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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 9:42:39 GMT
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 9:57:31 GMT
The Doors - The Doors
- A Lost and Found classic pick -
As debut albums go, The Doors packed a punch that still reverberates to this very day. Jim Morrison was young and hungry, ready to take a big bite out of the world. At this juncture, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore would have followed Morrison anywhere. It was a path fraught with chaos, counterpoint to everything sunny and free. It was about living on the edge; about taking, as the great poet said, the road to excess leading to the palace of wisdom. An incorrigible baritone waxing death while a funeral organ leads the procession, a guitar unfolds like a set of massive peacock wings as the drums slam and samba -- none of it remotely representative of the spirit the hippies were plugging into. In retrospect, it seems rather sardonic that the music of the Doors is a big part of the 60s landscape.
The first, self-titled album was the culmination of everything the Doors had been working toward since their tumultuous days on the Sunset Strip. It was fairly easy for producer Paul Rothchild to capture the band's drama and impact from the all four members -- something that became increasingly difficult on subsequent recordings. Immediately out of the gate is the Lizard King's anthem, "Break On Through (To The Other Side)." Inspired by the writings of William Blake and Aldous Huxley, the idea of breaking through to the other side(and what do we break through? What else but the doors...) was a life affirming concept that Morrison based his whole existence on. But it was with Krieger's song, "Light My Fire," that the Doors, as a large-scale rock and roll band, based their whole existence on. The second single, after "Break On Through" -- "Light My Fire" would be their first number one, trailing the Doors for the rest of their days. It would become a classic sketch in time for a group that was just about to mount a bucking bronco.
To further appreciate The Doors, you have to dig deep into songs like the bodacious "Twentieth Century Fox," the ominous "Crystal Ship," the ragtag, hard drinkin' "Alabama Song," and the creepy "End Of The Night." Others like "Soul Kitchen," a tune about a restaurant in Venice, or Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man" simply add another the dimension to the band's arsenal. And then there's the pseudo-psycho dramatization affectionately known as "The End." This last number, of course, is responsible for getting Morrison tossed out of the Whiskey -- its Oedipal overtones just a tad too much over the top - even during the swingin' 60s. It was the kind of brutal honesty -- a confessional blast of reality -- that no one could ignore. All of which made the Doors -- as a musical force, an exercise in veracity, existential theater of the absurd -- one of the most fascinating acts of popular music.
Classic Rock
Review by Shawn Perry
THE DOORS
For me, The Doors' self titled debut album ties for the best debut rock album ever, with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Pronounced. If this album had been cut down to just it's eight best songs, it would have been better than Pronounced (which only has eight cuts).
My ex-wife was a Jim Morrison freak, and for years I got to heard this album perhaps a bit too much. I never realized how much I really enjoyed The Doors until years later, when I hadn't heard it for awhile. It opens up strong with "Break On Through", a powerful song that is close to perfect! In fact the first seven songs here are pure knock-outs! The three best on the album are "Twentieth Century Fox", "Back Door Man" and one of rock's all time best songs, "Light My Fire". A rock song which used a organ, courtesy of Ray Manzarek, as the lead instrument, not done too much up till this time.
Overall, this LP shot The Doors right into rock 'n roll space, mainly because of Morrison's great vocals, not to mention equally great song lyrics, and one tight little band.
Keno's Classic Rock n Roll Web Site 2004
The Doors (1967)
Break on Through (to the Other Side) / Soul Kitchen / The Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / I Looked at You / End of the Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
The Doors were a talented group of musicians, able to merge the most unlikely influences thinkable at the time, but they ran out of ideas quickly, not in the least because vocalist Jim Morison’s theatrical, self-obsessed and tortured poet-mystique became erratic really fast. That’s one interpretation. Others claim that The Doors were perhaps the ultimate chroniclers of late ‘60’s pop culture and counterculture, the first band to successfully unveil the childish optimism of the ‘Summer of Love’ nonsense, and pioneers of rock’s darker impulses as channelled through multi-faceted music and literary musings that owed as much to French symbolism as they did to psychology and 19th century European philosophy (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche). Well, of course it’s true that a lot of Morrison’s shtick was nothing but a pose (has there been any art school student who hasn’t been infatuated by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Kafka at one point on his/her journey to maturity?), and that a lot of his lyrics basically evolved around his “adolescent exhibitionism” and were a slight version of his heroes’ art (is it surprising they copped their name from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Huxley being a prophet of mind-expanding exploration?), but you gotta give him that he had few predecessors in the rock business. There had been a lot of poetry volume-waving beatniks around, but they were mainly interested in cool clubs and jazz, so Morrison’s dark vision and controversial attitude certainly were something awkward at the time (it’s telling that Love’s Arthur Lee allegedly had to beg Elektra chief Holzman to check them out).
The secret to the band’s success is of course their unique approach: they didn’t have a steady bass player – even though there usually was one when they recorded their albums (in this case: Danny Labahn) and from the get-go onwards came up with an hereto unheard blend of blues, pop, jazz, Eastern influences and even classical. All this was possible because of their different backgrounds, as organist Manzarek was classically trained, guitar player Robbie Krieger a blues fanatic and drummer John Densmore a jazz buff who accidentally wound up in a rock band. Then, there’s Jim Morrison, and no matter how fake his attitude might seem today, it’s undeniable that he was a superb vocalist with a commanding baritone he used to sing, whisper, cajole and growl (which he did with style). While they’re famous because of their epics (“The End,” “Riders on the Storm,” “L.A. Woman”) there’s actually not much jamming going on here, as the majority of these songs don’t even pass the three minute-mark. “Break on Through,” the album’s first single, for instance, clocks in at a concise 2:25, and what a great 145 seconds it is, from the jazz-accented intro to Morrison’s ferocious hollering and Krieger’s greasy guitar tone, it’s one of the year’s best singles (and there were quite a lot of goodies). However, it was the second single “Light My Fire” that broke the band, and while I actually prefer the first to the second, this extended album version of the latter (more soloing, baby) might be better at stressing the band’s unique acid-drenched testosterone rock. Nowadays, Manzarek’s organ sounds completely dated, but I can imagine that the Sunset Strip boys totally loved that never-ending, mantra-like kind of stuff. The album contains a bunch of excellent tracks, several of which are finished by Morrison’s fine vocals. “The Crystal Ship,” for instance, isn’t that interesting when only listening to the music, but it gets its charms from the drugged vocal delivery. Likewise, the best part of “Twentieth Century Fox” -aside from Krieger’s short but thrilling solo – comes when Morrison rhythmically delivers lines such as “She - won’t - waste - time - on e-le-men-try – ta-halk.” The album also includes a first attempt at straight blues – Willie Dixon’s “Back Door Man” – and the result is a simple, struttin’ rendition that has “SEX” all over it. Even more than Mick Jagger, Morrison employed a degree of sleaze and vulgarity to make his point, and it works brilliantly here.
Playing the blues is something they’d actually return to when they ran out of silly ideas. It’s no surprise then that their bluesiest album would become their most consistent one. But in the meantime, there are a few excellent rockers as well: the fine “Soul Kitchen,” with its restrained verses and rocking chorus would be covered by X a dozen years later, whereas tracks like “I Looked at You” and “Take It As It Comes” – though not nearly as unique as the highlights – are fine in their conformity. In fact, I only have a (several) bone to pick with the album’s “creepy” moments: “End of the Night” (inspired by L.F. Celine’s Voyage au Bout de la Nuit? Probably) is nothing special (and that eerie slide guitar doesn't help much either), and then there’s the lauded final, “The End.” I can’t stand that song anymore. I still like the hypnotic feel of the song, especially Krieger’s supremely atmospheric playing and Densmore’s occasional outbursts, but those theatrical vocals just annoy the fuck out of me. Whereas the opera-like ambiance of the multi-part “Alabama Song” (Weill-Brecht! European! Arty! Cool!) still cracks me up, this 11-minute Oedipal tale just seems so bloated and, well, silly. Of course, it must’ve been controversial and very daring at the time, but this website isn’t (only) concerned with the innovative/controversial/influential-aspect of the music (if it were, a 10 would be unavoidable), and I can’t enjoy it because it’s an embarrassingly dated example of a defunct bullshit detector. That said, the majority of these songs here are not only unique, but also memorable tracks that show the band’s ambition and confidence already in full force. 8.5
Guys Music Review Site.
The Doors
The Rolling Stone Hall of Fame: the Greatest Albums Ever Made
***** 5 stars out of 5 stars: classic
The Doors arrived in 1967, the same year as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; both were psychedelic touchstones and among the first major rock discs that truly stood as albums, rather than collections of songs. But whereas the Beatles took a basically sunny view of humanity, the Doors' debut offered the dark side of the moon. their sound was minor-keyed and subterranean, bluesy and spacey, and their subject matter -- like that of many of rock's great albums -- was sex, death and getting high. On "End Of The Night," the band invited you to "take a journey to the bright midnight."
The key to the band's appeal was the tension between singer Jim Morrison's Dionysian persona and the band's crisp, melodic playing. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger's extended solos on the album version of "Light My Fire" carried one to the brink of euphoria, while the eleven-minute epic "The End" journeyed to a harrowing psychological state. Scattered among these lengthier tracks are such nuggets as "Soul Kitchen" ("learn to forget") and Morrison's acid-drenched takes on the blues ("Back Door Man") and Kurt Weill ("Alabama Song"). Though great albums followed, The Doors stands as the L.A. foursome's most successful marriage of rock poetics with classically tempered hard rock -- a stoned, immaculate classic.
by Parke Puterbaugh
from Rolling Stone Magazine May 01, 2003
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 9:58:47 GMT
The Doors - The Doors
The Doors self-titled debut album is frequently regarded as one of the greatest debut efforts ever, and if anything serves as a decent introduction to the band who on the surface almost deliberately acted as a contradictory outfit. Whereas lead singer Jim Morrison could only muster energy for life whilst dancing on the dangerous side of excess and spiritual pretentiousness, keyboardist Ray Manzarek kept the band on a tight avant-garde hook that met Morrison’s unpredictableness in the middle to form what was, for a time, perfect beyond-the-crypt rock music. With Robby Krieger on guitar and John Densmore behind the drums, four musicians that seemed incapable of existing together on record almost instantaneously seemed incapable of existing without each other once The Doors was released.
