The Doors — “When You’re Strange”
If you’re unaware, Jimbo & Co. Inc. are releasing a new movie based on the iconic front man of the 60′s rock band. Organist and band mouthpiece, Ray Manzarek has called the new documentary the anti-Ollie Stone Doors movie. Old Ray wasn’t too thrilled about Oliver’s take on Mr. Mojo and his comrades. Check out the trailer here:
Here’s the band pre-super stardom and before receiving the spoils of mainstream success performing “The End” for Canadian television in ’67. Jim’s wearing his customary black “leathers” here that he would eventually don when the band performed on their infamous Ed Sullivan performance. There’s an oft repeated rumor that Elvis Presley watched The Doors on Sullivan’s performance and would emulate his attire in his career changing ’68 comeback performance shortly after.
In another footnote, Jim Morrison stated in his original Elektra questionnaire that his favorite male singers were Elvis and Sinatra.
41 Years ago today…
The Doors were forced to perform as a trio after Jim Morrison collapsed on stage as he danced on stage with Jefferson Airplane, with whom the band shared a double bill in Amsterdam. Ray Manzarek was forced to handle the vocals.
42 Years ago today…
The Doors started recording their second album, Strange Days.
Music Box:
Strange Days benefits immensely from the revisionist history of its new presentation, more so than any of The Doors’ other efforts. Unlike the restoration of the previously censored bits of The Doors’ self-titled debut, the adjustments that were made to Strange Days actually have improved the endeavor. Released in late 1967, just nine months after the group launched its opening salvo, the outing was a bold step forward, one that not only embraced the psychedelicized sounds of the era but also shoved them down a far darker, more demented path. In the liner notes to the recent reissue of the affair, engineer Bruce Botnick outlines how he had scored a pre-release, monaural acetate of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and he tells how it had liberated The Doors to experiment in the studio. There always has been a spooky deliriousness to Strange Days, but the crisp, clarity of its new mix gives the collection’s contents considerably more room to unfurl their lysergic tentacles. Most of all, the interplay among The Doors’ members is highlighted magnificently, and the worlds that are conjured oscillate, at the flip of a switch, between being strikingly beautiful (You’re Lost Little Girl) and chillingly horrific (Horse Latitudes). (more…)
42 Years ago today…
The Doors hit paydirt when their Krieger penned single, “Light My Fire” went to #1 on the charts and stayed for three weeks. A little info on the song:
Once The Doors debut album was cut, Elektra’s marketing and promotion departments went into over drive, as they were pushing the pride of their label, the “new and exciting Doors”. Morrison was to be the cover boy for The Doors and he was sent directly to celebrity hair stylist, Jay Sebring (to be brutally murdered by Charles Manson’s minions 30 months later) for an Alexander The Great-inspired haircut. The Doors hit the circuit, ready to set the world on (cough, cough) fire. (more…)
Robby Krieger — “Spanish Caravan”
“Carry me caravan, take me away……”
The Doors — Isle Of Wight (8/29/70)
01. Introduction – 0:18
02. Back Door Man – 4:18
03. Break On Through – 4:53
04. When The Music’s Over – 13:31
05. Ship Of Fools – 7:37
06. Roadhouse Blues – 6:07
06. Light My Fire – 14:21
07. The End – 18:18
Jim Morrison’s Miami Trial
I found this pretty interesting. This is a first hand account of what transpired at Jim Morrison’s obscenity/indecency trial in Miami in 1969. The witness is then 20-year old aspiring photographer, Davd LeVine, formerly of Miami, FL. I have read numerous times in various books of accounts of the trial, btu nothing like this. Check it out, it’s pretty funny:
It was 1969 and I was a twenty year old photographer interested in doing special effects; the market of choice for the times was rock. Doing rock photography meant you could be as expressive and creative as the musicians themselves. There was only one problem – all of the “action” was in L.A. and New York and I was stuck in Miami.
