Dinosaurdays - The Doors

You can read up on this very influential band and its controversial, and extremely talented frontman elsewhere on these pages, but we thought we'd feature a track from this great album as an excuse to let you know that the entire Doors catalogue has recently been re-released in stunning replica cardboard covers, each one with original artwork and remastered tracks. If you missed out on these classic albums in the past, now's your chance to make amends.

The Doors
The Doors - The Changeling, from "L.A.Woman", theirs eventh and arguably best album, released in 1971. This was also the last album to feature vocalist Jim Morrison, who died on July 3rd, barely a month and a bit after its release. You can read up on this very influential band and its controversial, and extremely talented frontman elsewhere on these pages, but we thought we'd feature a track from this great album as an excuse to let you know that the entire Doors catalogue has recently been re-released in stunning replica cardboard covers, each one with original artwork and remastered tracks. If you missed out on these classic albums in the past, now's your chance to make amends.

The Doors
The Doors - Roadhouse Blues, from "The Best of The Doors", a great compilation album released in 2000. Jim Morrison is the subject of this week's Dino Quiz (number 210), and a copy of this compilation is the giveaway prize. You know the band well and you know the track - you've heard it one or two times in the past, so we won't labour the point here, but we'll just remind you that The Doors were formed in July 1965 by keyboard player Ray Manzarek and vocalist Jim Morrison, and after a few line-up changes, they eventually added drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robbie Krieger. The band recorded around nine albums before Morrison's self-destructive lifestyle finally ended his life on July 3, 1971. The rest of the band continued for a while but, without the charismatic and dynamic Morrison, it was just a matter of time before The Doors finally closed.

(If you have more info on this band, please e-mail us)

Biography by William Ruhlmann & Richie Unterberger
The Doors, one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLA film students Ray Manzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals; with drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. The group never added a bass player, and their sound was dominated by Manzarek's electric organ work and Morrison's deep, sonorous voice, with which he sang and intoned his highly poetic lyrics. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1966 and released its first album, The Doors, featuring the hit "Light My Fire," in 1967.

Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a massive hit, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other. With his rich, chilling vocals and somber poetic visions, Morrison explored the depths of the darkest and most thrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience. Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that the Doors were hard-pressed to match it, and although their next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also began running up against the limitations of their recklessly disturbing visions. By their third album, they had exhausted their initial reservoir of compositions, and some of the tracks they hurriedly devised to meet public demand were clearly inferior to, and imitative of, their best early work.

On The Soft Parade, the group experimented with brass sections, with mixed results. Accused (without much merit) by much of the rock underground as pop sellouts, the group charged back hard with the final two albums they recorded with Morrison, on which they drew upon stone-cold blues for much of their inspiration, especially on 1971's L.A. Woman.

From the start, the Doors' focus was the charismatic Morrison, who proved increasingly unstable over the group's brief career. In 1969, Morrison was arrested for indecent exposure during a concert in Miami, an incident that nearly derailed the band. Nevertheless, the Doors managed to turn out a series of successful albums and singles through 1971, when, upon the completion of L.A. Woman, Morrison decamped for Paris. He died there, apparently of a drug overdose. The three surviving Doors tried to carry on without him, but ultimately disbanded. Yet the Doors' music and Morrison's legend continued to fascinate succeeding generations of rock fans: In the mid-'80s, Morrison was as big a star as he'd been in the mid-'60s, and Elektra has sold numerous quantities of the Doors' original albums plus reissues and releases of live material over the years, while publishers have flooded bookstores with Doors and Morrison biographies. In 1991, director Oliver Stone made The Doors, a feature film about the group starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.

Robbie Krieger
Jim Morrison
Ray Manzarek
John Densmore

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