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The Doors 1993.Pdf

The Doors 1993.Pdf

The Doors are somewhat of an anomaly in the rock pan­ only the keyboard parts but simultaneously (with his left theon. They weren’t part of the peace and love Airplane- hand) propelled the with melodic driving bass lines. Dead-Quicksilver acid-rock movement of San Francisco. , a drummer with an unbeatable knack They had nothing to do with the English invasion, or even for shamanic rhythm and theatrical timing ... die band’s conventional fee that matter* Evon in their home tireless engine. , a songwriting secret weapon town of they were considered a world apart who could play any guitar, from classic flamenco to botde- from the predominantly folk-rock peerage of , neck , to creating styles and sounds previously unheard and Mamas and Papas. on this planet. And , the baritone, eclectic/elec- The Doors were never part of any movement. Indeed, tric poet with an innate compositional gift and the soul of a Coring an era of vfcry high fliers, their visionary trajec­ mystic. Together these men brought The Doors’ songs to tory sought an orbit positioned well outside of the rock life — they were equal points of a musical diamond. norm. Their journey was driven by a unique group One night, just before the group was to go on stage, a disc vision and a determination to push the envelope of jockey announced to the audience, “Ladies and gendemen, poetry, spirituality, intellect and psycho-sexual explo­ please welcome Jim Morrison and The Doors.” As the DJ ration in popular music as far as possible. approached the group backstage, Jim pulled him aside and From their beginnings during the summer of 19$$ at said, “Uh-uh man, go back and introduce us right.” The DJ Venice Beach, , The Doors Were truly a band — a panicked. “What did I say? What did I do?” “It’s The remarkable fusion of creative energies. A lot of attention has Doors ” Jim said, *The name of the band is The Doors.” been focused on Jim Morrison, and his talents clearly justify The band took its name from the poet-visionary-artist that. However, Jim was well aware that the magic of The , who had written, “When the Doors of per­ Doors could never have happened without the fortunate ception are demised, things will appear to man as they truly forging of John Densmore (born December 1,1944), Robby are . . . infinite.” English author was suffi- Krieger (born January 8, 1946), Ray Manzarek porn ciendy inspired by Blake’s quote to title his book on mesca­ February 12, 1939) and Jim Morrison (born December 8, line experiences The Doors O f Perception. Morrison was so 1943) into a single creative whole. It is no mystery why Jim connected to both works that he proposed, The Doors, to Morrison never went solo; so sympathetic were the three his bandmates. Everyone agreed that the name, as well as other.musicians to Jim’s mission that such a consideration the inspiration from which it sprang, was perfect to convey was out of the question. Robby Krieger, for example, was who they were and clearly represent what they stood for. able to write lyrics and music that sounded more like The group was signed to , then a small Morrison than Morrison himself — among them “Light My folk-music record company, in.July of 1966 by Jac Fire,” “,” and “.f i: Holzman, Elektra’s founder. By April 1971, The Doors had Without Krieger, Manzarek and Densmqre there is a recorded six landmark studio LPs and a two-record set of §trong chance that Jim’s songs would never have made it off live performances, the first seven discs with producer Paul the page, into rehearsal, onto the stage, into the recording A. Rothchild and the last one coproduced by The Doors studio and, in defiance of all odds, to successive generations and their career-long engineer . . . both have since discovered The Doors as a “new” group. Doors and Elektra had grown into world famed institutions. Ray Manzarek, a classically Gained pianist, raised in The band’s unstated goal was to accomplish musical Chicago with a deep love for the blues, wrote die chord alchemy — to fuse with both existential poetry structures and themes for many of the songs and played not and improvisational theater. Jim was gready influenced by

t w e n t y f v e P e r f o r m e rs the nineteenth century poet and he dutiful­ ing. The power of improvisation that.drove M®ftison ly imparted Rimbaud’s philosophy to the group. Rimbaud onstage required the other three Doors to not merely play advocated a systematic “rational derangement of all the arrangements but to follow Jim’s unplanned creative arcs senses in order to achieve the unknown.” perfectly in one of the music’s classic and most difficult feats Jim’s fascination with the unknown is well documented. — the art of intuitive accompaniment. He was fond of William Blake and liked to quote him, “The Jim once explained, “A Doors concert is a public meeting road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” a bit of called by us for a special dramatic discussion. When we per­ advice he took all too tragically to heart. Jim would say, form, we’re participating in the Creation of a world and we “There are things known, and there are things Unknown, celebrate that with the crowd.” He would scream, “Wake and in between are the Doors a quote often attributed to Up!” 1000 times on 1000 nights in an effort to shake the

Blake, but actually written by Morrison. Morrison was a audiestce out of its self-imposed lethargy and TV-bred man who would not, could not, and did not know how to unconsciousness. A few days before he flew to , to his compromise himself or his art. This was the source of his death, Jim gave his last statement to the press, 8For me, it innocence and purity — as well as his blessing and curse. He was never really an act, those so-called performances. It was was driven to go all the way or die trying, the ultimate a life-and-death thing, an attempt to communicate, to ecstatic risk taker. Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore’s con­ involve many people in a private world of thought.” - tribution to this state of creative ecstasy cannot be underes­ During the late 1960’s bands sang of love and peace while timated. In order for the musical spell to be successfully cast acid was passed out. But for The Doors it was different. The they gave willingly and generously while also allowing nights belonged to Pan and Dionysus, the gods of revelry incredible tension to develop by creating space as well as and rebirth, and the songs invoked their potent passions — showing magnificent restraint — the ultimate musical offer- the Oedipal nightmare of “The End,” the breathless gallop

Tfrtf.öoWS* Elektra Records, January lfPÜ¡f$$trange Days, Elektra Records, October 1967; Waiting fa t the Sun, Elekttjt Records, July 1968; The Soft Parade, Elektra Records, ; , Elektra Records, February 1970 ; Absolutely Live, Elektra Records, July 1970; L.A. Woman, Elektra Records, April 1971; An American Prayer, Elektra Records, November IS|Íͧ Alive She -Cried, Elektra Records, October 1983; The Doors Live 4t the ,; Elektra Records, June. 1987; In Concert, Elektra Records, May 1991; Original Soundtrack to Elektra Records, March 1991

twenty s i X p e r f o r m e r s

of release ia 4

He sought immortality asu poet only to see those efforts was stunned. In the car she could say nothing . . . long after sabotaged by his enormous appeal as a rock star. Still Jim arriving home she was still speechless. Jim asked, “W hat’s got what he wanted ... to be like a shooting star; now wrong baby?” Pam said, “There were three people in the you see him, now you don’t. club during the last set. But you burned like you were per­ •In the end, after conquering America, after being shackled forming for thousands of people. Why did you go so far, by the courts and laws of the land that he loved, he escaped risk so much for a tiny audience that was barely aware of to Paris, traditional home of so many expatriate artists, to your presence?” Jim looked at her and said slowly, “You pursue his life as a poet. But his body was too worn down, never know when you’re doing your last set.” his heart too weak; he had already seen and done and Considering the force of energy generated by The Doors dfunk too much. He had lived life on his own terms, had over 25 years ago, that “last set” could well be several gen­ reaped the rewards, and now the bill was due. His spirit erations awaf. - PAUL A. R 'Q flK H IL D & DANNY SUGERMAN

sing 1- e s Break On Through, Elektra Records, January 1967; , Elektra Records, April 1967; , Elektra Records; September, 1967; Love Me Tu/o Times, Elektra Records, November 1967; The Unknown Soldier, Elektra Records, March 1968; Hello I Love You, Elektra Records, June 1968; Touch Me, Elektra Records, December 196*$; "Wishful Sinful, Elektra Records, February 1969; , Elektra Records, May 1969; Runnin’ Blue, Elektra Records, August 1969; You Make Me Real, Elektra Records, March 1970; Love Her Madly, Elektra Records, March 1971; , Elektra Records, June 1971; , Elektra Records, January 1979; Gloria, Elektra Records, December, 1983

twenty seven TOP: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES from the go den state california

It’s the pot of gold at the end of Route 66; home to the more significant innovations in music than anywhere in the cutest girls in the world; the place you’d rather be when world. More than simply a destination for dreams, California all the leaves are brown and the ski is gray; where it nev­ is home for a dazzling variety of indigenous sounds, echoed er rains and a certain hotel always has room for the pret­ and enhanced by the legendary locale itself. ty, pretty people. It’s where you come when you’re going Where else, for example, could have found right back/where you started from. inspiration for what remains the single jnost potent evocation It, of course, is California, that mythic state of mind, where of all things Californian? For the rest of the world, the Beach life is .sweet along palmy streets paved with broken dreams. Boys are California, in all its eternal youth and halcyon hedo­ It’s where the world rims out, merging with surf and sun and nism. There is simply no body of work#®, closely associated sky into a fanciful paradise, of winsome charm and wishful with its point of origin as the sound and substance of these thinking. From the desert to the sea to orange groves rolled 1988 Hall of Fame inductees. ’ sonic simula­ flat by freeways, it’s California now and forever... amen. tion of surfing may have initially ridden the crest of a craze, Notwithstanding Bltfis when it sillies, ©r autumn in New but early Sixties hits like “Surfin,” “Surfin’ Safari,” “Surfin’ York, California is maybe the most celebrated locale in the USA” and “Surfer Girl” (complete with a West Coast geog­ history of popular musjc. Banjo-pluckers sang her praises on raphy lesson from “Huntington to Malibu”) have endured as their way to gold fields and heartbreak. Oakies ached for her anthems to that most alluring element df the California citrus-scented bounty, and every surfer worth his salt can sing lifestyle -Ipiie promise of a free ride. a salute to her gnarly tubes. The same might be said for their drag strip drajnas and high For big band warbler Irving Kaufman, “California and school confidentials. But such is the -group’s identity as a You” was all he needed to put together his first hit in the freez­ Southern California Zeitgeist that is virtually impossible to ing Gotham winter of 1914. Ten years later “California Here imagine “Rhonda” or “Barbara Ann” residing anywhere else. I Come,” first heard in a Broadway musical called Bombo, If not always “,” then certainly “Fim, Fun, reaped gold for, respectively, A1 Jolsoa, George Price and Fun,” could well be California’s official motto. It’s a connec­ California Ramblers* In 1931, Red Nichols & His Five tion that- sparked again in the hit flick ShampQ® when Pennies cashed in with “California Medley.” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” became the ironic lament of Beverly But it’s more recently that California — the dream, the Hills’ bored and beautiful. reality and the shimmering mirage between the two — has The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean and a dozen supersonic surf come into musical maturity. Since the dawn of rock 8c roll, bands fashioned a universally recognized dozens of tunes touting Califon^a/si- elusive essence have out of high harmonies and Strats. But the state has hosted made the char®. Among tk^many: L eil^irore’# such a wide variety of musical evolutions and revolutions that .^California Nights,” the Rivtefas’ “California Sun,” the lines quickly begin to blur: what began there was soon “California Dr earnin’” by the Mama’s & the Papa’s and everywhere. For much of the best music of the rock & roll era, “£aUfornia Soul” by the 5th Dimension. it really did happen in California first. The list goes on (who can forget “California,” Debbie The prime example, of course, is the sublime and surreal Boone’s plaintive 197.8 follow-up to “You Light Up My epidemic of innovation known as the San Francisco Sound. Life but California’s place in rock reaches far beyond a While lumping together such as absurd profusion of music litany ®f Golden State come-ons. It’s a place that has nurtured under a single rubric may be an audacious conceit, this much

from top left: buffalo Springfield; quicksilver messenger service; the byrds

forty five from the S olden state

is known: the outbreak was largely confined to the San everyone else, ever. ’s eclectic Autumn Records Francisco Bay Area in the mid-Sixties, it was no respecter of roster neatly captured the time and place, thanks largely to race, creed or color, and no one has ever been the same since. Autumn’s A&R chief, and this year’s Hall of Fame inductee, What’s striking, at this distance from California’s psyche­ . The label waxed a dazzling array of native talent, delic epicenter, is the music’s commercial impact. Of San from faux-Edwardians to the Mojo Men, Francisco’s pantheon of pioneering early bands » the whose lilting “Sit Down I Think I Love You”4s a sparkling Grateful Dead, , Quicksilver Messenger example of the sheen the California sound lent to the most Service, Big Brother & disposable pop ditties. the Holding Company According to the f^m ost went on to wag, there is no achieve genuine main­ “there” in Oakland, stream success. It was, yet San Francisco’s of course, another East Bay has forged a example of California modest yet significant trend-setting, but more musical presence with to the point, the San some key California Francisco Sound was artists. The boogie #1 another heady whiff of El Cerrito’s own the creative audacity Creedence Clear.-water that had always hung Revival rightly belongs over the western edge. to fans from Lodi to The transcendental the bayou,thanks to folk tales of California’s nine Consecutive Top native’s the Grateful 10 singles. But sounds Dead, heard on such more representative of essential albums as San Francisco’s down- If 7 0 ’s 'Workingman’s home sister can be D ead and A m erican found in the East Bay Beauty, evoked imagery Grease of Tower of of an Acadian Califor­ Power and the dazzling nia. The “Dire Wolf” diversity of Sly & The prowled the pine forests Family Stone.faphe of the High Sierras; “A clan’s canny funk-rock Friend of the Devil” was on the lam in the high desert. concoctions, most conspicuously 1968’s “Dance to the But it was the ringing, echo-drenched early hits of Jefferson Music” and “Everyday People,” pointed to the mix-and- Airplane that best represented California to the rest of the match cultural mélange for which California was becoming awakening world. 1967’s “Somebody to Love” remains a renowned. Different strokes for different folks, indeed ... cornerstone of psychedelia’s contribution to pop mainstream. and Sly knows most all of them. The acoustic strumming, the silver dagger sentiments, Grace Down South, Los Angeles had long since established Slick’s slashing vocals backed by Marty Balin’s polished har­ itself as a pop music mecca, a hit-making factory the mony — the song neatly summed up the intense fusion of folk equal of any. From Johnny Otis to Terry Melcher, Lou and rock that had been underway in California for years. Adler to Peter Asher, Jerry Leiber to Mike Stoller, the As for the rest of the motley Sixties crew rocking Babylon best behind-the-boards talent in the business did their By the Bay, the mind boggles. After all, wasn’t that the point? best work in the city’s studio hive. The San Francisco Sound was about being different, from L. A.-based Specialty Records boasted a distinctive West

fort y s X from the g o den state

Coast R&B sound with artists the likes of , thing out of Travis AFB, flying eight miles high over Larry Williams, Lloyd Price and others. Producer and tal­ Hollywood.The California Sound would continue its pris­ ent scout extraordinaire Johnny Otis was the spark plug matic refractions of time and place, chasing down a dozen for dozens of homegrown hits. Among Otis’ most endur­ variants on the theme of charmed living — from the soul of ing discoveries: California native and Hall of Fame Boz Scaggs to the simmering barrio rhythms of Santana, inductee Etta , who recorded for the Bihari War, Malo and other exemplars of Chicano cool, to the hard brothers’ Mo-dern Records, another L.A. enterprise. rock candy of Van Halen, the state has room for it all. While flowers in the But it’s the freewheel­ hair were de rigueur ing, fringe-jacketed for San Francisco, singer- who something more omi­ has emerged as the nous was sprouting to state’s most identifiable the south, where the musical standard bear­ Beach Boys’ balmy er. The earliest incarna­ reveries had given way tion of the sensitive to smog-and-neon pas­ troubadour can be sion plays, with sound­ traced to such second track courtesy of the generation folk-rockers Doors. On the 1967% as Buffalo Spring-field, break-on-through an uneasy alliance of debut the group soloists where the song posited a wholly dif­ w as th e th in g . The,7, ferent California land­ group’s first hit, “For scape — one, in its WhafTt’s Worth,” was vividness, as complete a chronicle of the and compelling as Strip riots, and they surf music or psyche-* would incubate a num­ delic soul. Their rapa­ ber of variations on the cious visions #if. an theme, including the urban wasteland shot b u co lic rev eries of.-' through with lurid Crosby, Stills 8c Nash transcendence, served and ’s the grateful dead,1969 as a road map to Cal­ ranch-style rock 8c roll. ifornia’s soft and seamy underbelly. There were some Founded in Los Angeles in 1971, the band’s ten-year run spooky characters out there in the charred hillpjbeyond yielded five Number One singles, including such paeans to Tinsel Town, and The Door’s moody grandeur lit more fast-lane living as “Hotel California” and “New Kid in than one weird goldmine scene. This, too, was Town.” Here, California was the stage setting for cryptic cau­ California ... a place where madness lurked in the shad­ tionary tales that found innocent country boys and brazen city ows of a Hollywood bungalow. girls locked in a hot, star-crossed embrace ... small wonder It was an echo heard in the melancholy ballads of Love, earnest songsmiths flocked to Los Angeles in the band’s wake, ’s quintessential Lotus Land dandies, whose lan­ all in search of that elusive Tequila Sunrise. What a wdy to go. guid laments expressed the detached cool of an L.A. in love California has, finally, always been that kind of place: wide with its own wan reflection. The Byrds, on the other hand, open to the widest-eyed naif, consort to the dream weavers, defined their California-ness in Right Stuff rock 8c roll, all Jet Our Lady of Perpetual Indulgence. No wonder no place has Age symmetry and supercharged twelve strings, like some­ ever sounded quite the same. -DAVIN SEAY

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