Doors (music)

A popular rock-and-roll band of the late 1960’s. The Doors introduced a dark style of drug-influenced rock music, enhanced by the controversial performances of lead singer Jim Morrison.

Origins and History

Jim Morrison was the founder and artistic soul of the Doors. Born shortly before his father, a high-ranking naval officer, departed for the Pacific War, Morrison led a gypsy childhood, following his father’s military assignments. Gifted and gregarious, Morrison nevertheless rejected his family’s solid Republican, middle-class values and, in 1964, enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles, to study film.

Morrison met keyboard player Ray Manzarek in the summer of 1965, and they recruited Manzarek’s fellow meditation classmates, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Kreiger. In their first year, the Doors played local shows and small clubs, developing a blues-rock style heavily influenced by the emerging California drug culture. The band’s first break came when they were offered a contract by the prestigious Whiskey-A-Go-Go club on the Sunset Strip, venue for the biggest names in the Los Angeles psychedelic scene. After three months of shocking audiences with loud music and sexually taboo language, they were fired.

In 1966, the Doors signed with Elektra and recorded their first album, The Doors (1967). Their debut album rose steadily on the charts, kept from the top spot only by the remarkable fifteen-week run by the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Doors’ first single, “Light My Fire,” spent two weeks at number one. Both The Doors and the group’s next album, Strange Days (1967), sold more than one million copies and brought Morrison’s sexually suggestive performance style to the attention of a worldwide audience. An international reputation boosted record sales but also drove Morrison into heavier drug and alcohol use. The band’s third album, Waiting for the Sun (1968), was less successful, but a series of spectacular concerts around the country kept the Doors in the spotlight. During these concerts, Morrison often invited angry audience response, and fans soon began to expect outrageous events.

The Doors were booked to play a concert in Miami, Florida, on March 1, 1969. Morrison arrived late and intoxicated to meet an overcrowded hall of edgy fans. After several poorly performed songs, Morrison began to berate the screaming audience, demanding that they “love my ass.” Dancing around the stage, he removed his shirt and began unbuttoning his pants. It is unclear what then happened, though some observers claimed that Morrison revealed his genitals and feigned masturbation. He was eventually pushed into the crowd, and the concert ended after only forty-five minutes.

The media exaggerated the story, and thirty concerts on the tour were canceled. Morrison was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, drunkenness, and indecent exposure. Eventually he was released on five thousand dollars bail pending a trial. In the meantime, the general public was outraged. The Doors’ songs received less radio airtime, and booking agents began requiring a five-thousand-dollar deposit to ensure trouble-free performances. In August, 1970, Morrison was convicted on counts of profanity and indecent exposure and received the maximum sentence of a five-hundred-dollar fine and six months of hard labor in a Florida jail, though an appeal was immediately filed and Morrison remained free on a fifty-thousand-dollar bond.

Subsequent Events

After the Miami concert, the Doors recorded their final albums. The Soft Parade (1969) was harshly reviewed, but the album’s hit single, “Touch Me,” rose to number three on the charts. Morrison Hotel (1970) was a minor success along with two compilation albums. L.A. Woman (1971), the Doors’ last major album, was widely praised, but Morrison’s controversial style had already begun to destroy the band’s cohesiveness. Morrison, more interested in poetry than music, moved to Paris, where he died in 1971 of heart failure.

Impact

In only four years, the Doors evolved from a Los Angeles house band to philosopher prophets of a modern hedonism. Though the Doors distanced themselves from the San Francisco dropout culture, middle-class America feared their brooding and calculated sexuality. Morrison was the first widely popular musician of the 1960’s to use theatrical techniques, in addition to music, to psychologically manipulate audiences into rejecting social norms. In doing so, he shocked middle-class Americans who remained critical of the connection between rock music, sexuality, and the counterculture.

Additional Information

A brief account of the Doors’ lifestyle and musical career, including a discography, can be found in The Doors (1984), by John Tabler and Andrew Doe. A film based on the group’s story, The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone, was released in 1991; Val Kilmer played the part of Morrison.