This is The Doors as stark as you could hope for; they rightly sound as if they have something to prove to an unsuspecting world. Producer Paul Rothchild keeps a tight ship and lets the music flow through the left/right channels as if you are listening to a well mixed garage-blues band in session. What better way to start than the strongly-arresting Break On Through (To The Other Side), which could perfectly act as a mantra for the aims of the band through the eyes of Morrison’s ambitions. This was the band named after the Aldous Huxley poem The Doors Of Perception after all. The opening song is so groovy, primarily through Manzarek’s fiery keyboard playing, and yet so crisp and pulsating-like-a-speeding-train in its bluesy bite that is as uncharacteristic of nineteen sixty-seven as you could imagine. Thankfully, the remastered version of the album reinstates the full uncensored lyric of “she gets high”, which further exemplifies the demonic notions so quickly introduced by the album. Soul Kitchen is more overtly pop in its tone, and yet contains some splendidly-tight rhythmic backing to allow Morrison’s pleas a suitable house.
The Crystal Ship marks a distinct departure from the sounds delivered on the first two tracks, with a balladry at play that suggests Morrison could seduce whoever his gaze is fixed upon, and simultaneously offer them as a sacrifice to which ever god he was worshipping that day. Morrison is transfixing by his ultra-conviction; you don’t trust him with your soul but you turn to stone under his power. As it’s the sixties, and a debut album, fillers and cover versions are lightly spread throughout The Doors, even if Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) has some merits on a blues checklist.
It’s Krieger’s Light My Fire that propelled the band to chart-topping stardom and instant notoriety. The seven minute relentless rocker, forever covered and ingrained into popular musical folklore, caused the band to be banned from the Ed Sullivan show over Morrison’s refusal to change the “girl we couldn’t get much higher” lyric, and heightened the inner-battle between the band’s predilection for both pop-rock and soul-jazz. A truncated version was released for the singles market, but in the twenty-first century it is the full version that is available, suggesting The Doors were never comfortable with their chart image. End Of The Night is a decidedly creepy ramble that generates an air of fog around any calm the listener might have settled into, and along with filler Take It As It Comes aptly suits as an hors-d’oeuvre the epic finale that is The End.
The End in its full, eleven minute incarnation (as opposed to the shorter version which memorably featured in the film Apocalypse Now) is a brooding, deathly build-up to one of the greatest conclusions to any debut album. Overtly oedipal in lyrical content, and intense both in Morrison’s embittered delivery and the use of the word ‘fuck’, which was still a bold move in early nineteen-sixty-seven. The song and its content forced the band to be thrown out of the memorable Whiskey venue, and has a strong case to be considered as the finest Doors track of all time, if not the most memorable. The End has an honest approach inherent in a song without a trace of formulaic song-writing. It almost acts as a perfect antithesis to the summer of love that was forming and self-destructing within the era; bear in mind that the month that The Doors was released also saw The Monkees reach number one with I’m A Believer, which is as good an example as any of the tug-of-war that existed between certain musical ideologies prevalent at the time.
Whilst The Doors is probably not the greatest album from the band (and deciding what is the best is a struggle for any Doors fan), it’s easily the best introduction. Any album with Break On Through (To The Other Side, Light My Fire and The End certainly warrants a purchase for anyone fascinated by the iconographic facets of any rock and roll star, and how Morrison shaped to define them.
Raphael Pour-Hashemi
CD Times 2004
THE DOORS •
Somewhere out on Long Island there is a guy who is keeping himself busy by fashioning a Jim Morrison doll. Some think he is a sick boy, a very sick boy. But maybe there was nothing better to do? Why not? So for lack of anything better to do, he did this: he took a Marine G.I. Joe model, he threw away the camouflage clothing, which left exposed a groovy pink plastic body with an unprecedentedly large number of unmutated limbs and organs, and then he got himself some soft black leather, sewed it up (learning how as he went or maybe some random girl did it) on a machine, and planned, I think, to top it off with a brownish Barbie doll wig brushed back. iiiiiiiiiiR. Meltzer, too, has spoken of Morrison and leather: with Morrison, "Leather must be treated as functional—not the Warhol-Reed bit—held up in its black splendor by metal, or supporting a frail yet happy chuck-wagon bell." Clearly Morrison is the hero. As Gloria Stavers of Sixteen magazine has said: "Morrison is magic." Obviously. Morrison can inspire faith. He puts life into the scene. Ed Sullivan thinks, "Isn’t he handsome." And to quote the mystic and voodoo adept L. Silvestri, "I believe him to be a being not of this earth." But, we shouldn’t be entirely misled. The Doors, as a group, have a lot to do with faith. Morrison is merely the prettiest one dressed in leather. But, for example, who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Manzarek? iiiiiiiiii"Back Door Man" seen live many times, and then heard—at last—dead on the grooves, is a very neat thing. With all those grunts and stuff, it’s where the inordinacy really starts. (As well as the leather.) "I am," Morrison says, "the back door man. The men don’t know but the little girls understand." This is the spot for categorical statement. After too many years of bluesy overuse, this song can’t even prove disconcerting through embarrassment. "I am." And we are in the presence of definitive charisma. Mere categorical assertion slipping up and off into arrogance. "I am." Absolutely categorical assertion has here become systematically assertive. (If you say something strangely enough it assumes an inexplicable aura of strength.) The strength of this categorical assertion is so enormous that not only does it encompass the whole world (i.e., as a systematic construction), but it becomes unnatural. That’s when it surpasses all reason and arrives at Meltzer’s categorical magical. Starting with household fornication we’ve gotten to a magical collapse of the world. This is no sly boy. This Back Door Man has absolute faith ("I am") and is also inspiring. iiiiiiiiiiThe Doors are spectral. Maybe more than anybody. What counts is the impression for which no significant referent detail can or should be found. The music ends and there is no detail which you can refer to to actually justify your impression. But you have that impression. iiiiiiiiiiMovie music could have been a big influence. Check the surrealist organ on "Strange Days" and "Unhappy Girls," or that bass entrance on "You’re Lost Little Girl" which smacks of the pulp mystery (crime-detective) movie music of the era 1940-1960. I can see The Doors scoring the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or even the fabulous "Mysterians." But it is your Krieger who really outdoes himself. This nice boy, often looking perplexed on stage, who may be the first with the Jimi Hendrix hair, who plays slowly with not as many notes as some, is revealed as a master of the left hand. A guitar scientist like the above Hendrix, he uses the instrument to produce explicitly technological-sounding sounds. Radically distending all sorts of notes on "Moonlight Drive." An inordinate number some might think, without realizing that with The Doors (especially on Strange Days) inordinacy (as with Hendrix) has become stylistic. iiiiiiiiiiDisorder has been rationalized by The Doors into something both comprehensive and modular. The spirit is comprehensive so as to taint anything they turn to. And modular so as to be applicable anywhere. That’s how The Doors taint the world. But understand there are kinds of purity. And the world can be purified by tainting it. Morrison has said: "It is a search, an opening of doors. We’re trying to break through to a clearer, purer realm." (And along these lines don’t you forget that the melody for "My Eyes Have Seen You" starts off like the Ajax ad, "Stronger Than Dirt.") Now if things have been absolutely tainted, they have also attained a certain absolute purity. An arrangement according to a perfect order.
CRAWDADDY MAGAZINE! 1967 by Sandy Pearlman
(Sandy went on to be the Producer of The Blue Oyster Cult and helped organise The Doors gig at Stonybrook Uni NY.)
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 10:00:16 GMT
The Doors (1967)
8.5
Break on Through (to the Other Side) / Soul Kitchen / The Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / I Looked at You / End of the Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
The Doors were a talented group of musicians, able to merge the most unlikely influences thinkable at the time, but they ran out of ideas quickly, not in the least because vocalist Jim Morison’s theatrical, self-obsessed and tortured poet-mystique became erratic really fast. That’s one interpretation. Others claim that The Doors were perhaps the ultimate chroniclers of late ‘60’s pop culture and counterculture, the first band to successfully unveil the childish optimism of the ‘Summer of Love’ nonsense, and pioneers of rock’s darker impulses as channelled through multi-faceted music and literary musings that owed as much to French symbolism as they did to psychology and 19th century European philosophy (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche). Well, of course it’s true that a lot of Morrison’s shtick was nothing but a pose (has there been any art school student who hasn’t been infatuated by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Kafka at one point on his/her journey to maturity?), and that a lot of his lyrics basically evolved around his “adolescent exhibitionism” and were a slight version of his heroes’ art (is it surprising they copped their name from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Huxley being a prophet of mind-expanding exploration?), but you gotta give him that he had few predecessors in the rock business. There had been a lot of poetry volume-waving beatniks around, but they were mainly interested in cool clubs and jazz, so Morrison’s dark vision and controversial attitude certainly were something awkward at the time (it’s telling that Love’s Arthur Lee allegedly had to beg Elektra chief Holzman to check them out).
