Big Leather Couch

When you listen to the TRACKS recorded by a group of four men out of California, you will hear a sound unlike any other from the time.

The time was the mid ‘60’s, early ‘70’s and to this day the band is one of the most talked about of all time.

It was July 1965 in Venice Beach, California. A 30-year old Ray Manzarek and 23-year old Jim Morrison were both students at UCLA Graduate School Of Film and on this day they began chatting.

Morrison mentioned that he had been writing songs and sang “Moonlight Drive” to Manzarek. Ray was so impressed he suggested they start a band.

Currently playing keyboards in a band called RICK AND THE RAVENS with his brother Rick. In August they recruited drummer John Densmore from the band THE PSYCHEDELIC RANGERS and along with bass player Patty Sullivan they recorded a six-song demo in September. Later that month they recruited guitarist Robby Krieger from THE PSYCHEDELIC RANGERS and settled on the final lineup of Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore.

The name of the band came from the book "The Doors Of Perception" by Aldoux Huxley, which was borrowed from an 18th century poem by William Blake which read “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.”

While in the studio, THE DOORS used a collection of bass guitar players including Jerry Scheff, Doug Lubahn, Harvey Brooks, Kerry Magness, Lonnie Mack, Larry Knechtel, Leroy Vinegar and Ray Neapolitan, but when they played live Manzarek used the newly invented Fender Rhodes Bass Keyboard with his left hand and all other keyboards with his right hand. This was totally unheard of at the time and was one of the things that made the band unusual….but there was so much more that added to that.

In the beginning, Morrison and Krieger would contribute lyrics and a base melody to the songs and then Densmore and Manzarek would provide the rhythmic and harmonic sections. In the case of “Light My Fire” the intro was all Manzarek.

THE DOORS began playing at The London Fog Club but quickly became the house band at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in LA in the early summer of 1966. Electra Records President Jac Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw a few sets by the band at the Whiskey, and on August 18th signed the band to a contract.

Three days later the band was fired from the club after Morrison sang a profanity-filled version of their epic “The End”. Morrison, tripping on acid that night, recited his own rendition of “Oedipus Rex” using the line made famous in the Oliver Stone film, “Father? Yes son? I want to kill you. Mother? I want to f**k you.”

Within a few days of being fired, the band went into the studio with Rothchild and recorded their debut album “The Doors” in about two weeks with most of the songs being recorded in one take. The album did include an 11-minute version of “The End”.

The album was released on January 4, 1967. In what might have been the first music video, Morrison and Manzarek directed a promotional film for the lead single “Break on Through (to the other side)”




The summer of 1967 saw the second single “Light My Fire” become a huge hit for the band when the edited version played on AM stations became a hit #1 on the charts. On ‘progressive-FM’ radio, “The End” became a staple with many of the DJs analyzing the song. Remember back then DJs actually talked about the music, spending time between songs to discuss their meaning and the bands.

Morrison quickly became a duo personality star with his dark foreboding lyrics and stage persona conflicting with his appearances in the teen magazines like “16” and “Tiger Beat”.

One of the first of their many controversial performances occurred on September 17, 1967. The appearance was on the biggest TV show of the time, “The Ed Sullivan Show”.

CBS network censors met with the band before their appearance and demanded on changes to the lyric in “Light My Fire” where Morrison said “Girl we couldn’t get much higher.” The band agreed to change the line to “Girl we couldn’t get much better”, but Manzarek has always claimed that they agreed knowing they were never going to change the line.

The show aired live, with no tape delay and Morrison used the original line infuriating network executives and Sullivan himself who refused to shake the hands of the band after they had completed their set, which included the song “People Are Strange”.

The band was told ‘they would never do the Ed Sullivan Show again’ to which Morrison replied “So what, we just DID the Ed Sullivan Show.”

The performed both songs on Murray The K’s (known as the Fifth Beatle) TV show on September 22nd, without being asked to change the lyrics this time.

On December 10th in New Haven, CT, Morrison was arrested for the first time when he began badmouthing the police from the stage claiming they had maced him when they caught him backstage with a girl.

On December 24th, the band recorded “Light My Fire” and “Moonlight Drive” for an appearance on “The Jonathan Winters Show” which was to air on December 27th.

