The Doors helped establish the psychedelic era of music during the late 1960s.
Their history, though, like the era during which they played,
was fraught with tension and destruction. This is the tragic real-life story of the Doors.
As the frontman and face of one of rock 'n' roll's most rebellious bands,
Jim Morrison's upbringing would surprise people. Unlike rebels of the period, like John Lennon,
Morrison grew up in a stable, two-parent home, and unlike Elvis Presley,
he did not have to deal with the pains of poverty. James Douglas Morrison was
born to Clara Clarke Morrison and George Stephen Morrison on December 8th, 1943.
His father was a naval aviator at the time and eventually earned the rank of rear admiral.
Early in Morrison's childhood, the boy who would eventually become known as "The Lizard
King," would have a life-changing experience. While riding through the New Mexico desert at
around age five, he saw the aftermath of a car accident and would later describe seeing
the dead bodies of Native Americans on the side of the road. While his family members have said
the accident was exaggerated by Morrison, the event had an altering effect on him.
Morrison would later say of the incident that it was the first time he, quote, "tasted fear."
A studious student and heavy reader, Morrison began to rebel as he reached his teens.
While attending Florida State University in 1963, a drunk Morrison was arrested for disturbing the
peace during a football game. The next year, he would transfer to UCLA to study film.
According to the Doors' official website,
Morrison's poetry impressed Ray Manzarek enough to ask him to join his band,
Rick and the Ravens, in 1965. By the next year, the core four members of the band were together:
keyboardist Ray Manzarek, singer Jim Morrison, guitarist Robby Krieger , and drummer John
Densmore. Krieger and Densmore had previously played together in the band Psychedelic Rangers.
After a four-month stint at the London Fog nightclub, the group obtained a residency
at one of the biggest venues in all of Los Angeles, the Whiskey A Go-Go, in May 1966.
During their residency, the Doors opened for some of the biggest acts of the era during this period,
like Buffalo Springfield, Them, and the Chamber Brothers.
In August 1966, the group signed with Elektra Records. In their first show at
the Whiskey following their record deal, Morrison began to ad-lib during a song,
something he would become famous for throughout his career.
As the rest of the band continued to improvise along with Morrison's ad-libbing,
the frontman started to belt out an explicit couplet relating to the famous play Oedipus Rex.
Unsurprisingly, the band was fired after the show,
and they would immediately go to work with Elektra Records to make their debut album.
A common theme that can be seen with Jim Morrison and The Doors
is a complete disregard for authority figures. This occurred multiple times before and after
their lone appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the popular variety program that helped launch
groups like the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, and many other musical acts.
Sullivan was no stranger to inviting controversial rock musicians on the show, such as when he hosted
Elvis Presley back in 1956 and the Beatles in 1964, bringing Beatlemania to the United States.
"Ladies and gentlemen… The Beatles! Let's bring them out."
Sullivan, however, was still a far way from being as liberal with his
show's performances as the Smothers Brothers.
Following the rehearsal, Sullivan told the band they were great but should smile a little more.
Afterward, as the band was in their dressing room, a producer came to ask them to change the lyric,
"Girl, we couldn't get much higher," in their song, "Light My Fire," because
it could be interpreted as referencing a drug high. While the band told the producer
they would, Morrison adamantly told his bandmates he wouldn't change the lyric.
Morrison ignored Sullivan's request and sang the song unedited. After the show, the producers
informed The Doors that they would not be allowed on the show again, to which Morrison replied,
"Hey, man. We just did the Sullivan show."
In a first in the young history of the rock 'n' roll genre,
Jim Morrison was arrested onstage during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1967.
Prior to the concert, Morrison was making out with a female fan and wasn't recognized
by a police officer as the lead singer of the band that was about to perform.
As told by Ray Manzarek, when the officer told him to leave, Morrison replied, quote, "Eat it."
After a second warning and another defiant comment from the Lizard King, the officer maced Morrison.
The concert was delayed for Morrison to recover, and the officer apologized to the Doors' manager
once he knew who he'd maced. An angry Morrison and the rest of the band proceeded with the
show all according to plan — until Morrison went on a tirade during the song "Back Door
Man." He referred to the cop who'd maced him as a, quote, "little blue pig" and warned the crowd,
"I'm just like you guys, man — he did it to me, they'll do it to you."
Witnesses at the concert said Morrison was very intoxicated during his on-stage rant.
Eventually, the cops arrived and took Morrison into custody. A small riot ensued, which led to
13 more arrests and Morrison being charged with inciting a riot, indecency, and public
obscenity. This would not be the last concert incident between Morrison and law enforcement.
While the New Haven incident could be chalked up as a case of Morrison
lashing out in anger for what he believed was police misconduct,
the same cannot be said of what happened in Miami in 1969. At this point,
Morrison's alcohol consumption and musical experimentation had increased with his stardom.
Early into the concert, Morrison began to taunt and shout profanities at the audience,
removed his shirt, and pretended to perform an adult act on guitarist Robby Krieger.
"Lettin' people push you around. How long do you think it's gonna last?"
