40 Years On....should The Doors have carried on?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

40 Years On....
1971 Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger decide to carry on playing as The Doors............should The Doors have carried on as The Doors?

Simple question.....but far from simple answer.....so whats your take on this......

Check out the Post Jim Doors section

If you wish to hear the music that causes all the fuss check out these threads for a link to download both albums which have been remastered by one of our members to provide an excellent quality copy.

Full Circle

Other Voices

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Some background to The Doors circa July to October 1971

Perhaps it was Jim's untimely departure that galvanised the remaining members into action returning to The Doors Workshop in late July to develpop a number of the post LA Woman jams into material for a new album for which the band had just
re-signed to Elektra for a further three years.
But before heading studio wards there were two important considerations to be made.

First THE NAME:

"We were gonna change it. We had thought about changing it but nobody could come up with anything that didn't sound pretentious"
Robby Krieger.

'We even thought of calling ourselves 'And The Doors' because it had started out as The Doors and after a few years became 'Jim Morrison and The Doors. But we kept The Doors because thats who we were. There were four of us ....now there were three of us'
Ray Manzarek.

Also THE SINGER:

"Yes we thought about finding another singer but it seemed kinda impossible to bring in another personality. We'd been together so long the four of us that the psychic communication was so strong that it would take a long time to adapt and harmonise to a new guy. And it would always be hard on the new guy as he'd always be Jim's replacement"
Ray Manzarek.

“At first we were very unsure of ourselves…we didn’t exactly know what we were going to sound like. We knew that the music would be OK but we weren’t too sure about the vocals. How they were gonna sound. We just didn’t know how it was going to gel but little by little it began falling together.’
Ray Manzarek.

Several tracks from the album were left over from the LA Woman session ‘Down On The Farm’ was a song Jim had rejected during the last session in LA.
It would seem logical that the other two songs ‘I’m Horny I’m Stoned’ & ‘Wandering Musician’ which feature Jerry Scheff are also from the LA Woman session which seems a reasonable indication that Jim Morrison and The Doors were drifting apart musically

"There were a lot of songs I had written that Jim didn't feel. That's why he didn't want to sing them and I can understand that. In a way that was a limitation on us"
Robby Krieger

“A couple of the songs had been around for a year or so but the rest are new….they might be songs we’d sort of thought of doing but it wasn’t right then”
John Densmore.

"It was a matter of just standing in front of the microphone and doing it. Taking a deep breath and saying: 'Okay it's got to be done'. It came out pretty well and it got easier and easier. The first song was very hard"
Ray Manzarek

The bulk of the album was recorded in August and September 1971 with a host of supplementary musicians including a selection of bassists and percussion players.
John remembered Francisco Aguabella who contributed percussion to 'Ships w/ Sails' and 'Hang On To Your Life' as having purple congas and not speaking English whilst Ray remembered...'his drums looked like 1958 cadillacs with big fins on everything'.
Ray Manzarek cleared up the mystery of the kickshaws and whim whams featured in 'Down On The Farm' by Emil Richards.
"A Kickshaw or a whimwham is an archaic American term for little things clanking. Knick knacks...anything that makes a noise. Emil probably has the largest collection of them and he travels all over the world with them. He's a standard LA jazz figure around for quite a while. Played with Paul Horn. Most of the music you've heard in the big movies like 2001...all the weird sounds are probably him!"

From Zig-Zag magazine, BBC Interviews 1979 & The Doors: by John Tobler & Andrew Doe & Break On Through by Procknichy & Riordan

[bigal]

In my opinion, they should have disbanded and gone their separate ways. The Beatles are an excellent example of having done it this way.

Some groups, such as The Rolling Stones, Van Halen and AC/DC, have replaced key members and moved on to continued success. But are such groups really ever the same? How many members can a group lose and still be what they were?

Look at The Who, for instance. Not one, but two key members were replaced, and they keep performing. To me, that is not The Who. That's Pete and Roger not knowing when to quit, and it's pathetic.

The Doors without Jim Morrison were not and could never have been The Doors. Not only did he write some of their best songs, but he was a vital part of the band's chemistry and success (of course were it not for his behavior they might have been much more successful, but that's beside the point). After he died, Ray, Robbie, and John should have admitted this and hung it up. It was over - they should have just moved on to solo efforts.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Whilst I pretty much agree with your point (didn't in 1971 though) surely you must concede that the other three did have the right to try to continue in 1971 as who they were regardless of the huge loss of the lead singer.
Lets face it Jim was never 'The Doors' and whilst his loss meant that 'The Doors' of Strange Days were gone forever a 'Doors' still had a right to continue and make an attempt to find a new direction.
They did indeed eventually face up to the loss of Morrison as being too huge a gap to ever fill and move on to other projects but they did have the right to discover that for themselves and the music they made in 1971 and 1972 has as much right to call itself Doors as the music on the debut.
OK Doors fans did not warm to it much but it was a brave attempt that deserves a lot more credit from fans than it ever got.
I have never had a problem with my fave bands trying to keep it together after a catastrophic loss of a member for whatever reasons .....some did it OK some made a complete arce of themselves but I applaud the bravery of at least trying.
Now some might say thats a tad hypocritical of me considering my dork stance but not at all....there is a world of difference in trying to continue a band for the 'music' and 'art' a few weeks/months after the loss of an essential member (examples such as Yes, Genesis and Purple who all lost a lead singer) than there is for reforming a band 30 years later for two days work and 350,000 dollars.
The Doors of 1971 tried to keep it going, made one decent album and one poor album did four tours in which they played 90% of their new material and did not try to cash in on a Jim Morrison ressurection show. They failed and realised that they probably should have quit as The Doors back in 71 but they deserve credit for trying and never seem to get much from Doors fans.........
There is a lot wrong with Full Circle and even Other Voices but considering the emotion at the time what else could the three of them have done apart from give up and go mope in Barneys Beanery.
I was one of those at the time that favoured a new singer and Howard Werth who was actually reported in the UK music press as having been offered the job was a particular favourite of mine as I was a big fan of his band Audience but with hindsight what happened in the Spring of 1973 and the fact that we never saw a new singer with The Doors was most likely for the best.



Could Jim have been replaced in 1972?


What could have the doors become?

And The Doors

Doors disband 1973

[nick]

I think they should have, and continued to, regardless of success as long as they were happy with their music together. And most definitely bought in a new vocalist/lyricist at some point. I like Ray?s voice, it just gets old. Kreiger?s I can?t stand. Look at a band like The Dead that went thru A LOT of members and let themselves evolve or change over time. You can?t replace a member like Morrison or try to emulate what the band was, but you can keep with it and evolve. To a band like The Grateful Dead, or a person like Dylan, a couple so-so albums are a minor set back.

[gizmo]

i think they had the right to try it with the 3 of them, i mean , why not try to make a living with what you got left? they have to eat and drink too, and when you've got a lifestandard for yourselve it verry hard to take a few steps back. why should they start new bands when you already got one? they had the name and the creativity to make great music, but i think they missed jim to mutch to really be the doors as we knew them, and as they knew themselves.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Some threads of interest

Jim gets sued by The Doors: when he is dead

The Doors unhinged..Soft Parade cause & effect

Why did 'And The Doors' not trust Jim?

What if the doors had made a 7th album with Jim

[glasstecwindows]

I think they should have, and continued to, regardless of success as long as they were happy with their music together.