The secret to the band’s success is of course their unique approach: they didn’t have a steady bass player – even though there usually was one when they recorded their albums (in this case: Danny Labahn) and from the get-go onwards came up with an hereto unheard blend of blues, pop, jazz, Eastern influences and even classical. All this was possible because of their different backgrounds, as organist Manzarek was classically trained, guitar player Robbie Krieger a blues fanatic and drummer John Densmore a jazz buff who accidentally wound up in a rock band. Then, there’s Jim Morrison, and no matter how fake his attitude might seem today, it’s undeniable that he was a superb vocalist with a commanding baritone he used to sing, whisper, cajole and growl (which he did with style). While they’re famous because of their epics (“The End,” “Riders on the Storm,” “L.A. Woman”) there’s actually not much jamming going on here, as the majority of these songs don’t even pass the three minute-mark. “Break on Through,” the album’s first single, for instance, clocks in at a concise 2:25, and what a great 145 seconds it is, from the jazz-accented intro to Morrison’s ferocious hollering and Krieger’s greasy guitar tone, it’s one of the year’s best singles (and there were quite a lot of goodies). However, it was the second single “Light My Fire” that broke the band, and while I actually prefer the first to the second, this extended album version of the latter (more soloing, baby) might be better at stressing the band’s unique acid-drenched testosterone rock. Nowadays, Manzarek’s organ sounds completely dated, but I can imagine that the Sunset Strip boys totally loved that never-ending, mantra-like kind of stuff. The album contains a bunch of excellent tracks, several of which are finished by Morrison’s fine vocals. “The Crystal Ship,” for instance, isn’t that interesting when only listening to the music, but it gets its charms from the drugged vocal delivery. Likewise, the best part of “Twentieth Century Fox” -aside from Krieger’s short but thrilling solo – comes when Morrison rhythmically delivers lines such as “She - won’t - waste - time - on e-le-men-try – ta-halk.” The album also includes a first attempt at straight blues – Willie Dixon’s “Back Door Man” – and the result is a simple, struttin’ rendition that has “SEX” all over it. Even more than Mick Jagger, Morrison employed a degree of sleaze and vulgarity to make his point, and it works brilliantly here.
Playing the blues is something they’d actually return to when they ran out of silly ideas. It’s no surprise then that their bluesiest album would become their most consistent one. But in the meantime, there are a few excellent rockers as well: the fine “Soul Kitchen,” with its restrained verses and rocking chorus would be covered by X a dozen years later, whereas tracks like “I Looked at You” and “Take It As It Comes” – though not nearly as unique as the highlights – are fine in their conformity. In fact, I only have a (several) bone to pick with the album’s “creepy” moments: “End of the Night” (inspired by L.F. Celine’s Voyage au Bout de la Nuit? Probably) is nothing special (and that eerie slide guitar doesn't help much either), and then there’s the lauded final, “The End.” I can’t stand that song anymore. I still like the hypnotic feel of the song, especially Krieger’s supremely atmospheric playing and Densmore’s occasional outbursts, but those theatrical vocals just annoy the fuck out of me. Whereas the opera-like ambiance of the multi-part “Alabama Song” (Weill-Brecht! European! Arty! Cool!) still cracks me up, this 11-minute Oedipal tale just seems so bloated and, well, silly. Of course, it must’ve been controversial and very daring at the time, but this website isn’t (only) concerned with the innovative/controversial/influential-aspect of the music (if it were, a 10 would be unavoidable), and I can’t enjoy it because it’s an embarrassingly dated example of a defunct bullshit detector. That said, the majority of these songs here are not only unique, but also memorable tracks that show the band’s ambition and confidence already in full force.
Cheers Sparky!
The Doors: The Doors
The Doors arrived in 1967, the same year as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; both were psychedelic touchstones and among the first major rock discs that truly stood as albums, rather than collections of songs. But whereas the Beatles took a basically sunny view of humanity, the Doors' debut offered the dark side of the moon. Their sound was minor-keyed and subterranean, bluesy and spacey, and their subject matter -- like that of many of rock's great albums -- was sex, death and getting high. On "End of the Night," the band invited you to "take a journey to the bright midnight."
The key to the band's appeal was the tension between singer Jim Morrison's Dionysian persona and the band's crisp, melodic playing. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger's extended solos on the album version of "Light My Fire" carried one to the brink of euphoria, while the eleven-minute epic "The End" journeyed to a harrowing psychological state. Scattered among these lengthier tracks are such nuggets as "Soul Kitchen" ("learn to forget") and Morrison's acid-drenched takes on the blues ("Back Door Man") and Kurt Weill ("Alabama Song"). Though great albums followed, The Doors stands as the L.A. foursome's most successful marriage of rock poetics with classically tempered hard rock -- a stoned, immaculate classic.
PARKE PUTERBAUGH From Rolling Stone May 1, 2003
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 21:40:31 GMT
The Doors - The Doors 5 stars
Another day, another music review. And this one is by one of my favourite, and seemingly most easily forgotten band of the 1960’s, the Doors. Easily done I suppose, their frontman and enigmatic lead singer Jim Morrison died at a terribly young age. That however didn’t stop them from leaving us with some pretty damn good music. And their self-entitled album is my favourite of their albums. The Doors sees a band at its bleakest best. Darker, more harrowing than much of the other music that was about at the time. This 1967 release was full of mood, attitude and swagger, and in my opinion must go down as an all time great.
The album begins with the electric Break On Through (To The Other Side). It is a great way to begin an album. Morrison’s vocal is brilliantly edgy. It has a drawly sound to it that lead singers constantly try and emulate today. The song is extremely fast paced, with a very impressive guitar beat to it. It is funky, whilst maintaining a dark edge. This is a great song of contrast.
Soul Kitchen is less rocky than the first song on this album, but it retains the dark theme that surrounds the album. Musically the song is very strange, with some very unique sounds being made. Vocally Morrison begins with quite a soft edge, before falling into an awesomely rocky chorus where his vocal chords really ring out. He must have had a sore throat after this one! Soul Kitchen is, if I am being honest, one of my least favourite tracks on the album. That being said, it is very inoffensive, and still certainly deserves the title of a good solid track.
The Crystal Ship once again can best be described as black and dark. The first line of ‘before you slip into unconsciousness’ sets the tone of this one. The Doors once again show their willingness to experiment, this time making great use of the organ. It only adds to the darkness of the song, almost giving it the feeling of a funeral. Very sombre, and rather slow moving, this is a poignant rock song, full of passion. Essential listening!
Twentieth Century Fox is one of my favourites on the album. Lyrically this song is great. It is very fast paced, and very rocky. The catchy chorus is one that you won’t be able to prevent yourself from singing along to. You’ll find yourself singing the line ‘she’s a twentieth century fox’ before you know it. Again this song makes great use of some experimental instruments. I think it’s the accordion that accompanies the guitar on this one. Vocally the song is very infectious, with Morrsion giving an almost hypnotic performance. Another cracking tune.
Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) is another really catchy song. It remains dark, and experimental, and the sounds that come out of this song have a really psychedelic edge to them. This is one song that screams at you that it is influenced by drugs. It is fast paced, and zips through, without having any real depth to it. Another song that is very easy on the ears.
Light My Fire, a song that recently was catapulted back into the limelight by Will Young, is, without a doubt one of the Doors finest moments. It is a great experimental rock song. Everything seems to come together on this track to make it great. Lyrically it is very potent, and Morrison’s vocal is great. The music on the track is wonderful, leaving you wanting more. Again the song portrays some very strange sounds, you are never quite sure what they are, but what you are sure of is that you like the sound of them very much! At just over 7 minutes long this song could come into the overkill category. However, it doesn’t. Even after 7 minutes you are left wanting more!
Back Door Man is simply a rock song. Guitar and drums both combine excellently and add to this is screechy vocal then it equals one very good song. It is reasonably slow paced, but it is a song that is full of verve and swagger. It is another song that seems to bring everything together, something that seems to suggest that the Doors were on the cusp of greatness. For those of you unfamiliar with the Doors but more familiar with modern music, this track has an air of the Kings of Leon about it.
I Looked At You is a bit of a contrast to the rest of the album. Much of the darkness has gone, and this track has a more of an airy feel to it. That being said, it is still very experimental, and the vocal is still best described as dirty. It is another great track, and provides the album with a nice bit of contrast.
End of the Night is right back to the dark origins of this album. It is one of the bleakest tracks on the record. It is slowed right down, and the music is almost stripped right away. The emphasis on this song is on the harrowing Jim Morrison vocal. This vocal begins the song in a fairly soft manner, before eventually giving way to a huge scratchy vocal that we have become familiar with. It is a thoughtful, almost peaceful track. It has a far away feel to it. End of the Night is a very difficult track to review come to think of it, best of to just have a listen to yourself!
Take It As It Comes is a return to a far quicker pace. Again we have great experimental sound, and a very powerful vocal. The song is another rocker, and this is achieved. Another song that is easy to listen to. Not one of the strongest on the album but still an amazing song all the same.
The Doors end the album with one of the most iconic songs ever written. It is a song that I could write a review on all by itself. The End is famed for its inclusion in the film Apocalypse Now, but it is its position within this album that makes it so special. If you think what has gone before was dark, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The song begins ‘this is the end, beautiful friend’ and as soon as you hear this lyric you are caught. It is one of the most bizarre and psychedelic songs that have ever been written. If the Queen track Bohemian Rhapsody has been praised for being numerous different songs within one song, then The End deserves this praise in spades. It is a song that is incredibly interesting, with distinct different parts. It has delicious vocal, and stunning guitars, along with numerous other sounds that you just can’t make out. The track is an opera within an album. It is something that is so special that is could never be repeated. It is 11 and a half minutes of pure musical pleasure. It takes you through a range of emotions, employing a wide variety of pitch, tone, and pace. It takes you to places where I didn’t know music could take you. This song is the definition of edgy. If you’ve never heard it have a listen, its an experience!
The Doors is a great album. Of that there is no doubt. It is very rocky, very bleak, but a very, very good album. It is unlike much of the stuff that was about at the time. They weren’t in direct competition with the Beatles or the Stones, as the Doors give us something really quite different. And that is a great word to describe this album, different. It is unlike any other album that I have ever heard, and that is to its credit. I really love this album, and if you like your 60’s rock music then it’s a must for you!
