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Rock & Roll Museum The Doors |
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Sex, death, reptiles, charisma, and a unique variant of the electric blues gave the Doors an aura of profundity that not only survived but has grown during the two decades plus since Jim Morrison's death. By themselves, Morrison's lyrics read like adolescent posturings, but with his sexually charged delivery, Ray Manzarek's dry organ, and Robby Krieger's jazzy guitar, they became eerie, powerful, almost shamanistic invocations that hinted at a familiarity with darker forces, and, in Morrison's case, an obsession with excess and death. At its best, the Doors' music -- "Light My Fire," "L.A. Woman" -- has come to evoke a noirish view of Sixties California that contrasts sharply with the era's prevailing folky, trippy style. Morrison and Manzarek, acquaintances from the UCLA Graduate School of Film, conceived the group at a 1965 meeting on a Southern California beach. After Morrison recited one of his poems, "Moonlight Drive," Manzarek -- who had studied classical piano as a child and played in Rick and the Ravens, a UCLA blues band -- suggested they collaborate on songs. Manzarek's brothers, Rick and Jim, served as guitarists until Manzarek met John Densmore, who brought in Robby Krieger; both had been members of the Psychedelic Rangers. Morrison christened the band the Doors, from William Blake via Aldous Huxley's book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception. |
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By then Jac Holzman of Elektra Records had been convinced by Arthur Lee of Love to sign the band. An edited version of Krieger's "Light My Fire" from the Doors' debut album became a #1 hit in 1967, as did the album, while "progressive" FM radio played (and analyzed) "The End." Morrison's image as the embodiment of dark psychological impulses was established quickly, even as he was being featured in such teen magazines as 16. Strange Days (#3, 1967) and Waiting for the Sun (#1, 1968) both included hit singles and became bestselling albums. Waiting for the Sun also marked the first appearance of Morrison's mythic alter ego, the Lizard King, in a poem printed inside the record jacket entitled "The Celebration of the Lizard King." Though part of the poem was used as lyrics for "Not to Touch the Earth," a complete "Celebration" didn't appear on record until Absolutely Live (#8, 1970). |
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The Soft Parade (#6, 1969), far more elaborately produced than the Doors' other albums, met with a mixed reception from fans, but it too had a #3 hit single, "Touch Me." Morrison began to devote more attention to projects outside the band: writing poetry, collaborating on a screenplay with poet Michael McClure, and directing a film, A Feast of Friends (he had also made films to accompany "Break On Through" and the 1968 single "The Unknown Soldier"). Simon and Schuster published The Lords and the New Creatures in 1971; an earlier book, An American Prayer, was privately printed in 1970 but not made widely available until 1978, when the surviving Doors regrouped and set Morrison's recitation of the poem to music. In 1989 Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison was published. Although Morrison expressed to friends and associates his wish to be remembered as a poet, overall his writings have found few fans among critics. By then some felt, especially after "Touch Me," that the band had sold out, and Morrison's dangerous persona was more often ridiculed than not. Critic Lester Bangs once tagged him "Bozo Dionysus." Soon after L.A. Woman (#9, 1971) was recorded, Morrison took an extended leave of absence from the group. Obviously physically and emotionally drained, he moved to Paris, where he hoped to write and where he and his wife, Pamela Courson Morrison, lived in seclusion. He died of heart failure in his bathtub in 1971 at age 27. Partly because news of his death was not made public until days after his burial in Paris' Père-Lachaise cemetery, some still refuse to believe Morrison is dead. His wife, one of the few people who saw Morrison's corpse, died in Hollywood of a heroin overdose on April 25, 1974. |
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Ironically, the group's best years began in 1980, nine years after Morrison's death. With the release of the Danny Sugerman-Jerry Hopkins biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, sales of the Doors' music and the already large Jim Morrison cult -- spurred by his many admirers and imitators in new-wave bands -- grew even more. Record sales for 1980 alone topped all previous figures; as one ROLLING STONE magazine cover line put it: "He's Hot, He's Sexy, He's Dead." And that was just the beginning. The 1983 release of Alive, She Cried, followed by MTV's airing of Doors videos, introduced Morrison and the band to a new generation, and Oliver Stone's 1991 film biography of the group, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison, was a critical and commercial success. Of the 12 Doors albums, all are gold, and seven are platinum. The 1995 reissue of An American Prayer features "The Ghost Song," a new track on which the surviving Doors provided musical backing to an old recording of Morrison reading from his work. In 1990 his graffiti-covered headstone was stolen; in 1993, on what would have been his 50th birthday, hundreds of mourners -- many not even born before he died -- traveled from around the world to pay tribute. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Interesting Links: Send
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