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The Doors, one of the most influential andcontroversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formedin Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLAfilm students RayManzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals;with drummer John Densmore and guitarist RobbyKrieger.The group never added a bass player, andtheir sound was dominated by Manzarek's electricorgan work and Morrison's deep,sonorous voice,with which he sang and intoned his highly poeticlyrics. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1966andreleased its first album, The Doors, featuringthe hit "Light My Fire," in 1967.Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a ma ...read more
The Doors, one of the most influential andcontroversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formedin Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLAfilm students RayManzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals;with drummer John Densmore and guitarist RobbyKrieger.The group never added a bass player, andtheir sound was dominated by Manzarek's electricorgan work and Morrison's deep,sonorous voice,with which he sang and intoned his highly poeticlyrics. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1966andreleased its first album, The Doors, featuringthe hit "Light My Fire," in 1967.Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a massivehit, and endures as one of the most exciting,groundbreaking recordingsof the psychedelic era.Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and popinto sinister but beguiling melodies, thebandsounded like no other. With his rich, chillingvocals and somber poetic visions, Morrisonexplored the depths of the darkestand mostthrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience.Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that TheDoors were hard-pressed to match it, and althoughtheir next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also beganrunning upagainst the limitations of their recklessly disturbingvisions. By their third album, they had exhaustedtheir initialreservoir of compositions, and some ofthe tracks they hurriedly devised to meet publicdemand were clearly inferior to, andimitative of,their best early work.On The Soft Parade, the group experimented withbrass sections, with mixed results. Accused(without much merit) by muchof the rockunderground as pop sellouts, the group chargedback hard with the final two albums they recordedwith Morrison,on which they drew upon stone-coldblues for much of their inspiration, especially on1971's L.A. Woman.From the start, The Doors'focus was the charismatic Morrison, who provedincreasingly unstable over the group's briefcareer.In 1969, Morrison was arrested for indecentexposure during a concert in Miami, an incidentthat nearly derailed theband. Nevertheless, TheDoors managed to turn out a series of successfulalbums and singles through 1971, when, uponthecompletion of L.A. Woman, Morrison decampedfor Paris. He died there, apparently of a drugoverdose. The three survivingDoors tried to carryon without him, but ultimately disbanded. Yet TheDoors' music and Morrison's legend continuedtofascinate succeeding generations of rock fans: inthe mid-'80s, Morrison was as big a star as he'dbeen in the mid-'60s, andElektra has sold numerousquantities of The Doors' original albums plusreissues and releases of live material over theyears,while publishers have flooded bookstoreswith Doors and Morrison biographies. In 1991,director Oliver Stone made The Doors,a feature filmabout the group starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.The remaining three members of The Doors --Manzarek, Densmore, and Krieger -- were involvedin various musical activitiesin the decadesfollowing Morrison's death but never sawsuccesses approaching the levels of the originalDoors. After the turnof the millennium, Manzarekand Krieger performed live under the name Doorsof the 21st Century with singer Ian Astbury oftheCult handling vocals; a legal battle ensued whenDensmore filed suit against his former bandmatesover use of the Doorsname. Ray Manzarek died inMay 2013 in Rosenheim, Germany after battling bileduct cancer; he was 74 years old. « hide |
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