| The Doors of the 21st Century News: |
| From their beginnings during the summer of 1965 at Venice Beach, California, The Doors were truly aband, a remarkable fusion of creative energies, a lot of attention has been focused on Jim Morrison which his looks and talents clearly justify. However, Jim was well aware that the magic of The Doors could never havehappened without the fortunate forging of John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison into a single creative whole. It is no mystery why Jim Morrison never went solo; so sympathetic were the three other musicians to Jim's mission that such a consideration was out of the question. Robby Krieger, or example, was able to write lyrics and music that sounded more like Morrison than Morrison himself-- among them "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times,"and "Love Her Madly." Without Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore there is a strong chance that Jim's songs would never have made it off the page, into rehearsal, onto the stage, into the recording studio and, in defiance of all odds, to successive g
enerations who have since discovered The Doors as a "new" group. |
| More The Doors of the 21st Century News: |
| The band took its name from the poet-visionary-artist William Blake, who had written, "When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will appear to man as they truly are...infinite." English author Aldous Huxley was sufficiently inspired by Blake's quote to title his book on mescaline experiences The Doors of Perception. Morrison was so connected to both works that he proposed, The Doors, to his bandmates. Everyone agreed that the name, as well as the inspiration from which it sprang, was perfect to convey who they were and clearly representive for what they stood for. The group was signed to Elektra Records, then a small folk-music record company, in July of 1966 by Jac Holzman, Elektra's founder.
By April 1971, The Doors had recorded six landmark studio LP's and a two -record set of live performances, the first seven discs with producer Paul A. Rothchild and the last one co-produced by The Doors and their career-long engineer Bruce Botnick... both The Doors and Elektra had grown into world famed institutions. The band's unstated goal was to accomplish musical alchemy, to fuse rock music with both existential poetry and improvisational theater. Jim was greatly influenced by the nineteenth century poet Arthur Rimbaud and he dutifully imparted Rimbaud's philosophy to the group. Rimbaud advocated a systematic "rational derangement of all the senses in order to achieve the unknown." |