Thank you for reading!
Review by Ben on DooYoo.co.uk
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 4, 2006 15:15:59 GMT
The Doors ( 1967 ) 9
Break on Through / Soul Kitchen / The Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / I Looked at You / End of the Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
They called themselves The Doors, as in ‘the doors of perception’ – Jim especially liked their name. It suited the kind of lyrics he had prepared. The group were formed by College buddies Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. Ray played Piano, Keyboards, Organ. He had a love for the blues and a heavy liking for Jazz music. After Robby Krieger and John Densmore were added to the line up on guitar and drums respectively – they still lacked a bass player. The solution arrived partly due to a technique ray learned from boogie woogie piano ( the left hand plays all the bass parts ) and also with the aid of a Fender Rhodes keyboard bass sat atop rays vox continental. Ray Manzareks left hand became the groups bass player! It would continue that way through live concerts - though as the Fender Rhodes wasn’t so great in recording studios in terms of fidelity - they would switch to using assorted session guys for later albums. On this, their debut, Rays Fender runs through every song. I guess they stopped using it due to the way it would threaten to break up and distort. For me though it’s a key element to the sound and appeal of this record and sets it apart from other Doors albums. This isn’t really a slick sounding record but maybe because of that, it does have a certain edge.
John and Robbie were both adept at blues, rock and possessed knowledge of jazz. The long extended soloing in the middle section of ‘Light My Fire’ takes its inspiration directly from Jazz, certainly. Its also a thing of sheer hypnotic splendour! Its hallucinogenic – I can listen to that part over and over, and when it swings back in to Jim’s vocal – is a thing to behold. This entire middle section was cut out from the single version. Consequently, although it became a massive hit for them, lost much of its power. The full extended album version however, well. This rocks! A similar although much shorter break was featured on opening song ‘Break On Through’. Two and a half minutes of perfection. Everything The Doors ever were or would be is right here, in this one song. Plenty more to come though! Themes to be developed and expanded upon. ‘The End’ is also an important song, being the first extended epic The Doors produced. Well, the LP version of ‘Light My Fire’ clocks in at six minutes fifty ( although actually runs just past seven minutes ) but isn’t an epic in the terms of ‘The End’ or their latter ‘When The Music’s Over’. ‘The End’ is all atmosphere. An excuse for Jim Morrison to provide us with poetry but it remains captivating given his vocal performance. A vocal full of doom and preacher like intensity.
With all of this heaviness the likes of ‘Soul Kitchen’ and the slightly silly ‘Twentieth Century Fox’ provide welcome diversions. Lighter material but still in keeping with the sound of the overall record. We have highlights with a suitably intense version of Willie Dixon’s ‘Back Door Man’ as well as another cover, a dramatic, superb take on Brecht and Weills ‘Alabama Song’. Here, the keyboard takes on a weird European circus flavour that combined with Jims deep but playful vocal certainly raises a smile. And! Still more highlights! The wonderful ‘Crystal Ship’ almost defies musical explanation. A number of shorter, simpler songs appearing towards the end of the album perhaps lack the genius of other cuts here but each plays a part in adding to the album as a whole. An album that bears up well to repeated listening. A classic debut that even manages to have classic artwork on its front sleeve. The way Jims face is shown coming out at you is striking and it all combines to provide a wonderfully complete and superb album.
Adrians Album Reviews!
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 5, 2006 22:38:12 GMT
The Doors
Year Of Release: 1967
Record rating = 8
Overall rating = 12
Dark, depressing and beautiful. But somewhat uncertain, if you axe me.
Best song: LIGHT MY FIRE
Track listing: 1) Break On Through (To The Other Side); 2) Soul Kitchen; 3) The Crystal Ship; 4) Twentieth Century Fox; 5) Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar); 6) Light My Fire; 7) Back Door Man; 8) I Looked At You; 9) End Of The Night; 10) Take It As It Comes; 11) The End.
Their debut album was shocking and immediately put them in the superstar league. Rightly so: and not only because the general aura of this debut was quite different from anything anyone was doing at the moment, but also because it was incredibly catchy, melodic and displayed signs of genius in most of the tracks. Darkness and dreariness that was given a catchy pop edge - something that Jefferson Airplane, the world's most depressing band at that period, could only have dreamt of and never managed to achieve in the end.
There's a certain shy feel about it, too, as if the band wasn't yet ready to overflow us with self-penned material. So they do a couple of covers - surprisingly, they manage to totally fit into the standard paradigm. The Broadway musical ditty 'Alabama Song' is by now a rightful Morrison classic, as Jim delivers the 'show me the way to the next little girl' lyrics with enough conviction to guarantee us that 'tomorrow we must die'. As for Willie Dixon's 'Back Door Man', now there's a tune that drives me nuts, at times it managed to edge out 'Light My Fire' and 'End Of The Night' as my favourites on here. There's something Zeppelin-ish about the way the dudes treat this blues cover, sharply accentuating the main heavy riff and 'whetting' all the edges of the song so that it slices through your mind as nothing else can. Jim's lionish roar on this track is easily his best vocal delivery on the entire album, and Krieger tops it off with a wall-rattling guitar solo. While the Doors were never a generic blues band, this track showcases, from the very beginning of their career, Jim's ability to assimilate old blues to his own dark, dreadful, terrifying style.
Thus the main problem with the album is definitely not the presence of covers, but rather the presence of some rather nasty filler: the short little ditties 'I Looked At You' and 'Take It As It Comes' are nothing but your average pop songs set in the same 'negative' environment. 'I Looked At You', in particular, irritates me every time I put it on with its pedestrian lyrics - 'I looked at you/You looked at me/I smiled at you/You smiled at me/And we're on our way'. Together with 'Take It As It Comes', the song feels pretty much out of place on the record; add to this that 'The End' has never been my favourite 'epic' Doors song, and you can understand why I so often turn it down right after 'Back Door Man' which is the first song on side two.
By no means are these two tunes 'bad', but they are certainly not up to the standard of the first-rate songs which are mostly grouped on the first side of the record. The album opener 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)' is the first fast 'dark' rocker ever recorded, and it announces the Doors' arrival on the scene with a crash boom bang: a low, grumbly, but amazingly catchy guitar riff, ominous, mathematically precise organ solos and above all - the lyrics: 'you know the day destroys the night/Night divides the day/Tried to run tried to hide/Break on through to the other side'. The seven-minute anthem 'Light My Fire' raises all kinds of emotions, especially with Ray's organ and Robbie's guitar solos which are so well constructed and so flawlessly played that you never regret their lengthiness even for a second. A crying shame that they were edited out of the single version - but that's how it goes, and the band couldn't really do anything about it. Thus begins the lengthy war of the Conceptual Album Creators with the Hit Single Producers.
It's the ballads, though, that best display Jim's talents: the gentle and beautiful 'Crystal Ship' which deals with matters far wider and far more dangerous than a simple love story, and especially the haunting mystical 'End Of The Night' where Ray sounds like a professional Dark Magician and manages to create an atmosphere so dreary and majestic at the same time that it really makes one shiver.
The two lesser tracks are 'Soul Kitchen', which nevertheless boasts a really memorable melody, with a strange naggin' organ riff that borders on the genial, and '20th Century Fox' which, strange enough, some people dislike, but I really don't see anything that nasty about it. It's just a little poppy, but just a little, and it has a great solo; what else do you need? 'But she's - no - drag - just - watch - the - way - she walks', chants Jim, and the line sends me laughin' down the alleyway.
Last comes the least. Actually, the lengthiest. 'The End' is often hailed as the Doors' most successful ten-minute-long (actually, eleven) 'gothic' epic, the one that sets a pattern for all the following stream-of-conscience, rambling poetical deliveries by Jim set to a somewhat rudimentary, but strangely effective musical backings. But me, I'm not convinced. I like the poetry, and most of the images that Jim conjures along the way, all the 'weird scenes inside the gold mine', 'the blue bus is calling us', 'ride the snake to the lake', and, most important, the famous Oedipus complex description where the line 'Mother I want to fuck you' is effectively buried in the mix under an undecipherable mess of roar and hum - all these things are quite flashy and effective. The problem is, the musical accompaniment is WAY too monotonous and, frankly speaking, boring to let you enjoy the number from beginning to, well, the end; more or less, the thing consists of just two or three guitar lines being endlessly repeated over and over, and even the 'transitions' in the sections (both this and 'When The Music's Over' off the next album are built according to one scheme: intro - fast transitional passage - main psycho part - fast transitional passage - outro) don't seem all that great. While the song still stands out as one of the Doors' main trademarks, I simply don't think it has enough musical potential in it to live up to all the hype.
In the light of this, I wouldn't give the album a better rating than an eight: while the album's absolutely groundbreaking nature is doubtless, and the Doors wouldn't really make much conceptual innovations over the next four years, the record still betrays signs of relative inexperience in the studio. It's been often called one of the most impressive debuts in rock history, and maybe it was: the album's sales skyrocketed in no time, and the Doors became superstars almost overnight (although the singles buying public wasn't so sure: 'Break On Through', the first single from the album, flopped). In retrospect, though, the album's flaws become all the more evident: there ain't much of 'em, but the inclusion of 'I Looked At You' and the monotonousness of 'The End' are among the most offensive. Their next record, however, would shut out all doubts about whether they would be able to better themselves, and it still remains an absolute masterpiece of the 'dark psychedelia' genre. At least, that's how I regard it.
