Jim Morrison and the late-1960s, early-'70s rock phenomenon known as the Doors. The primary content consists of three acclaimed films, all running about an hour long and directed by Manzarek, that give the viewer a deeper appreciation of what the Doors were all about. Not only was the band filmed in a variety of live concert settings (especially at the legendary Hollywood Bowl show, included here), but they were also precociously aware of the value of film, creating music "videos" long before MTV and taking their cue from Manzarek's mid-'60s stint as a UCLA film student. Also included are clips from several TV appearances (including a PBS interview in which Morrison predicts the future of recording technology with astounding accuracy), revealing backstage footage, and, of course, some of the most hypnotic concert performances ever filmed. Two of Manzarek's student films (Evergreen and Induction) indicate that the keyboardist could easily have become a successful director, but fate blessed him (and us) with a future in one of America's all-time greatest rock bands. What The Doors Collection conveys more than anything is that these four young men formed a unique cohesion of talent, that they all loved and admired Jim Morrison (and still do), and that they continue to share that love--along with some conflicting recollections and amiably contrasting opinions--on a commentary track that's wise, fun-loving, and refreshingly free of drippy nostalgia. Indeed, when Manzarek uses the word "atrocious" to describe Oliver Stone's 1991 film about Morrison and the band, he's merely defending the fact that Morrison was himself a sweet, lovable young man who had a dark side--no one's denying that--but who also fronted a band that continues to unite listeners and viewers in the positive spirit of creativity and freedom of expression. |
Classic Performances & Greatest Hits |
An all-music video collection of live and televised performances, promotional clips and rare behind-the-scenes footage. Songs include: |
|
Unless you were there, you've never seen anything like it - the only complete concert ever filmed of The Doors, captured live at the Hollywood Bowl during the Fourth of July weekend, 1968. This once-thought-lost concert footage was filmed by a four-camera crew with 16-track audio (digitally remixed). The Doors Live At The Hollywood Bowl reveals the band at their dark and brilliant best. Songs include: |
|
The Doors on this tour, introduce footage of Morrison and company in action in London, Stockholm, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. |
This historic video features
as its centerpiece The Doors' last televised appearance, aired on PBS in 1969 in the wake
of the notorious Miami concert which resulted not only in Jim Morrison's arrest, but the
cancellation of the entire tour. Additional material is drawn from The Doors' private
archives, including footage from the 1969 tour of America and never-before-seen
interviews. |
|
 The Doors (VHS) |
Message To Love: The Isle Of Wight Festival - The Movie (VHS) |
This documentary by Murray Lerner (From Mao to Mozart) was shot in 1970, but for many reasons was not shown to the public until 1995 in Great Britain. In an important way, it is the final chapter in an unofficial trilogy of concert films (along with Woodstock and Gimme Shelter) that together paint a picture of the highest and lowest points of Woodstock Nation politics: from mass goodwill to anarchy to outright stupidity. On the one hand, Message to Love is a rock & roll movie with several performances that are outright revelations (the Who's triumphant show, the Doors' "The End"), some that are awfully good (Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun"), and more than enough that are superfluous (Ten Days After, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Jethro Tull). On the other hand, Lerner's cameras are trained on the increasingly testy relationship between nomadic hippies who travel a long way to see the show but refuse to pay, and concert producers who resort to using guard dogs, cops, and aluminum walls to keep crashers at a distance. Just how bad does the mood become after several days of this? Check out the scene in which Joni Mitchell breaks down in tears after singing her ode to peace and love, "Woodstock," before this lot. In an era when we've become used to extraordinary security and high ticket prices at rock concerts, it's perhaps hard to grasp what the fuss was about at the Isle of Wight. But Lerner's amazing film helps a viewer get a sense of what was really at stake in that period before rock & roll was a corporate matter, and when kids naively thought it was theirs for the taking. |