On that night they were performing at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The following account comes from a book on Morrison by Stephen Davis entitled “Jim Morrison: Life, Death Legion”:
"The next night at Winterland, a TV set was wheeled onstage during the Doors set so the band could see themselves on the Jonathan Winters Show. They stopped playing Back Door Man when their song came on. The audience watched the Doors watching themselves on TV. They finished the song when their bit was done, and Ray walked over and turned the TV off. The next night was their last ever in Winterland."

They performed in Denver, CO on December 30th and 31st ending a year that saw the band touring almost constantly.

During breaks in their touring schedule in May and August of 1967, the band went into the studio and recorded “Strange Days” and the album was released on October 7th.

As the debut album had “The End”, this album contained the closing TRACK “When The Music’s Over”, firmly establishing the dramatic music of THE DOORS and solidifying Morrison’s reputation as the shaman of rock. In addition, the album contained songs which were very commercial including the now classic songs “Love Me Two Times” and “People Are Strange”.

This success had its downside also. The band continued to be featured in the teen magazines crumbling their status as ‘underground heroes’ and their live ‘spontaneous stage-show’ was also exposed as more scripted than previously thought.

In the February 10, 1968 edition of “Rolling Stone” magazine Jerry Hopkins wrote:
"One shtick, or piece of stage-business, missing at the Shrine performance, was Morrison's carefully-executed 'accidental' fall from the stage into the crowd. For months this had been a part of the act. It got a lot of screams from the teenyboppers. Then a review appeared in a local newspaper which called the fall one of the phoniest things ever. Morrison was asked if he had read the article. 'Yeah,' said Morrison, 'and I guess he's right.' Morrison did not take the fall that night at the Shrine."

The album reached # 3 on the charts that year.

From February to May of 1968, the band recorded its third album “Waiting For The Sun”.


Much of the material of this album had been written around and before the time of the group's formation, such as "Hello I Love You", and "Summer's Almost Gone". The highlight of this album was supposed to be the lengthy theatric piece "Celebration of the Lizard", but in the end only the "Not to Touch the Earth" section was used.

"Celebration of the Lizard" was intended to take up an entire album side, but the group was never able to get it right (they would revisit it later in its full-length form on their 1970 album "Absolutely Live").

Many fans have suggested once "Celebration of the Lizard" was shelved, two of THE DOORS earliest tracks were resurrected and rerecorded for use to fill in the void, such tracks being "Hello I Love You" and "Summer's Almost Gone". These two tracks had been recorded in an earlier arrangement for THE DOORS original 1965 demo.

Though the song was not used, this marked the appearance of Morrison’s alter-ego “The Lizard King”. The entire poem “Celebration of the Lizard” were printed on the inside of the album jacket.

There was also increasing tension within the band as Morrison began to let his dependence on alcohol take over his days. The band was also beginning to do stadium shows and on May 10th there was a large confrontation between fans and police at the Chicago Coliseum.

This album reached #1 on the charts, the first for the band and “Hello I Love You” became their second (and last) #1 single. The popularity they were gaining with AM radio play further separated the band from their 'underground' reputation and in the 1969 “Rock Encyclopedia” Lilian Roxon wrote that this album “strengthened dreadful suspicion that THE DOORS were in it for the money.”

Another riot occurred in New York at The Singer Bowl and a month later the band flew to Britian for their first shows outside of the US. This trip resulted in a broadcast on Granada TV’s “The Doors Are Open” which was later released on video.

For their show in Amsterdam, the band played without Morrison who had flown back to London on September 20th after collapsing from a drug binge.

“Waiting for the Sun” contained the song “The Unknown Soldier” which was banned from airplay due to its controversial lyrics. The band did produce their second music video for the song…again far ahead of anyone else at the time.

In October of 1968 the band went back into the studio to begin work on their fourth album “Soft Parade”. While recording they played a sold out show at Madison Square Garden in NY on January 24, 1969 and premiered their newest single from the soon to be released “Soft Parade”. The song was “Touch Me” and it eventually reached #3 on the charts.

Just before this concert Morrison attended a theatre production at USC’s Bovard Auditorium “The Living Theatre” he performed a show that appealed to his fight for freedom. The band had a studio jam on February 25th which was released in 1997 on "THE DOORS" box set. The recordings are the “Rock Is Dead” section.

It also was probably the key to the most infamous incident in Morrison and THE DOORS history. It was on March 1, 1969, Miami, FL at the Dinner Key Auditorium.