George Starostin from Only Solitaire.com
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 6, 2006 13:27:48 GMT
The Doors: The Doors
Sixteen years after Jim Morrison's death, the Doors' immense popularity continues unabated, and all the reasons for that are embodied in their inspired debut album, "The Doors." Along with "Sgt. Pepper," "The Doors" provided the soundtrack to the Summer of Love. It was an album of startling breadth --~particularly for a debut. "Light My Fire" and "Break On Through (on the Other Side)" were calls to Dionysian ecstasy. A bold coupling of covers --~Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" and Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf's "Back Door Man" -- indicated the Doors' willingness to take on both avantgarde theater and deep blues. And "The End" was a staggering, eleven-minute Oedipal drama that broadened the thematic scope that rock music could encompass. Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, John Cale, Billy Idol, Jim Carrol, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Cult are just a handful of the artists who were profoundly influenced by the wildly poetic persona Jim Morrison defined on "The Doors."The Doors' legendary live shows -- powered by Morrison's charismatic stage presence and the musical versatility of keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore --~had already made them a major force on the L.A. club scene when they began recording their first album in late 1966. The trick was capturing on record what producer Paul Rothchild calls "the very powerful drama, the psychology of the song that the Doors are so famous for now." According to Rothchild, he and the band set one goal. "Every song had to be perfect in that it took you on an aural, visual and psychological journey."Keyboardist Ray Manzarek compares the spiritual atmosphere of the sessions to a "seance in which we tried to communicate with the basic power of the act of creating music. That was what we attempted to capture and communicate to the individual listener."Recording was completed in about a week, and the songs were done live, typically in about two or three takes. Candles were lit and incense burned to set the mood, but according to Manzarek, the Doors required little external assistance to get where they wanted to go."This was the culmination of everything we had worked for," he says. "There were very few drugs; nobody needed to get high on anything. One of Morrison's lines of poetry is 'In that year we had an intense visitation of energy.' Well, in that two-week period we had an intense visitation of energy. The muse descended upon us."The most intense visitation came during "The End," which was done in two takes. Rothchild, who has produced nearly 150 records, describes it as "one of the perfect moments of rock recording." When it came time to do 'The End,' a very different mood took Jim over," Manzarek says. "Jim became shamanistic and led the small group on a shamanistic voyage. He put himself into a trance and, through that, put us all into a trance." As the Doors were performing "The End," Manzarek says, Rothchild turned to engineer Bruce Botnick and said, "I don't know if you know what's happening here, but magic is being made. We are recording magic."When he heard a complete playback of the album, Manzarek had a basic but suitably Oedipal response: "This is a motherf**ker." Despite the band's hopes for success, the record didn't take off for some months; the first single released from it, "Break On Through (to the Other Side)," quickly disappeared. "I think it went to 106," Manzarek says. "We thought, 'Oh, shit, man. Ooh, God, that's scary.' We were hoping for Top Forty, at least." But when Rothchild shortened the seven-minute "Light My Fire" (which was written by Krieger) so it could be released as an AM-radio single, it shot to the top of the charts, and the Doors were on their way."Jim Morrison is now referred to as a poet, a rock immortal," says Manzarek proudly. "He's become a god." Those descriptions correspond perfectly to what he feels the Doors' visionary music was all about -- and may explain why it has lasted. "That's what we tried to convey: a spiritual force in the music, and poetry on top of that," says Manzarek. "People today are just as attuned to that as people in the sixties were." 8/10....
Rolling Stone 1987
The Doors: The Doors
This was actually one of the first "old" CDs I purchased after tiring of contemporary music (the Verve made sure of that) many moons ago. Of course, as is the wont of record companies, all the albums have been subsequently remastered and re-released so half my Doors' collection is brand spanking new and the other is distinctly tatty. Still, at least they didn't put bonus tracks on, so this review, itself, can be as remastered as you want. Whatever that means. Clearly this album was the Doors' debut and, as such, contains three of their most famous songs, "Break on Through", "The End" and, of course, "Light My Fire". Despite later forays into hard blues most of the material on here is fairly poppy. There is one blues cover ("Back Door Man"), a rather bizarre musical medley ("Alabama Song") and a couple of darker, psychedelic numbers (the short and mediocre "End of the Night" and the haunting epic, "The End"). Still, for the most part, the Doors started life as a pop group, albeit with drug-induced nods to psychedelia and a distinctive hard rock edge. Now I'm going to presume you are all familiar, dear readers, with "Light My Fire". Probably the poppiest of songs the Doors did and presumably their most famous song. Poppy, that is, until the middle-section which is an extended instrumental with Manzarek and Krieger swopping solos sandwiched in between the cod-Sinatra croon of the actual "song". I can't say it is the most sensible approach to a pop song, and it won't surprise you to learn that it was released as a single with the instrumental section hacked off, but overall it works fairly well. Clearly a stand-out track on what is, all things considered, a very strong album. The other big single was the more rockier "Break on Through" which opens the album and features no such self-indulgent tricks. Just a straight-up rocker with Jim acting more Iggy than Sinatra. (Obviously I'm not suggesting Morrison copied Iggy as he quite obviously predates him as a singer.) The other "biggie" (in every sense of the word) on the album is the aptly-titled "The End" which closes the album on a long, drawn-out, confusing, sometimes disturbing and utterly psychedelic note. I don't think it is the Door's best epic as it is mostly structureless as opposed to the brilliant strictness of "When the Music's Over" or "The Soft Parade" but it still stands out as a memorable composition. The guitar has a sort of eastern feel to it, occasionally building up into climatic sections to match Morrison's insane ramblings about "weird scenes inside the goldmine" and "riding the snake". The lyrical centre-piece is probably his unnerving description of an Oedipian fantasy. I actually used to do quite a good impression of it but I made sure I gave it up when the joke became lame. Anyway you can certainly see elements of An American Prayer in this number. It is probably most memorable, though, as the theme to the opening credits of Apocalypse Now with the napalm and the helicopters and stuff. Seeing that scene in the cinema really brings a new element to the song. Anyway, overall I'd say the song is mostly pretty impressive but I doubt it marks the high-point of the Doors' album-closing epics. The cover of "Back Door Man" is also a highpoint on the album which perfectly counter-balances the light-weight pop of "Light My Fire". Again Morrison is on form with his exaggerated growling and yelping and the pounding, almost heavy, blues is something that they would mostly concentrate on for their last couple of albums. "Soul Kitchen" is an organ driven rock song while "The Crystal Ship" is a restrained, gentle ballad. "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", on the other hand, is an amalgamation of two musical-hall classics: "Whiskey Bar" from a German musical and the traditional American "Moon of Alabama". It is certainly an interesting blend but, you can't help but feeling, maybe a little out of place on the album. As for weak-spots, "End of the Night" is not fantastic and "Twentieth Century Fox" and "I Looked at You" are both slightly generic pop songs; certainly nothing special. Still, as is often the ways with debut albums, the band have yet to find their forte. Certainly this album is bursting with good ideas, most of which, to some extent, are successfully pulled off. 9/10
Jack Feeneys Reviews
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 10, 2006 18:15:54 GMT
 The Doors Stamp Set |
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Post by jym on May 10, 2006 20:36:34 GMT
I guess you can lick The Doors.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 15, 2006 11:04:01 GMT
[glow=red,2,300]Making of The Doors: The Recording Sessions[/glow]
"In the eighteen years which had passed since Jac Holzman started Elektra Records in college, it had grown from little more than a tape recorder and microphone strapped onto the back of Holzman's motor scooter to a well-known folk label in the process of expanding into the burgeoning rock scene. Holzman had signed Paul Butterfield and Love when he decided the exhibitionist debauch known as the Doors was just what he needed.
He had great foresight - many other record executives were blind to the movement in 1966 - these same executives would descend on the California rock scene to scrape up whatever was left a year later.
Sunset Sound Recording Studios was located at 6650 West Sunset Blvd. Sunset Sound was known at the time, for it's ability to duplicate a "live" feel, which was what Holzman wanted, and in early September 1966, The Doors and Paul Rothchild began sessions there.
Rothchild was just the kind of producer the Doors needed. He was intelligent and well read, understanding poetry, jazz and rock 'n' roll. While a very strong presence in the studio, he also knew how to give the band room when they needed it.
"Things were wonderful in the Sixties because it was an era of intense experimentation," Rothchild has said. "Everyone was trying to out-hip each other. With the Doors we tried to strike a very fine line between being very fresh and original and being documentary - making the record sound like it really happened live, which it did, for the most part. I personally always try to focus on longevity and honesty. We stayed away from trendy clichés, including the use of popular devices of the time like wa-wa pedals. . .we would do advanced and"is to draw from the creative musician the maximum of his capabilities."
Engineer Bruce Botnick remembers the sessions: "Paul sat in on rehearsals like any good producer does, and clarified things for recording. He, of course, had problems with dramatic license, having to deal with profanity, which in those days had to be kept off the record. Paul had a lot of work to deal with Jim at the time, it was tough, real tough work for him, but he hung in there and did it."
Botnick came into the Doors sessions with five years experience under his belt, working with Buffalo Springfield and Love. He recalls meeting the Doors: "I'd never seen them before in my life. They were just a local bar band. I was impressed with them but it wasn't like 'Oh my God, this is going to be the heaviest band in the world,' because you just didn't think about that. It was my music also, my genre, they were all my age, we were all growing together. It felt real natural."
For the Doors the studio was a new medium. Not only did they have to contend with recording techniques which were unfamiliar to them, but they had to get used to performing in a different environment as well - they had to give their best without depending on the energy they were used to receiving from an audience. They spent a couple of days recording songs which did not make it to the album; they didn't stop with the perfect take, they stopped at the one they felt had the muse in it.
According to Rothchild the entire album was done on a four-track recorder, and for the most part, they only used three tracks. He recorded bass and drums on one track, guitar and organ on another, and Morrison's vocals on the third, leaving the fourth track open for for a few extras.
