The Doors Pictures, Biography, Profile, Facts, Discography, Filmography, more.

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.

The Doors were a four person musical band of the 1960s and early 1970s, consisting of Jim Morrison (vocals, b. 1943 d. 1971), Ray Manzarek (organ, keyboard, b. 1939), Robbie Krieger (guitar, b. 1946) and John Densmore (drums, b. 1944)

The group started in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, after a meeting between UCLA film school graduates Morrison and Manzarek. Morrison sang Manzarek some of his poetry and song lyrics including "Moonlight Drive." Manzarek was already in a band called Rick And The Ravens while Krieger and Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers, but knew Manzarek from shared meditation instruction. The latter two, along with a female bass player, were rapidly recruited and the band took up a number of club residences first at LA's "London Fog" and later the "Whiskey-A-Go-Go".

The Doors had their origin in 1965 when singer Jim Morrison, a theater student at the University of California met fellow student, organist Ray Manzarek. Manzarek invited Morrison to join his R&B band, Rick And The Ravens, which also included Manzarek's two brothers at the time. Drummer John Densmore soon joined, and when Manzarek's brothers left, they were replaced by guitarist Robbie Krieger. Manzarek would play the bass lines on his organ. After extensive gigging in Los Angeles, another L.A. band Love recommend The Doors to their label Elektra, and The Doors were signed.

Their self titled debut album was released in 1967. The single "Light My Fire" became a number one hit in the US. The album also included Doors' favorites, "Break On Through", "The End" and their cover of Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill's "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)". Their second album, Strange Days, had more hits with "People Are Strange" and "Hello I Love You". The Doors' next album was Waiting For The Sun, and it was followed up with two more successful albums, The Soft Parade with "Touch Me" and Morrison Hotel with "Roadhouse Blues". After completing the sessions for their next album, which was the last on their contract, Morrison moved to Paris where he intended to leave music and concentrate on poetry. His poetry had previously been published in two books. On July 3, 1971, Morrison was found dead in his bathtub from a drug induced heart attack. The Doors final album with Jim Morrison, L.A. Woman, was released. It contained the hits "Riders On The Storm" and the title track.

The surviving Doors released two more albums with Manzarek on vocals, then disbanded. The Doors continued to have resurgences for many years. In 1978 they briefly reformed to record music for poetry recordings Morrison made during the LA Woman sessions. It was released as the An American Prayer album and was a surprise success. The use of "The End' in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam war movie, Apocalypse Now, continued interest in The Doors.

In 1991 The Doors were as popular as they were in their original run when director Oliver Stone released a movie biography called The Doors. In 2003, Manzarek and Krieger reunited without John Densmore and toured as The Doors with the Cult's Ian Astbury on vocals and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland.

The Doors made only 6 studio albums, but their legacy suggests decades worth of work. Singer Jim Morrison died July 3, 1971, but you wouldn't know it considering that much of the Doors' greatest success occurred in the 1980s when the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive and an aggressive campaign by their record label sold the band to a new generation of fans. That the Oliver Stone movie released in the 1990s is such a horrible fiasco has only served to prove how magical the band were the first time around.

The excitement Jim Morrison elicits nearly thirty years after his death is just one of the many fascinating and seemingly eternal aspects of the Doors. Lest it be forgotten, the band also recorded some of the darkest and most challenging music of their time. What is so distinctive about the Los Angeles monster group is how the musicians - especially the multifaceted Ray Manzarek - successfully melded rock, jazz-inspired improvisation, and Weill-esque angularity into dramatic settings for Morrison's haunting baritone and acid-damaged poetry. Their amazing range set them apart from their Psychedelic brethren, as they moved seamlessly from the propelling rock of "Break on Through," the breathy beauty of "Indian Summer," the manic blues of "Five to One" and the Coltrane-flavored "Light My Fire" to the funky edginess of "Peace Frog" (it could be argued that the latter was the single biggest influence on the 1980s "Madchester" scene). Whether you feel that Morrison was a brilliant and complex modern-day shaman or a second-rate pretty-boy poet who lost it to alcohol and pills, it's impossible to deny the long-lasting impact the Doors have had on rock 'n' roll.