The Doors was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. Since the band’s dissolution in 1972 — and especially since Morrison’s death in 1971 — interest in the Doors’ music has remained high, especially from the Morrison era.
1965-68: The early Jim Morrison era
Origins and formation
The origins of The Doors lay in a chance meeting between acquaintances and fellow UCLA film school alumni Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach California in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek’s encouragement, sang “Moonlight Drive“. Impressed by Morrison’s lyrics, Manzarek suggested they form a band.
the group recruited 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 in a poem 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”.
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 who was present at the recommendation 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 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.
The timing was fortunate, 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, an acid-tripping Morrison raucously recited his own rendition of the Greek drama Oedipus Rex in which the play’s protagonist Oedipus kills his father and has sex with his mother. Morrison’s version consisted of “Father? Yes son? I want to kill you. Mother? I want to fuck you”.
The shows were performed on 21 and 22 July 1969. This was only a few months after the “Miami incident” in March of that year. The shows featured a more laid back, blues style of Doors music. Morrison appeared not as his trademark, “young lion” in black leather pants. Instead, he wore a beard and sported loose fitting carpenter-like pants.
March-July 1971: Before and after Morrison’s death
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 city the previous summer and seemed content to write and explore the place.
By June, he was again drinking heavily. 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 studio. The results were released in 1994 on a bootleg CD titled The Lost Paris Tapes.
Morrison died under mysterious circumstances on July 3, 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 Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
There are persistent rumors that Morrison faked his death to escape the spotlight or died at a 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 Coroner saw him and witnessed no needle marks. He also saw that he had blood in his nose caused from what he said was a hemorrhage brought on from a heart attack brought on by drinking that night and the hot bath. It was also noted that he had signs of tuberculosis.
June 1971-August 1972: Other Voices & Full Circle
The surviving Doors continued for some time, initially considering replacing Morrison with a new singer. It has been reported that Iggy Pop was one of the singers considered as a possible replacement. Instead, Krieger and Manzarek took over on vocals and released two more albums, recording for Other Voices took place during the summer of 1971 (in June-August), was released in October of 1971 and recording for Full Circle took place during the spring of 1972, was released in August 1972 and went on tour after the release of Other Voices and Full Circle. Both albums sold less than the Morrison era releases, and The Doors stopped performing and recording at the end of 1972. The last album expanded into jazz territory. While neither album has been reissued on CD in the US, they have been released on 2-on-1 CDs in Germany and Russia.