Rothchild brought in an uncredited bass player named Larry Knechtel because he felt Ray's piano-bass sound lacked definition. Rothchild wasn't afraid to give JIm any ideas, but he felt little was needed. Jim was completely in control, on top of everything he did. Rothchild remembers: ''I'd met musicians who were fine people, but JIm was the first I'd met since Michael Bloomfield, who was a stunning intellect. He was well read and sensitive to things around him and within himself. He was unafraid to reveal himself, to put the vulnerable side of himself onstage. He was exposing his soul, and that was bravery to the extreme in those days when everybody was posturing."
Rothchild overdubbed Morrison singing harmony to himself on a couple of songs. At that time double voicing as very avant - garde and it accounts for part of the eeriness of the vocal sound on the first album.
In 1966 Sunset Sound had one of the finest echo chambers in the world. It was essentially a small floating chamber, a room within a room, constructed of hard polished surfaces. They also had the first isolation booth for vocals, which was a major advance in recording techniques.
Botnick remembers Jim as a natural, spontaneous singer. "He never considered himself a singer, although toward the end he started to think of himself in light of Frank Sinatra, because he liked the way Sinatra used to phrase. He was a big student of singers, he used to listen to Elvis's phrasing, but I think his biggest influence was Sinatra. But he sang from his heart, it wasn't premeditated. He was among the first group of singer - songwriters where his singing was a way to present his words. He never studied singing, he just sang. He had good pipes."
While many bands struggle with disagreement in the studio, on their first album, the Doors seemed to have a true unity of purpose. According to Rothchild, he and the band set one goal; every song had to take you on an aural, visual and psychological journey. From a strictly musical standpoint, the material was exceptionally good. The group chose the songs carefully. Rothchild believes the inclusion of Brecht & Weill's "Alabama Song" was intellectually significant for the Doors. "Both Jim and Ray were admirers of Brecht and Weill. I suppose they were saying in the Thirties what Jim was trying to get across in the Sixties. In different ways, they were both trying to declare a reality to their generation."
Most of the Doors' originals were recorded the way they'd performed them night after night on the Strip. What had evolved over the course of a year was now being captured on tape. While recording End of the Night however, Jim decided to change one of the lines at the last minute. He had always previously performed it as "Take a trip to the end of the night," but in the studio he decided the word "trip" was overused, so he changed it to "highway".
Everyone involved in the recording felt there were many special moments where things just came together in an almost magical way. This feeling was particularly prevalent during the recording of The End. Although the song would eventually come off as unique and exciting in the studio as it was performed live, the first time The Doors tried to record it, Jim was high on acid, and after numerous tries, they gave up for the night. Rothchild described the night for Crawdaddy: "We tried, and we just couldn't get it. Jim wanted desperately to do it. His entire being was screaming...he was emotionally very moved. At one point he had tears in his eyes in the session and he shouted in the studio 'Does anybody understand me?' Right then and there we got into a long discussion about this section of the song. But it wasn't working. I have tried several times to record artists on acid and it doesn't work."
The next day was different, however. Due to the complexity of the song, a good portion of the day was spent setting up, but once the tape began rolling the performance was what Paul Rothchild later called "the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever witnessed in a studio." For the recording, the studio was completely darkened except for the lights on the recording console and a single candle burning next to Jim. "I was totally overwhelmed. Normally, the producer sits there just listening for all the things that are right and anything about to go wrong, but for this take I was completely sucked up into it, absolutely an audience."
"We were about six minutes into it when I turned to Bruce and said 'Do you understand what's happening here? This is one of the most important moments in recorded rock 'n' roll.' It was a magic moment. Jim was doing The End, doing it for all time, and I was pulled off, right on down his road. He said come with me and I did. And it was almost a shock when the song was over - it felt like, yes, it's the end, that's the end, that's the statement, it cannot go any further. When they were done, I felt emotionally washed. I had goose bumps from head to foot. For one of the very first times in rock 'n' roll history, sheer drama had taken place on tape...Bruce was also completely sucked into it. His head was on the console, and he was just absolutely immersed in the take - he became part of the audience, too. So the muse did visit the studio that night, and all of us were audience. The machines knew what to do, I guess. It was magic."
According to Jim, the recording of The End was a turning point in the Doors attitude toward their music. "We didn't start out with such big ideas. We thought we were going to be just another pop group, but then something happened when we recorded The End. We saw that what we were doing was more important than just a hit song. We were writing serious music and performing it in a very dramatic way. The End is like going to see a movie when you already know the plot. It's a timeless piece of material...it was then that we realized we were different from other groups. We were playing music that would last for years, not weeks."
The night they recorded The End would always remain a significant moment for Jim. After everyone finally went home for the night, he couldn't stop thinking about it and wound up returning to the studio alone. Ray tells what happened: "He took the fire extinguisher and hosed the whole place down...not in the control room, thank God, just in the area where the band was...just blasted the whole place man, just to cool it down. And the studio people came in the next morning - they didn't now anything about it. Somehow he just snuck in there, past the guard and everything. Thank God - he would've been in jail! The studio people just absolutely freaked. Paul said 'uh, don't worry, don't worry, Elektra will pay for it, no reason to call the police.' He knew right away who did it, you know. We all knew right away what had happened."
Break On Through by Riordan/Prochnicky
The Doors
The self titled debut album of The Doors was released around the time of the summer of love but the Doors didn't sing about wearing flowers in your hair. The band's frontman, Jim Morrison, sung about the darker side of life and used serious literary works as lyrical inspiration.
The Doors is a timeless album. This can be attributed in part to the producer, Paul Rothchild. He deliberately avoided gimmickry and trendy effects. For example, he prohibited the band's guitarist, Robby Krieger, from using the wah-wah pedal which was all the rage at the time.
The only thing that dates this album is the stereo mix. Stereo was in its infancy at the time and the mix on my copy of the album is not true stereo. The drums and bass are panned hard left and the guitar and keyboards are panned hard right.
The Doors had unusual instrumentation for a rock band. They didn't have a bass player. In live performance Ray Manzarek played a keyboard bass with one hand while playing the organ with the other. On studio recordings they used session bass players.
Robby Krieger didn't play typical rock guitar. He had a background in flamenco style guitar and often wove single note guitar lines into the music instead of playing rhythm chords.
The most successful song on the debut album is 'Light my Fire.' The album version features a lengthy solo which was edited out for release as a single. The single was a number one hit and was successfully covered by Jose Feliciano a while later. This was the first song ever written by Krieger. Not a bad start to a song writing career. Apparently he needed one line to complete the song and Morrison supplied the typically dark line about a funeral pyre.
The highlight of the album is the epic 'The End' which later featured in the film Apocalypse Now. It takes rock music into previously uncharted territory, way beyond the constraints of a three minute radio song. It meanders along with a loose, informal structure for over eleven minutes. The lyrics start in a straight forward manner about a relationship breakup but turn into an Oedipal nightmare. Weird scenes indeed.
Most of the songs on the album were written by the band but there are also two covers taken from their live set. One is Willie Dixon's 'Back Door Man.' The other is 'Alabama Song' from a Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera, the Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Although the latter song is musically divergent from the rest of the album it is consistent with the theatrical nature of the Doors.
The Doors' debut album is a classic and was released at a turning point in rock history when the album became more important than singles to many artists.
Review by Bill Rendall @ Rock Album reviews.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 18, 2006 10:51:56 GMT
 Rare original 1967 UK 11-track 'rough' dark orange Elektra label stereo LP, laminated picture sleeve.  Rare original 1969 UK orange Elektra label 11-track MONO LP.  The Doors Rare 1971 Japanese white label promo sample issue of the 1967 11-track LP including fold out Japanese/lyric insert, picture sleeve & 'butterfly' obi-strip.  Brit Gold Disc award for the debut album which bombed in 1967 reaching a derisory #43 for one week and then dissapearing. In 1991 the album finally managed to do well in the British Charts reaching #11 as a consequence of the hysteria generated here by The Doors Movie.  Chinese version! |
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 19, 2006 14:37:24 GMT
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 26, 2006 0:11:06 GMT
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Oct 9, 2007 8:26:09 GMT
 THE DOORS In The Studio - The Doors US 5-track Album Network radio show CD hosted by Ray Manzarek, features interviews with Ray plus the hit single Break On Through, for broadcast January 1992, with full cues. |
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jul 24, 2008 12:12:54 GMT
The Doors: Album Guide - The Doors (1967)
Was there ever a more evocative start to any band’s very first album – to any band’s story – than ‘Break on Through (To the Other Side)’? Named after acid-guru Aldous Huxley’s famous tome, The Doors of Perception, the band lives up to its name the moment Morrison opens his mouth: “You know the day destroys the night / Night divides the day / Try to run, try to hide / Break on through to the other side…” The next thing you notice is the sound. Sure, there’s a sinewy guitar in there, courtesy of Robby Krieger, and, yes, John Densmore’s drums are certainly propulsive. But it’s Ray Manzarek’s rippling, moody keyboards you really notice, the thing that’s actually building the riffs. That’s him playing the bass on the keyboards, too. A bizarre rock-blues-jazz-classical combo that shouldn’t have worked yet does to spectacular effect. Not least on highlights like the full, unedited, absolutely insane version of ‘Light My Fire’ – their first US No. 1 single and such an ironclad classic not even Jose ‘Easy Listening’ Feliciano or Will ‘Pop Stars Winner’ Young could later ruin it (well, not totally…). Almost as if to prove just how unique their sound – their take on things – was, they also took the Brecht and Weil classic ‘Alabama Song’ and Willie Dixon’s hoary ‘Back Door Man’ and made them into their own. Then rounded the whole thing off with rock’s first avowedly oedipal song suite: the 11-minute-plus ‘The End’. And yet this was just the beginning…
Tracklist: Break On Through / Soul Kitchen / Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / Looked At You / End Of The Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
Mick Wall 2008
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 15, 2011 17:20:11 GMT
 !st pressing of debut LP.  The Doors rare Outtake Photograph From First Album Cover Shoot  An original white matte RIAA certified gold record award for the long-playing album "The Doors" presented to Elektra Records. |
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 2, 2011 18:28:05 GMT
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Mar 19, 2011 16:33:35 GMT
They called themselves The Doors, as in ‘the doors of perception’ – Jim especially liked their name. It suited the kind of lyrics he had prepared. The group were formed by College buddies Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. Ray played Piano, Keyboards, Organ. He had a love for the blues and a heavy liking for Jazz music. After Robby Krieger and John Densmore were added to the line up on guitar and drums respectively – they still lacked a bass player. The solution arrived partly due to a technique ray learned from boogie woogie piano ( the left hand plays all the bass parts ) and also with the aid of a Fender Rhodes keyboard bass sat atop rays vox continental. Ray Manzareks left hand became the groups bass player! It would continue that way through live concerts - though as the Fender Rhodes wasn’t so great in recording studios in terms of fidelity - they would switch to using assorted session guys for later albums. On this, their debut, Rays Fender runs through every song. I guess they stopped using it due to the way it would threaten to break up and distort. For me though it’s a key element to the sound and appeal of this record and sets it apart from other Doors albums. This isn’t really a slick sounding record but maybe because of that, it does have a certain edge.
