The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most influential and controversial rock acts of the 1960s, primarily due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona and legal issues. The group is widely regarded as an important figure of the era's counterculture.[4]
This article is about the band. For the works, see The Doors (album), The Doors (film), and The Doors (soundtrack).
The Doors
The band took its name from the title of English writer Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by English poet William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison recorded and released six studio albums in five years, some of which are generally considered among the greatest of all time,[5][6] including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). Dubbed the "Kings of Acid Rock",[7] they were one of the most successful bands of their time and by 1972, the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.[8]
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973.[9][10] They released three more albums in the 1970s, one of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger, and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive Gold LPs.[nb 1] According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), they have sold 34 million albums in the United States[12] and over 100 million records worldwide,[13] making them one of the best-selling bands of all time.[14] The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[15] In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
After the Doors[edit]
After Morrison died in 1971, Densmore and Krieger went to London looking for a new lead singer.[148] They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb Records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.[149]
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978.[150] Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.[151] In 2002, the two together formed a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. Due to legal battles with Densmore and the Morrison estate over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors".[152] The group toured extensively throughout their career.[153] In July 2007, Densmore announced he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.[154]
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer.[155] Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".[156]
Academics Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell argued that the Doors were "not merely as precursors of prog but as essential developments of progressiveness in its early days".[157] The band presaged gothic rock due to the violence and the darkness present in their early work. As soon as 1967, critic John Stickney announced in the title of his article: "Four Doors to the Future: Gothic Rock Is Their Thing".[158] Journalist Dave Marsh would also qualify a few years later the "first couple of Doors albums" as a prime example of "gothic rock".[159]
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans.[160] The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979, the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now,[9][161] and the next year, the bestselling biography of Morrison No One Here Gets Out Alive was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release.[162] In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.[163]
The revival continued in 1983 with Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart[164] and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV.[165] Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1985 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.[166]
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.[167] Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life.[168] He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate storylines to them.[169] The remaining band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors,[170] Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison.[171] Densmore asserts, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
Musical style and influences[edit]
The Doors initially started as a conventional electric blues band, but subsequently enriched their sound with jazz, psychedelic rock, raga, classical references, funk and flamenco.[157] In live performances, they experimented with free improvisation based on dodecaphonic, cacophonic passages and delay/echo effects,[189] in order to accompany spoken-word poetry sessions or to fill long instrumental jams.[190] In the second album the group introduced elements of electronic music and musique concrète[157] and incorporated unusual instruments such as the Moog synthesizer, the harpsichord and the marimba.[161] The fourth album is also notable because it featured brass, wind and string instrumentation, touching upon big band and bluegrass styles.[157]
Manzarek cited a range of influences that include boogie-woogie, Chicago blues, the jazzers John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Bill Evans,[190] and classical composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky.[161] Krieger was heavily affected by his study of the sitar and the structures of indian classical music.[191] He said Coltrane was "my biggest music influence".[169] He was familiar with modal scales and the traditional spanish flamenco,[161] incorporating them all in his guitar style to create an original trademark of versatility that distinguished him from the other rock guitarists of the period.[157] Densmore was shaped by Elvin Jones, the drummer of John Coltrane's quartet,[169] and by the stylistic features of Latin American percussions, especially the bossa nova rhythms of saxophonist Stan Getz.[190]