#409 - The Doors - Strange Days (1967)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on September 25th 1967 on Elektra Records and produced by Paul Rothchild this is the second album by American Psychedelic, Blues, Jazz, Rock band The Doors.
Vocalist and poet Jim Morrison and keyboardist Ray Manzarek met at UCLA film school in 1965.
After they graduated Jim moved to Venice Beach while Ray had been playing in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim.
After bumping into Jim on Venice Beach later in 1965 Ray heard his lyrics and voice and asked him to join the band.
Los Angeles native, drummer John Densmore was playing in the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from his meditation class when he was asked to join Rick & the Ravens.
They made a six-song demo but after Ray’s brothers quit the group Densmore suggested his friend and fellow L.A. native guitarist Robbie Krieger.
As they had no bass player Manzarek played the bass-lines with his left hand on a keyboard bass. Densmore brought his Jazz skills to his drumming. Krieger infused his exotic guitar style with Jazz as well as Flamenco, Folk, and Blues. Morrison was a heavy reader and besides writing most of the lyrics his earlier vocal obsession with Elvis Presley’s Rock and Roll growl was redirected to the cool croon of Frank Sinatra.
The band decided to change their name.
Jim suggested they take their name from the title of British writer Aldous Huxley’s 1954 book about his psychedelic experiences while tripping on mescaline, “The Doors of Perception” which quoted a line from a 1793 essay by English poet and painter William Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”
In 1966 after a four month residency at the sleazy and rundown L.A. club London Fog where they honed their sound and chops The Doors became the house band at the popular Whisky a Go Go.
On the recommendation of their friend, Arthur Lee of the band Love who was signed to Elektra, label owner Jac Holzman and producer Paul Rothchild came to see them at the Whisky in August.
They were signed immediately about a week before they got fired after Jim screamed the whole, “Mother, I want to fuck you” part in “The End.”
A week and a half later they had finished recording their debut record which was released in January of 1967.
Four months later as the album and shows were doing well Elektra wanted them to follow it up so the band recorded this over four months on tour breaks.
Like on all their albums they occasionally had real bass players in the studio and on this it was Douglas Lubahn.
After receiving and “absolutely flipping out” over an advance copy of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the band, longtime producer Paul Rothchild, and engineer Bruce Botnick realized they could experiment much more than on the first album. They also moved up from a 4-track to a cutting edge 8-track recording machine giving them more tracks on which to explore new ideas and sounds.
“Strange Days” was another hit record.
By 1971 after four more albums with lots of success despite Morrison’s substance abuse, unreliability, and controversial behavior that lead to several arrests Jim took a break from the band to go to Paris.
While there Jim Morrison died mysteriously in the bath tub.
The remaining three Doors put out two more albums with them trading vocals and one album with them playing under Morrison’s poetry.
They continued to play together periodically until Manzarek’s death from cancer in 2013.
The Doors became the first American band to have eight consecutive gold records, have sold over 100 million records worldwide, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.