At the Door’s concert I was ushered right in. I remember I was at the foot of the stage, the lighting was terrible (another thing that has changed). Being a lover of available lighting, I almost never use a flash; I feel the shots are always more real that way. The Doors started to play and boy were they bad, off tune and all. The band started to get rowdy and the crowd soon followed,charging the stage and almost crushing me. Mayhem ensued and that concert went down in rock history. I remember thinking that if I had paid $7.50 for a ticket I would have been really pissed off. (more…)
The Doors — Isle Of Wight (8/29/70)
01. Introduction – 0:18
02. Back Door Man – 4:18
03. Break On Through – 4:53
04. When The Music’s Over – 13:31
05. Ship Of Fools – 7:37
06. Roadhouse Blues – 6:07
06. Light My Fire – 14:21
07. The End – 18:18
“Cars Hiss By My Window”
This is truly one of my favorite late period Doors songs. It has always sounding like skid row blooze with an extra helping of melancholy. Jim Morrison had always wanted to master the blues harp, but never could get the feel for the damn thing. You’ll hear him in early Doors shows wailing away, but all that effort produces awful, out of tune bleats. At the conclusion of this 4th song from L.A. Woman, Jim mimics a Little Walter harmonica line with his voice and just nails it. It’s almost as good as the real thing, which leads me to the video we’re featuring here of YouTube user “Charliemusslewhite” layin’ it down with a an excellent rendition of this almost 40 year old song.
Jim Morrison & Mary Werbelow
If you’ve read any of the many books on the “lizardy” one, you’ll probably recognize the name. It’s sometimes hard to separate the myth from reality in some of those books (and movies), especially No One Here Gets Out Alive by Danny Sugarman or Light My Fire by Ray Manzarek (movies: The Doors by Oliver Stone). Morrison wrote “The End” for Mary Werbelow, his pre-Doors, pre-California high school girlfriend. What we have here courtesy of the St. Pete Times is a realistic and seemingly plausible account of Jim Morrison and his pre-Pamela Courson muse. I read this years ago, but found it very interesting.
St. Pete Times:
Mary Werbelow is polite but firm: She doesn’t do interviews. Ever.
Jim Morrison was her first love, before he got famous with the Doors. Friends from Clearwater say that for three years in the early 1960s, Jim and Mary were inseparable. He mourns their breakup in the Doors’ ballad The End.
For nearly 40 years, all manner of people have tracked Mary down and asked for her story, including Oliver Stone, when he was making his movie starring Val Kilmer as Jim. Others waved money. Always she said thank you, no.
“I have spoken to no one.”
She can’t see what good could come of it; some things are just meant to be kept private. Besides, journalists always get it wrong. They focus on Jim Morrison as drunk, drug abuser, wild man. They don’t know his sensitivity and intellect, his charm and humor. (more…)
Here’s a recently found college film on Morrison from the era:
The Doors — Isle Of Wight Festival — (8/30/70)
01. Introduction – 0:18
02. Back Door Man – 4:18
03. Break On Through – 4:53
04. When The Music’s Over – 13:31
05. Ship Of Fools – 7:37
06. Roadhouse Blues – 6:07
06. Light My Fire – 14:21
07. The End – 18:18
Van and Jim
Here’s a cool shot of two Morrisons with their respective bands, Them and The Doors. This shot was taken in the summer of ’66 at The Whiskey A-G0-Go in L.A. The Doors joined Them for an encore of Them’s classic “Gloria”. At this point, The Doors were the house band at The Whiskey-A-Go-Go, making $200 a week. Them was the hot band out of Belfast and on the rise. Van’s stage presence had quite the impact on the elder Morrison, Jim, as explained by John Densmore in his autobiography, Riders On The Storm.
“Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near namesake’s stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks.” On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on “Gloria”.
Happy Birthday — Ray Manzarek
Keyboardist for The Doors and eternal worshipper of the throne of St. James, Raymond Daniel Manzarek turns 70(!) today. An excellent and tasteful keyboard player, Manzarek has also been guilty of feeding the “Morrison Is Alive” myth, “Jim was Dionysus”, etc., etc., amongst other statements of pompousity in regards to The Doors. This has served the band well, as they remain a rite of passage for every rock loving teenager during their formative years and continue to sell 1 million+ albums a year. Unfortunately he and guitarist Robbie Krieger disagree with drummer John Densmore over the use of the band’s name. The remaining three could hardly stand to be in the same room with one another during the recent Sundance showing of When You’re Strange, the Oliver Stone-less documentary that’s set to be narrated by Johnny Depp. Here’s the trailer for said movie:
The Doors — “The End” from the Isle of Wight (1970)
The Isle of Wight music festival was held August 26-30, 1970 and attracted 600,000 fans. The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and The Who were the headliners. Hendrix was dead three weeks later and is the last filmed live performance by The Doors. Robbie Krieger of The Doors has commented on the band’s limp performance. Jim Morrison had a prison sentence stemming from his Miami “indecent” performance (March 1, 1969) hanging over his head. Of course Jimbo never served the sentence and died 10 months later in Paris. Here’s the band performing “The End”:
When You’re Strange
As first tipped here in May, the Doors documentary “When You’re Strange” will premiere Jan. 17 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Written and directed by Tom DiCillo, “Strange” utilizes a wealth of previously unseen footage to chart the band’s beginnings at UCLA’s film school through to frontman Jim Morrison’s mysterious death in 1971.