Morrison missed his flight that day and had been drinking heavily. The 6,900 seat auditorium had been oversold and the crowd was in a state already.

At one point in the concert Morrison screamed into the microphone “Anything you want, let’s do it”. This is when he supposedly exposed himself to the audience.

Ray Manzarek’s says it never happened and this is his account of that night:
"It was mass hypnosis. He told them he was going to show it to them, and by God, they believed he did. He was holding his shirt in front of him, pulling it quickly back and forth, back and forth, like a bullfighter, and saying, 'Did you see it? Did you see it? I showed it to you! It came out. I'm not gonna just let it hang out there. Now watch, I'll do it again.' And he'd go whip, whip back and forth with the shirt. It was hot and there were too many people in the place, and people were going crazy, screaming swirling and pushing at this temporary rickety stage. We thought the stage was going to collapse - eventually a side of it did fall over. It was total insanity."

Morrison was arrested for obscenity and scheduled concerts were canceled all over the country. Out of the twenty cities the band had booked over the next month, nineteen canceled.

It was around this time the band confronted Morrison about his alcoholism, but it does not appear it did any good.

During April, Morrison recorded some of his poetry which the band later put to music and released in 1978 as “An American Prayer”. At the same time he began recording an experimental film called “HWY”, playing a hitchhiker. The film contained almost no dialog and is only in circulation among collectors.

On June 25th “Soft Parade” was released. The band had added brass and strings and the music was more pop-oriented than ever before and the hard core fans were pushed even further away by this release.

The lead single “Touch Me” featured the saxophone of Curtis Amy. While the band felt they were trying to stretch their sound, the critics also attacked their musical integrity. Morrison was drinking more and more and the band that recorded their first album in a couple of weeks took almost 7 months to record this album, causing cost overruns and almost breaking up the band. Additionally, most of the lyrics on this album received individual credits and Robby Krieger wrote most of the lyrics.

In November 1969 the band went back into the recording studio and returned to their roots in many ways. Each side of the album were named; side one being “The Hard Rock Café” and side two “Morrison Hotel”. The name on the cover was “Morrison Hotel".

The cover photo was taken at the actual Morrison Hotel located at 1246 South Hope Street in L.A.

The band asked the owners if they could photograph the hotel, and they declined, so the band went inside when nobody was looking, and took the photograph.

Additional musicians included harmonica whiz G. Puglese (aka John Sebastian) and blues master Lonnie Mack on bass.


During the recording of this album Morrison grabbed a flight to Phoenix, AZ to see a ROLLING STONES concert and found himself arrested once again. The charges this time were abuse of airline staff. He was acquitted the following April when a flight attendant mistakenly identified Morrison as his traveling companion actor Tom Baker.

1970 began with two sold-out shows at NY’s Felt Forum, and a return to the concert scene.
In July “Absolutely Live” was released featuring music culled from shows between July 1969 and May 1070. THE DOORS producer, Paul Rothchild, painstakingly edited the album from many different shows to create one cohesive concert, the perfect DOORS show.

For example the best part of a song from the Detroit show may have been spliced together with another part of the same song from the Boston show, again trying to create the perfect concert. When it comes to identifying which song came from which show, it becomes very difficult.

Rothchild has said "I couldn't get complete takes of a lot of songs, so sometimes I'd cut from Detroit to Philadelphia in midsong. There must be 2,000 edits on that album".

Morrison was facing his trial in August, but the group did perform at the Isle Of Wight Festival on August 29th alongside Jimi Hendrix, THE WHO, SLY & THE FAMILY STONE and Miles Davis among others.

On September 16th, Morrison took the stand at his trial and the jury returned a guilty verdict for profanity and indecent exposure on September 20th. He was sentenced to eight months’ in jail, but was released awaiting appeal of the verdict.

On December 8th Morrison recorded another poetry session.

The band’s last public performance came on December 12, 1970 at The Warehouse in New Orleans, LA. During the concert, Morrison acted even more incoherent than normal, smashing the microphone into the stage on numerous occasions.

During December 1970 and January 1971 the band recorded their next studio album, “L.A. Woman”. During this recording session the band had a falling out with producer Rothchild who called the music being recorded ‘cocktail music’ and quit.






Production for the album was handed to engineer Bruce Botnick. This album was a return to the R&B roots the band had wandered from and contains two classic DOORS songs, “Love Her Madly” and "Riders On The Storm”.