Concerning the long-held belief that Morrison removed his pants and exposed his privates,
Manzarek would later recall in an interview,
"They hallucinated. I swear, the guy never did it. He never whipped it out."
A few days later, a warrant for Morrison was issued by the Dade County Sheriff's
Office for lewd behavior, indecent exposure, drunkenness, and profanity.
Morrison turned down a plea deal to perform a free concert and was eventually convicted, fined $500,
and sentenced to six months in prison.
Just a few months following the Miami concert that ended in Morrison's arrest,
the group's fourth studio album, The Soft Parade, was released.
Despite its gentle title, the album was more like a loud grease fire that almost
ended the band. Nevertheless, it still was a critical and commercial success.
During the recording of The Soft Parade, Morrison continued to battle his own demons with alcohol
and drug use, prompting Robby Krieger to take over much of the songwriting for the album,
as well as to share vocals on the song "Runnin' Blue." Still, with all the chaos surrounding them,
the album still had the Doors' third-highest hit single of their career, "Touch Me."
Powered by that and The Doors' stardom, The Soft Parade went platinum. Still,
the album failed to chart in the UK, and the band's final two albums as a foursome would
rely on their blues and jazz influence with a psychedelic touch, as their previous albums had.
By the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s,
rock 'n' roll was losing some of its greatest artists and bands.
1970 itself saw The Beatles announcing their breakup in April, as well as the deaths of
guitarist Jimi Hendrix and singer Janis Joplin within a three-week period. Both died at age 27.
Following the release of the Doors' sixth studio album, LA Woman, Morrison and his
longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson took a leave of absence in Paris. On July 3rd,
1971, Courson discovered her partner dead in their bathtub.
According to Rolling Stone, the Doors' manager Bill Siddons did not let word
about his death reach the American media until July 9th, two days after his burial in Paris.
Although no autopsy was performed, the official death certificate said
that Morrison died of a heart attack. Siddons said this about Morrison's death:
"It was some sort of heart failure. Blood probably collected from a clot and worked
its way up the chest and blocked heart valves. And that caused the heart attack."
He also claimed that physical abuse had something to do with Morrison's death as well.
Though Morrison was usually portrayed as the anti-corporate, anti-commercial artist in the
band, he was far from the only one. Drummer John Densmore had just as strong a stance as
Morrison against what he perceived as selling out or using the Doors' music for commercial products.
Unfortunately, this led to court proceedings between Densmore and his surviving bandmates.
In a conversation with Rolling Stone, Densmore recalled when Morrison learned his bandmates were
discussing taking a $75,000 deal to use their song, "Light My Fire," for a Buick ad in 1968:
"Jim told us he couldn't trust us anymore. We had agreed that we would never use our music
in any commercial, but the money Buick offered us had been hard to refuse."
In the early 2000s, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger attempted to rejuvenate the band,
referring to their duo as "The Doors of the 21st Century." Densmore and the
Morrison estate sued Manzarek and Krieger to prevent them from continuing to use the name.
Densmore had also vetoed a $15 million deal to Cadillac so they could use the Doors' music,
against the wishes of Krieger and Manzarek. Krieger and Manzarek attempted to paint
Densmore as a communist, though they were unsuccessful, as Densmore won the case.
In 1991, Oliver Stone directed and co-wrote a biopic telling the Doors' story,
starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison and Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson. Upon seeing the film,
Ray Manzarek strongly condemned how his departed friend was portrayed.
He took issue with Morrison's portrayal as, quote, "violent, drunken fool."
Manzarek also said that the film did not understand the artistic
vision of his old band, telling the interviewer,
"The Doors were about idealism and the '60s quest for freedom and brotherhood. But the film isn't
based on love. It's based in madness and chaos. Oliver has made Jim into an agent of destruction."
Much of Manzarek's "agent of destruction" description came from a few scenes from the
film based on rumors of Morrison becoming violent toward his friends, rumors which
were never proven and Manzarek claimed never happened. As Manzarek explained in an interview:
"[Jim] didn't throw a TV set at me. His student film didn't have images from 'Triumph of the
Will.' That was totally made up. And Jim never quit film school. He graduated from UCLA."
Unfortunately, or fortunately,
if you ask Manzarek, The Doors didn't make back its $38 million budget.
After the death of Jim Morrison in 1971, the band would release three more albums
of original material. The final, 1978's An American Prayer, featured Morrison's poetry.
In 1993, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Taking the place of Morrison during their performance was Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.
In March 2013, Ray Manzarek was diagnosed with a rare duct bile cancer.
He passed away on May 23rd, 2013 in Rosenheim, Germany,
survived by his wife of 36 years, Dorothy, their son Pablo, and four grandchildren.
A documentary, Break on Thru — A Celebration of Ray Manzarek, was played in theaters on February
12th, 2020, Manzarek's birthday. The documentary also contained footage from a 2016 concert at the
Ford Theater in Los Angeles in which Krieger and Densmore, the two surviving members of the band,
performed together for the first time in 15 years.
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