Describing the movie to Billboard earlier this year, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek said it was “the anti-Oliver Stone,” in reference to the 1991 film “The Doors.” “This will be the true story of the Doors.”
Rhino will release a soundtrack to “When You’re Strange” next summer.
38 Years Ago Today…
The Doors played their last show with Jim Morrison in New Orleans at The Warehouse. Apparently Morrison smashed a hole in the flooring of the stage. Here’s an account of the show:
The concert begins normally but then about halfway through Jim begins to completely omit key lyrics not seemingly in the music at all and then just slumps against the microphone stand as if it were the only thing holding him upright. A little later he tries to tell a few jokes that nobody can understand and the place begins to get quiet as everyone begins to realize something is wrong. The band omits a lot of the song list and jumps to “Light My Fire”. At this point Jim has been barely singing along, if not mumbling the lyrics to songs as he uses the mic stand for support – it is a sad sight!
During “Light My Fire” Jim loses all composure and slumps down on the drum riser and does not even get up when it is his time to sing – he doesn’t even budge. The band goes through their parts again waiting for Jim. John kicks Jim and shoves him forward. Jim then reluctantly moves towards the front of the stage and does his best to sing along but cannot even come close. In frustration, Jim picks up the mic stand and continually slams it into the stage eventually splintering the wood. He then throws the stand and storms off the stage leaving the band alone and the audience confused to say the least. The band however completes their performance but I’m sure feels extreme embarrassment and disappointment, as does Jim as well. This is the last time Jim sings live with The Doors.
Happy Birthday — Jim Morrison (1943-1971)
Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Indifferent to him? Whatever the case, there’s no denying his impact on rock music and the lead singer role. Morrison’s long suffering Naval father passed away recently (read here about it), leaving the Morrison estate in the hands of Jim’s brother and sister and Morrison’s “cosmic mate’s” (Pamela Courson, d.1974) parents. Jim would’ve been 66 today, although he only made it to 27, dying in Paris in ’71 and there will be a celebration at one of his L.A. haunts, Barney’s Beanery. Apparently Morrison was banished from the establishment after urinating on the bar. A plaque will be placed in honor of the occassion by Dave Houston (owner of Barney’s Beanery) at the destination of Mr. Mojo’s dribble. If you can’t make it to Barney’s tonight, perhaps you can celebrate by watching one of our carefully chosen videos below.
Performing “The Soft Parade” on PBS’ Critique in 1969:
Performing John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake” in 1971:
Performing “5 to 1″ at London’s The Roundhouse in ’68:
Also, if you’re hunting more vintage Doors stuff, check out the new Live At The Matrix recordings that capture a hungry Sunset Boulevard prowling band on the rise.
The Doors — “Light My Fire”
Let’s step into the way back machine and go back 41 years to 1967. The Beatles were still together, the Stones and The Who were just very young bands, Jimmy Page was still doing session work, psychedelia was in the air with bands calling themselves ridiculous things like Strawberry Alarm Clock and along comes Jim Morrison and The Doors. The Doors had been a somewhat fledgling for a couple of years on the Sunset Strip in L.A., but hit paydirt when they recorded their eponymous album in late ’66 for Jac Holzman’s hip record label, Elektra Records. The Doors debut album was cut in just over a week, their songs tight from playing the club/college circuit over the previous 18 months and they had the good fortune to be paired with hip scenester and Paul Butterfield (East/West) producing alum, Paul Rothchild.
Once The Doors debut album was cut, Elektra’s marketing and promotion departments went into over drive, as they were pushing the pride of their label, the “new and exciting Doors”. Morrison was to be the cover boy for The Doors and he was sent directly to celebrity hair stylist, Jay Sebring (to be brutally murdered by Charles Manson’s minions 30 months later) for an Alexander The Great-inspired haircut. The Doors hit the circuit, ready to set the world on (cough, cough) fire.
The Doors initially thought “Break On Through” was going to be their big hit. Wrong. It was released as a single and……….nothing happened. Then it did happen. The idea was brought up by Elektra brass to cut the mid-section (instrumental portion) of “Light My Fire” (Krieger penned) and release a single version. Actually there are three versions of the song, one is the album version (7:06), a long radio version (4:40), and the single version (3:07). The song was released as a single and The Doors started “performing” the song on every possible medium.