John and Robbie were both adept at blues, rock and possessed knowledge of jazz. The long extended soloing in the middle section of ‘Light My Fire’ takes its inspiration directly from Jazz, certainly. Its also a thing of sheer hypnotic splendour! Its hallucinogenic – I can listen to that part over and over, and when it swings back in to Jim’s vocal – is a thing to behold. This entire middle section was cut out from the single version. Consequently, although it became a massive hit for them, lost much of its power. The full extended album version however, well. This rocks! A similar although much shorter break was featured on opening song ‘Break On Through’. Two and a half minutes of perfection. Everything The Doors ever were or would be is right here, in this one song. Plenty more to come though! Themes to be developed and expanded upon. ‘The End’ is also an important song, being the first extended epic The Doors produced. Well, the LP version of ‘Light My Fire’ clocks in at six minutes fifty ( although actually runs just past seven minutes ) but isn’t an epic in the terms of ‘The End’ or their latter ‘When The Music’s Over’. ‘The End’ is all atmosphere. An excuse for Jim Morrison to provide us with poetry but it remains captivating given his vocal performance. A vocal full of doom and preacher like intensity.
With all of this heaviness the likes of ‘Soul Kitchen’ and the slightly silly ‘Twentieth Century Fox’ provide welcome diversions. Lighter material but still in keeping with the sound of the overall record. We have highlights with a suitably intense version of Willie Dixon’s ‘Back Door Man’ as well as another cover, a dramatic, superb take on Brecht and Weills ‘Alabama Song’. Here, the keyboard takes on a weird European circus flavour that combined with Jims deep but playful vocal certainly raises a smile. And! Still more highlights! The wonderful ‘Crystal Ship’ almost defies musical explanation. A number of shorter, simpler songs appearing towards the end of the album perhaps lack the genius of other cuts here but each plays a part in adding to the album as a whole. An album that bears up well to repeated listening. A classic debut that even manages to have classic artwork on its front sleeve. The way Jims face is shown coming out at you is striking and it all combines to provide a wonderfully complete and superb album.
The Doors 9/10 ( 1967 )
Break on Through / Soul Kitchen / The Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / I Looked at You / End of the Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
Adrian Denning
The Doors (1967) 8.5
Break on Through (to the Other Side) / Soul Kitchen / The Crystal Ship / Twentieth Century Fox / Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) / Light My Fire / Back Door Man / I Looked at You / End of the Night / Take It As It Comes / The End
The Doors were a talented group of musicians, able to merge the most unlikely influences thinkable at the time, but they ran out of ideas quickly, not in the least because vocalist Jim Morison’s theatrical, self-obsessed and tortured poet-mystique became erratic really fast. That’s one interpretation. Others claim that The Doors were perhaps the ultimate chroniclers of late ‘60’s pop culture and counterculture, the first band to successfully unveil the childish optimism of the ‘Summer of Love’ nonsense, and pioneers of rock’s darker impulses as channelled through multi-faceted music and literary musings that owed as much to French symbolism as they did to psychology and 19th century European philosophy (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche). Well, of course it’s true that a lot of Morrison’s shtick was nothing but a pose (has there been any art school student who hasn’t been infatuated by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Kafka at one point on his/her journey to maturity?), and that a lot of his lyrics basically evolved around his “adolescent exhibitionism” and were a slight version of his heroes’ art (is it surprising they copped their name from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Huxley being a prophet of mind-expanding exploration?), but you gotta give him that he had few predecessors in the rock business. There had been a lot of poetry volume-waving beatniks around, but they were mainly interested in cool clubs and jazz, so Morrison’s dark vision and controversial attitude certainly were something awkward at the time (it’s telling that Love’s Arthur Lee allegedly had to beg Elektra chief Holzman to check them out).
The secret to the band’s success is of course their unique approach: they didn’t have a steady bass player – even though there usually was one when they recorded their albums (in this case: Danny Labahn) and from the get-go onwards came up with an hereto unheard blend of blues, pop, jazz, Eastern influences and even classical. All this was possible because of their different backgrounds, as organist Manzarek was classically trained, guitar player Robbie Krieger a blues fanatic and drummer John Densmore a jazz buff who accidentally wound up in a rock band. Then, there’s Jim Morrison, and no matter how fake his attitude might seem today, it’s undeniable that he was a superb vocalist with a commanding baritone he used to sing, whisper, cajole and growl (which he did with style). While they’re famous because of their epics (“The End,” “Riders on the Storm,” “L.A. Woman”) there’s actually not much jamming going on here, as the majority of these songs don’t even pass the three minute-mark. “Break on Through,” the album’s first single, for instance, clocks in at a concise 2:25, and what a great 145 seconds it is, from the jazz-accented intro to Morrison’s ferocious hollering and Krieger’s greasy guitar tone, it’s one of the year’s best singles (and there were quite a lot of goodies). However, it was the second single “Light My Fire” that broke the band, and while I actually prefer the first to the second, this extended album version of the latter (more soloing, baby) might be better at stressing the band’s unique acid-drenched testosterone rock. Nowadays, Manzarek’s organ sounds completely dated, but I can imagine that the Sunset Strip boys totally loved that never-ending, mantra-like kind of stuff. The album contains a bunch of excellent tracks, several of which are finished by Morrison’s fine vocals. “The Crystal Ship,” for instance, isn’t that interesting when only listening to the music, but it gets its charms from the drugged vocal delivery. Likewise, the best part of “Twentieth Century Fox” -aside from Krieger’s short but thrilling solo – comes when Morrison rhythmically delivers lines such as “She - won’t - waste - time - on e-le-men-try – ta-halk.” The album also includes a first attempt at straight blues – Willie Dixon’s “Back Door Man” – and the result is a simple, struttin’ rendition that has “SEX” all over it. Even more than Mick Jagger, Morrison employed a degree of sleaze and vulgarity to make his point, and it works brilliantly here.
Playing the blues is something they’d actually return to when they ran out of silly ideas. It’s no surprise then that their bluesiest album would become their most consistent one. But in the meantime, there are a few excellent rockers as well: the fine “Soul Kitchen,” with its restrained verses and rocking chorus would be covered by X a dozen years later, whereas tracks like “I Looked at You” and “Take It As It Comes” – though not nearly as unique as the highlights – are fine in their conformity. In fact, I only have a (several) bone to pick with the album’s “creepy” moments: “End of the Night” (inspired by L.F. Celine’s Voyage au Bout de la Nuit? Probably) is nothing special (and that eerie slide guitar doesn't help much either), and then there’s the lauded final, “The End.” I can’t stand that song anymore. I still like the hypnotic feel of the song, especially Krieger’s supremely atmospheric playing and Densmore’s occasional outbursts, but those theatrical vocals just annoy the fuck out of me. Whereas the opera-like ambiance of the multi-part “Alabama Song” (Weill-Brecht! European! Arty! Cool!) still cracks me up, this 11-minute Oedipal tale just seems so bloated and, well, silly. Of course, it must’ve been controversial and very daring at the time, but this website isn’t (only) concerned with the innovative/controversial/influential-aspect of the music (if it were, a 10 would be unavoidable), and I can’t enjoy it because it’s an embarrassingly dated example of a defunct bullshit detector. That said, the majority of these songs here are not only unique, but also memorable tracks that show the band’s ambition and confidence already in full force.
Guy Peters
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jun 22, 2011 20:32:19 GMT
The Doors
IN EARLY 1967, John Peel started playing tracks from the debut album by a new Californian group called The Doors. With no knowledge of the men responsible and little contemporary US music to compare it to except feet-finding debuts by Love and Jefferson Airplane, this remarkable music was all there was to go on. Nobody had sounded like this before or has done since.
The Doors mixed spaced blues and unfettered jazz improvisation with a rivetingly sexual voice singing the deepest lyrics yet to grace a rock record, all bathed in a lustrous hallucinogenic sheen. The opiated sonic cocktails created by keyboard-player Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore has sometimes been overshadowed by the tales of late singer Jim Morrison's booze-fuelled snake-waving and ongoing mystery surrounding his 1971 death. The Doors sound is as jawdropping and otherworldly on the new state-of-the-art reissues as it was then. I'm not here to stoke the Morrison myth, more to point out that he was one quarter of a true magic band.
In summer 1965, fellow U.C.L.A. students Morrison and Manzarek collided on L.A.'s Venice Beach and, with a little prodding, Jim sang 'Moonlight Drive', one of the songs he'd been concocting in his head on the roof of a nearby abandoned building. As Ray likes to put it, "Maybe there were some angels pulling it all together that day on the beach in Venice, California."
Angels did overtime as Ray's group, Rick and the Ravens, morphed into the Doors with Jim joined by jazz-loving drummer John Densmore and Ray's brothers replaced by guitarist Robby Krieger. Jim took the name from Aldous Huxley's mescaline romp The Doors Of Perception. Instead of a bassist, Ray played Fender Piano Bass with his left hand while tattooing riffs and solos with his right.
The Doors' sound seemed unique from the off. It couldn't have just fallen out of the sky. That's what I said to Ray Manzarek and he was off, wonderfully animated like he just worked it out. "Maybe it did, man, it's possible it did just fall out of the sky! Robby Krieger plays flamenco guitar with his fingers as he's playing rock 'n' roll. He's also playing that wonderful bottleneck guitar that comes out of his jug band days. Here's the keyboard player who's out of Chicago with blues roots but he also studied classical music and was a jazz lover. You add that dark, Slavic soul to Robby Krieger's sliding, snaky, crystalline bottleneck guitar and underneath you put this jazz drummer, who also played in a marching band. On top of that you float a Beat-French symbolist-Southern Gothic poet singing some very, very interesting lyrics. Maybe it did just fall together. How does that sound get made? Y'know, sometimes magic does happen."
Songs evolved fast, classics appearing early. "At first Jim was writing everything then one day we said, 'Hey, we haven't got enough originals'," recalls Robby Krieger, taking time out from his Russian Caravan project with ex-Frank Zappa bandleader Arthur Barrow. "Jim says, 'Hey, why don't you guys write some too?' That's when I went and wrote 'Light My Fire'. I'm glad he said that!"
'Light My Fire' would not only become the Doors' first number one but started their renowned stretching out through telepathic improvisations. Robby: "Up until then the Doors were doing three-chord type songs that were pretty simple like 'I Looked At You' or 'End Of The Night'. I wanted to write something more adventurous. I decided I was going to put every chord I knew into this song and did! There's about 14 different chords in there. We said, 'Let's do it like Coltrane, A minor to B minor like he did on 'My Favourite Things'.' As we played it over the next year the solos got longer and longer. It was very organic. I wish I could say we planned it that way but it just came out."
After rejection by L.A.'s clubs for being "too weird", the Doors ended up playing a dive called the London Fog. "We had to play four, sometimes five sets a night," recalls Ray. "Night after night for virtually nobody. We got the opportunity to do anything we wanted to fill up four or five hours. So every night we would play 'The End', 'When The Music's Over', 'Light My Fire' and expand those things. 'The End' had originally started off as a two or three minute love song and we just kept playing it while Jim started adding lyrics to it."
The booking agent for top Sunset Strip club the Whisky A Go Go was impressed enough to make the Doors house band between May and August 1966. Now everything gelled and their career took off.
"There were hundreds of people virtually every night because it was the Mecca of rock 'n' roll so we're playing for a packed audience and our songs are together. It was 1966, the Los Angeles summer of love. All the long-hairs had come to the Sunset Strip from all over L.A. The freaks. We weren't even called hippies then. All the freaks had come together. To play for an audience like that aroused all the passion that we possibly had in our bodies."
'The End' gained its Oedipal monologue one August night after Jim ingested 40 times the usual amount of Owsley acid. It slaughtered the crowd and got the Doors fired from the club but convinced Elektra boss Jac Holzman to sign them. They recorded the first album in two weeks with producer Paul Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnik capturing their sound with crystal clarity. The Doors released their first single 'Break On Through [To The Other Side]' in January 1967 but it was the album and 'Light My Fire' hitting number one which bust them out of L.A. clubland and saw Jim "neglecting" to change the word "higher" on The Ed Sullivan Show. The group were soon back in the studio recording more of their set for the incandescent Strange Days. No difficult second album there.
MEANWHILE, AFTER incidents like being arrested onstage for public disorder in Newhaven, Connecticut, Jim not only became counter-culture figurehead but teen-mag pinup. His idea of success had been the respect given to Love, the sinister local heroes who wouldn't tour. Jim's antidote to sudden stardom lay in the bottle. Or, as Ray Manzarek puts it, "We had to receive Jimbo. Out of the bottle of alcohol and occupying the personality of Jim was a besotted lout known as Jim-bo. It was like, What the fuck? Jim? Just how drunk do you intend on getting? Jim? Are you there? Oh my God, it's not Jim at all! it's Jim-bo. That was weird man. Strange days had indeed found us at that point."
It wasn't until writing his autobiography, Light My Fire, at the age of 50 that Ray nailed the Jimbo persona. "I began to realise, there was a psychotic break here, but interestingly Jim Morrison always thought of himself as a shaman. He talked about the shaman: [uncanny Morrison drawl] 'You know the Shaman's got a crack, Ray. He's an unusual individual in the tribe but he's kind of cracked, and out of that crack comes his abilities to say things. As we say about a crazy person, he's a little cracked'. I never thought of Jim as insane but it was there. That's what made him so great. That's what made his poetry and public performances so great. But pour alcohol into that crack and you don't wanna see what's gonna come out."
Jimbo became a raucous buffoon getting his knob out; not funny any more, especially when recording the next two albums, Waiting For The Sun and The Soft Parade, reaching such a nadir during the latter that the other Doors took over. Starting late 1968, recording lasted nine painful months with Robby writing half the songs. Ray now cacklingly takes the blame for smoothing down the sound with horns and strings but the album was critically mauled and didn't sell as well as its chart-topping predecessor.
In March 1969, Jim got busted at a riotous gig in Miami. It was alleged he flashed his lizard but the band maintain he didn't. The trial would hang over for his head for the next 18 months until he got convicted for public profanity and indecent exposure [The appeal was never heard]. The Doors went into the studio against all odds but some kind of Dunkirk spirit stirred and, reacting against the sheen of The Soft Parade, they returned to the basics of rock 'n' roll, blues and their own sound to make the astonishingly-successful Morrison Hotel.
During the trial, Jim was allowed to make the Doors' only other UK appearance, in September 1970 at the Isle Of Wight Festival [They had previously played two rapturously-received shows at London's Roundhouse in September 1968]. Although they played faves without incident, Jim was lifeless. The Doors saw it as one of their worst gigs.
In late 1970, the Doors started recording again. Rothchild didn't like their new music and left the group and Botnick creating the timeless masterpiece L.A. Woman. The title track and 'Riders On The Storm' cruised immaculately.
"Yeah it was kind of like driving music," agrees Ray. "It's funny you should mention those two songs because they were like a new way of writing. We all just played in the studio and those songs just happened. We were just fooling around playing 'Ghost Riders In The Sky' and suddenly Jim starts coming up with 'Riders On The Storm'. It just kind of happened spontaneously."
Album finished, Jim made his last trip to Paris in February 1971 and died mysteriously in early July while Ray and the Doors waited for him to return with new lyrics. "When he said, 'I'm going to Paris', I thought excellent, an American in Paris. Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Jim Morrison. Carry on the American tradition. Leave the groupies, leave the drinking buddies, go to Paris, refresh yourself and start writing.
"Jim was writing as fast as he could in Paris, working up some strong ideas. I have a lot of the stuff. Some of it's very, very good. But there is a sense of despair in there too. It's like, 'Jim? What the fuck man?' This is my buddy from film school. When we put a band together on the beach in Venice he sang the songs to me and I said, 'That's brilliant, let's get a rock 'n' roll band together. We're going all the way with this thing. The Beatles, the Stones, in between are going to be the Doors!'. We got to Madison Square Garden and had the number one song in America. Yet in the writings in Paris there was this note of despair. It was like, 'What do you have to despair over?'. And I don't know the answer. There was something eating at Jim. Some problem on the inside that was unresolved. It caused him to drink, I'm sure, and God knows what he was into in Paris."
Unfortunately, Jim's written word material is owned by the family of Pam Courson, his longtime girlfriend who accompanied him to Paris and died herself in 1974.
"I'm gonna do my best to get my hands on what are obviously song lyrics," declares Ray. "Some day we can put some of those songs together. Unfortunately Pamela Courson's mother controls Jim Morrison's poetry. Fuck! Fuck, man! Jim's probably listening in now saying, 'Oh Ray, get that stuff back and put it out will you?'."
IN 2003, RAY and Robby formed the Doors Of The 21st Century to carry on the Doors spirit live with Cult frontman Ian Astbury singing. John Densmore not only declined but successfully sued with Morrison's family. Now called Riders On The Storm, the pair have recruited ex-Fuel singer Brett Scallions to tour Europe in June. Last year, I got married to a Doors fanatic called Michelle. The honeymoon was spent in Paris, following Morrison's trail through the bars to the flat where he died and the cemetery which has become a worldwide mecca for devotees. Riders On The Storm play Paris on July 3, the 36th anniversary of Jim's death and also my birthday, so the honeymoon continues.
At 68, Ray Manzarek still feels passionately that Doors music has a place in the 21st century, whether its mighty influence on music over the past 40 years or saying something to today's youth. "That's what we hope to do, even more than the bands, just the young people walking the street thinking, 'Where did I come from? Why am I here? What am I doing with my life? I know some day I'm gonna die, where do I go after I die?' Hopefully we can help you along with those questions: the idea of freedom and if you can find a freedom for yourself in the Doors lyrics and music."
Robby Krieger is philosophical. "For a while when I was doing my solo stuff I just wanted to get away from the Doors but then over the years I've realised that something like that only happens once in a lifetime, so you've got to be proud of it. I don't mind talking about it or even playing those songs. They're still fun to play. When a lot of kids first hear it they might not know about any of the legend and stuff at all. They might just like how it sounds."
That sounds rather familiar...
Kris Needs, Clash, May 2007
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