After the album was completed, Morrison traveled to Paris with his girlfriend Pamela Courson in March. His drinking intensified in June and on June 16th (the day Bond turned 17!), Morrison befriended two street musicians and brought them to a studio where his last recordings were made. In 1994 these appeared on a bootleg entitled “The Lost Paris Tapes”.

On July 3rd, Morrison was found dead in the bathtub in his apartment. The death was ruled a heart attack, but an autopsy was never performed. The body was buried quickly, on July 7th in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Morrison had curtailed his drug use in the last two years of his life, preferring alcohol. He had gained a lot of weight and was wearing a thick beard.

The rumors persist over the circumstances of his death. Some say he faked his death so that he could get away from the fans and spotlight. Another rumor is he died in an nightclub and his body was secretly taken back to the apartment and left in the bath tub. In the book “Wonderland Avenue” Danny Sugarman states that he was with Pamela Courson just before her death from a heroin overdose and she confessed she had introduced Morrison to heroin while in Paris and since he was afraid of needles, she injected his dose that evening resulting in his death.

The three remaining members of the band decided to continue touring, even considering adding a lead singer to replace Morrison. Instead Krieger and Manzarek took on the vocal roles and they released two albums “Other Voices” in October 1971 and “Full Circle” in August 1972. Neither album generated any real interest and the band stopped recording and performing at the end of 1972.

In 1978 the third album post-Morrison was released entitled “An American Prayer”. The band took the spoken-word recordings done by Morrison and set them to music.

In 1991 Oliver Stone released the movie “The Doors” starring Val Kilmer. The movie – like many of Stone’s – contained many inaccuracies, but was praised by the critics.

The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993 and the three remaining members reunited to perform during the ceremony with Eddie Veder of PEARL JAM singing vocals.

In 2001 Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger appeared on the VH1 Storytellers series. Vocals for this performance were provided by THE CULT’S Ian Astbury, CREED’S Scott Stapp, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS’ Scott Weiland, JANES ADDICTION’S Perry Farrell and DAYS OF THE NEWS’ Travis Meeks.

In 2002 Manzarek and Krieger created “THE DOORS OF THE 21ST CENTURY”. Astbury sang vocals and Angelo Barbera played bass.

A whole new controversy came out of this group, as it was announced that due to tinnitus Densmore would not play drums and Stewart Copeland of THE POLICE would take his spot. When Copeland broke an arm falling off a bike lawsuits were filed by both sides and Ty Dennis was hired to play drums.

In February 2003 Densmore claimed he was never asked to join this latest lineup and filed an injunction preventing them to use the name THE DOORS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. In May of that year his motion was denied.

In July 2005 Densmore and Morrison’s estate won a permanent injunction against the use of the name causing Manzarek and Krieger to change the name to D21C. They are now touring as RIDERS ON THE STORM.

Densmore has been steadfast in refusing to license THE DOORS' music for use in television commercials, including an offer of $15 million by Cadillac to lease the song "Break on Through (to the Other Side)," feeling that that would be in violation of the spirit in which the music was created. Densmore wrote about this subject for "The Nation". His notes are as follows:
"People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music. I've had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to this music, other people say they know someone who didn't commit suicide because of this music…. On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That's not for rent."

Ray Manzarek was quoted as saying, "We're all getting older. We should, the three of us, be playing these songs because, hey, the end is always near. Morrison was a poet, and above all, a poet wants his words heard." When Morrison was asked what he would most like to be remembered for, he responded, "My words, man, my words."

Jim Morrison also said: "I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something."

Their popularity is reflected by continuing sales of their work.

In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked The Doors #41 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

A flurry of activity was announced in 2006 for the upcoming 40th anniversary of the group's debut album. This saw another box-set of the studio recordings, a coffee table book "The Doors by The Doors" and the beginning of production of an officially sanctioned documentary about the group.

THE DOORS, along with the GRATEFUL DEAD and Joan Baez, received a lifetime achievement award at the 2007 Grammy Awards.

On February 16, 2007 Ian Astbury quit Riders on the Storm, and relaunched his old band THE CULT.

On February 28, 2007, THE DOORS received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On March 14, 2007 Brett Scallions, former lead singer of the band FUEL, was announced as the new lead singer of Riders on the Storm.

On July 24, 2007, THE DOORS released a live 3-Disc album. Recorded at Boston Arena in April 10, 1970.