Today in Music (1967): The Doors released their debut album

The Doors The Doors

Released: January 4, 1967 Charted: March 25, 1967 Peak: 2 US, 43 UK, 42 CN, -- AU Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.6 UK, 12.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: (Click for codes to charts.) Break on Through to the Other Side [2:29] (1/1/67, 1 CL, 64 UK, 1 DF) Soul Kitchen [3:35] (9 CL, 20 DF) The Crystal Ship [2:34] (9 CL, 21 DF) Twentieth Century Fox [2:33] (6 CL, 32 DF) Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) (Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill) [3:20] (11 CL, 6 DF) Light My Fire [7:06] (4/67, 1 BB, 1 CB, 1 GR, 1 HR, 1 CL, 7 UK, 2 CN, 16 AU, 1 DF, sales: 1.0 million) Back Door Man (Chester Burnett/Willie Dixon) [3:34] (6 CL) I Looked at You [2:22] End of the Night [2:42] Take It As It Comes [2:23] The End [11:41] (3 CL, 6 DF) Songs written by Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore unless noted otherwise. Total Running Time: 44:00 The Players: Jim Morrison (vocals) Ray Manzarek (keyboards) Robby Krieger (guitar, bass) John Densmore (drums, percussion)

Rating: 4.677 out of 5.00 (average of 30 ratings) Quotable: “One of the best first-time outings in rock history” – Richie Unterberger, AllMusic.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: The Doors formed in Los Angeles in 1965. They took their name from the 1963 book The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, who took his title from a line by William Blake. The band became a significant band in the counterculture era of the 1960s. Their “music came as an antidote to the love, peace and happiness mantra of the hippie mentality, while still appealing to its mysticism sexuality.” RV The Members: They were fronted by the “sexy and unpredictable” CM lead singer Jim Morrison, a “wild card…who…had the mind of a poet and the best rock & roll voice since Elvis Presley.” CM He “worshipped the theatrics of Bertolt Brecht as well as blues man Howlin’ Wolf.” RV “Though he fancied himself a poet, Morrison ultimately had greater impact on the nation’s leather pants industry.” BL “Lots of what was great about the Doors has to do with Morrison…He sings from inside a dream state…tells what he’s seen in torrents of grandiose images, using a trick bag of howls and shouts to enhance the scene.” TM “In a world where the most outrageous of mainstream rock bands could achieve notoriety simply by turning their amplifiers up” TB Morrison’s “intimidating and surreal lyrics,” TB “probing the murkier depths of the human psyche, were downright shocking.” TB Morrison met Ray Manzarek at UCLA film school in the 1960s. When they happened to run into each on Venice Beach a year after graduation, they decided to form a band. Manzarek recruited Robbie Kreiger and John Densmore from a meditation class they had attended together. CM The three had had backgrounds in jazz and R&B but they “meshed together for a sound that had a sleazy undertow but flashy filigree.” CM Their collective instrumental talents “virtually defined the rock-blues-jazz-classical amalgam that was acid-rock.” AZ “The classically-trained Ray Manzarek” RV offered “swirling organ [and] provided the melodic backbone for the apocalyptic hoodoo of Jim Morrison” BL and his “captivating vocals and probing prose.” AM Robbie Krieger’s“lean, spidery” AM “flamenco-based guitar” RV and “swooping fretwork [was] sometimes bluesly, sometimes evoking Indian ragas.” TB John Densmore, who “idolized the great jazz percussionists,” RV “employed ever percussion trick in the book to illustrate Jim Morrison’s story-songs without ever skipping a beat.” TB While they They chose not to add a bass player to the mix because that “would make them sound like the Animals or a million other bands.” CM The Debut Album: They were first signed to Columbia Records, dropped, and then signed to Elektra Records in 1966. Producer Paul Rothschild said the goal with the album was “to create an aural documentary of the band’s live shows.” CM They started recording their debut album on August 26 of that year. CM Morrison said, “Elektra didn’t want to spent much…Some of the songs took only a few takes.” CM The whole album was recorded in six days. TM Nonethless, their self-titled 1967 release is “exciting and innovative,” TM and “one of the best first-time outings in rock history.” AM The group “more than fulfilled the promise of their infamously challenging gigs around Los Angeles throughout the previous year.” AZ The album is an “amalgam…that sounds fully psychedelic” BL as it introduces “the band’s fusion of rock, blues, classical, jazz, and poetry with a knockout punch.” AM The Songs: Here’s some insight into each of the individual songs on the album. “Break on Through” “The propulsive Break on Through” AM was the first single and a fitting introduction to the Doors. “A slightly disturbed Jim Morrison repeatedly bellows the phrase ‘Break on through to the other side.’ He sounds like he’s found passage to a promised land, and is determined to help others make the journey. His invitation also happens to summarize the Doors’ guiding idea: This is rock music for and about transcendence.” TM It “was Jim Morrison’s roadmap to the palace of wisdom via the road of excess. According to producer Paul Rothschild there was some LSD consumption during the sessions and this song certainly fits with the contemporary psychedelic ideology.” CM “Soul Kitchen” Following the lead-off introduction, comes “the stomping rock of Soul Kitchen.” AM “When Morrison begs to sleep all night…his rhythm section makes it a place of sensual bliss and also psychic refuge.” TM “The Crystal Ship,” and “Twentieth Century Fox” That is followed by “the beguiling Oriental mystery of The Crystal Ship.” AM While not a single, Twentieth Century Fox became one of the band’s “staples of classic rock radio,” CS as did many songs on the album. “Alabama Song” Morrison “sounds as if he’s drinking to pursue enlightment.” TM This was a cover of a song originally written by German lyricist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill for the 1927 play Little Mahogonny. It was later translated to English by Elisabeth Hauptmann. David Bowie also recorded the song. “Light My Fire” This “became the defining Doors single, the group’s question propulsion keeps that ember alive through a long instrumental interlude that has the feeling of an epic journey.” TM Morrison “transforms rather ordinary urgings – when you think about it, ‘Come on baby, light my fire’ is pretty banal as refrains go – into lofty-sounding sentiments that were cherished by millions.” TM Light My Fire “allowed the varying influences of the group to shine.” RV Though the band was defined by Morrison’s antics and sex appeal, “he had little to do with the hit – Manzarek developed the melody, Krieger wrote most of the lyrics, [and] Densmore created the beat.” CM Krieger said that for the song, “I wanted to write something more adventurous. I decided I was going to put every chord I knew into this song and I did! There’s about 14 different chords in there.” CM It “was the cut that topped the charts and established the group as stars, but most of the rest of the album is just as impressive.” AM “Back Door Man” and “I Looked at You” “Whether belting out a standard like Back Door Man [a cover of a song by bluesman Howlin’ Wolf],“or talk-singing such originals as ‘The Crystal Ship’ and I Looked at You, leather-clad vocalist Jim Morrison exuded both sensuality and menace.” AZ “End of the Night” and “Take It As It Comes” Next up is “the mysterious End of the Night” AM followed by Take It as It Comes. The latter was “one of several tunes besides ‘Light My Fire’ that also had hit potential.” AM “The End” “The Doors’ genius culminated with The End,” RV a “brooding, hallucinatory, gothic nightmare” TB and “the band’s most jarring masterpiece.” RV This is “the group at its most daring and, some would contend, overambitious.” AM “The 11-minute Oedipal drama” RV is “a long improvisation around a poem by Morrison that gets into the head of a madman who kills his family and rapes his mother.” CM It only took two takes to record. About six minute in, Rothschild turned to engineer Bruce Botnick and said, “Do you understand what’s happening here? This is one of the most important moments in recorded rock & roll.” CM Indeed, it “helped rewrite the rules on rock song composition” AZ and provided a “haunting cap to an album whose nonstop melodicism and dynamic tension would never be equaled by the group again, let alone bettered.” AM The song was used “to provide a soul-shattering exclamation to the…final scenes” of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece film Apocalypse Now. Conclusion: The Doors released six albums from 1967 to 1971. Jim Morrison’s tragic death in 1971 at the age of 27 brought an end to the classic lineup although the other three attempted to soldier on, releasing two more poorly-received albums over the next couple of years. While they came and went in a short time, their influence has been long lasting as they have been celebrated as one of the great rock bands of all time – and the pinnacle of their work is their 1967 debut. Notes: A 40th anniversary edition added two versions of “Moonlight Drive” and the song “Indian Summer,” recorded in August 1966. A 50th anniversary edition added a second version of the album in mono as well as a live set from 1967.

Review Sources: AM AllMusic.com review by Richie Unterberger AZ Amazon.com review by Billy Altman BL Blender (10/08). “100 Greatest American Albums” CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Page 142. TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 232. CRS Tim Morse (1998). Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. Page 188. RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher CS Chris Smith (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. Pages 40-42. TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 84. Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/11/2008; last updated 8/10/2024.