Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. more...

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They were one of the most controversial bands of their time, due mostly to Morrison's cryptic lyrics and unpredictable stage persona. Since the band's dissolution in 1972 — and especially since Morrison's death in 1971 — interest in the Doors' music has remained high, especially from the Morrison era. They have sold over 75 million albums worldwide, and still sell approximately 1 million annually.

1965-68: The early Jim Morrison era

July 1965-August 21, 1966: Origins and formation

The origins of The Doors lay in a chance meeting between acquaintances and fellow UCLA film school alumni Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach California in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek's encouragement, sang "Moonlight Drive". Impressed by Morrison's lyrics, Manzarek suggested they form a band.

Keyboardist Ray Manzarek was in a band called Rick and the Ravens with his brother Rick Manzarek, while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from yoga and meditation classes. In August, Densmore joined the group and, along with members of the Ravens and bass player Pat Sullivan (later credited using her married name Patricia Hansen in the 1997 box CD release), recorded a six-song demo in September 1965. This was widely bootlegged and appeared in full on the 1997 Doors box set.

That month the group recruited guitarist Robby Krieger, and the final lineup — Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore — was complete. The band took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, which was in turn borrowed from a line in a poem by the 18th century artist and poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite".

The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar when playing live. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, playing other keyboards with his right hand. On their studio albums (with the notable exception of their eponymous first record), The Doors did use bass players such as Jerry Scheff, Doug Lubahn, who also played with Clear Light, Harvey Brooks, Kerry Magness, Lonnie Mack, Larry Knechtel, Leroy Vinnegar, and Ray Neapolitan.

Many of The Doors' original songs were group compositions, with Morrison or Krieger contributing the lyrics and an initial melody, and the others providing harmonic and rhythmic suggestions, or even entire sections of song (e.g. Manzarek's organ introduction to "Light My Fire").

Read more at Wikipedia.org