We all know that the song was a huge smash and has gone on to be considered one of the most successful songs of all time. VH-1 called the song the #7 song of all time and Rolling Stone called the song the song the #35 rock song of all time. Elektra was appreciative of the success of the song and bought each band member a gift of thanks. John Densmore (drummer) got a horse out of the deal, Robbie Krieger got a Porsche, Ray Manzarek received some recording equipment and Jim Morrison got a 1968 Shelby Mustang GT 500.
Here’s a clip of The Doors performing “LMF” on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on 7/22/1967.
An interesting footnote is the exchange between Dick Clark and Jimbo.
Clark: A lot of people seem to think you come from San Francisco. Is that true?
Morrison: No. We actually got together in LA. We do play in San Francisco a lot.
Clark: That’s the explanation of why you have that association. Why is so much happening in San Francisco? You figured it out yet?
Morrison: The West is the best!
Clark: (chuckling) All right! Fair enough!
Clark then asks Densmore a few questions about recording their first two albums and asks Robby about their future plans before turning back on Jim.
Clark: Have you selected a name for the new album yet Jim?
Morrison: I think it’s ‘Strange Days’
Clark: All right. Fair enough. Well do the thing that set the whole music business on fire. Ladies and gentlemen, again, The Doors!
Our second clip has a typical back story. This was shot for Malibu U, but the band couldn’t find Morrison. Was he drunk? Was he dead? Not yet. He just didn’t make it to the shoot on the day scheduled. Guitarist Robby Krieger’s twin brother Ronnie acted as a double for Jimbo on the band’s gauche fire engine bit. Morrison was filmed atop the 9000 building in downtown L.A. at a later point for closeups, but never appearing with the band.
Next is the famed performance on Ed Sullivan. Recreated (and over embellished) in Oliver Stone’s The Doors movie, the band had been asked to not use the phrase “girl we couldn’t get much higher.” Jim sang the song just as he always did, with no emphasis on the word ‘higher’, but appearing in America’s living rooms in S&M leather. The story goes: the show’s producer and Ed Sullivan’s son-in-law Bob Precht was so upset that the band didn’t censor their performance that he shouted to the band, “you’ll never do Ed Sullivan again!”, as the band walked off the stage. Morrison glared and Precht and retorted, “man, we just DID Ed Sullivan.”
(Note the cheesy doors on the stage set.)
The Doors closed out 1967 by performing their big hit of ’67 (LMF) and what they hoped would be a big song in ’68, Moonlight Drive. This is another early Doors performance with performances (Jim singing over the studio instrumental tracks). December 27th is the broadcast date, however the date of original filmwork is unknown. The Doors interrupt their performance at Winterland in San Francisco to watch themselves on a TV brought onstage during the original broadcast. (Note: Jim falls at the end of LMF and gets tangled up in the set. Notice the nervous smattering of applause and stifled laughter. Was it for dramatic effect or did Jim lose consciousness momentarily?)
Did you Know??
The first rock singer arrested onstage was none other than Mr. Mojo Risin’, Jim Morrison in 1967. He was charged with obscenity.
Willie Dixon — Back Door Man
With Stephen Stills on guitar and Norton Buffalo on harp:
And for good measure, here’s Mr. Mojo Risin’ with his cronies doing it too.
The Doors — Crawling King Snake
An old John Lee Hooker song, The Doors played this song early in their career together and then pulled it out, dusted it off and recorded it for their last album, L.A. Woman. This song showcases Mr. Mojo Risin’ at his bluesy best with snakey guitar wails from Robby Krieger and tasteful, swaggering drumming provided by John Densmore. This was recorded and broadcast for Australian television in 1971, not long before Morrison’s shocking and untimely death in Paris. While much of The Doors’ catalogue is overplayed on classic rock stations around the globe every day, this is one of their tracks that always sounds fresh to me. Hooker himself stated that he dug The Doors’ interpretation of his song. Have a listen:
41 Years Ago Today…
The Doors were banned from The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967 after Jim Morrison broke his agreement with the show’s producers. Morrison said before the performance that he wouldn’t sing the words, “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher,” but did anyway. The Lizard King was constantly in trouble with authorities until he died in 1971.
The Doors — The End
“The End” by The Doors was orignally written as a farewell song between Jim and his first love, Mary Werbelow. The song, with Robbie Krieger’s raga guitar morphed into a song with psychedelic imagery and a dramatic Oedipus Rex section. Here are the L.A. boys with a 1967 performance in Toronto:
