page_title: The Doors
section_title: Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
hierarchical_section_title: The Doors / History / Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
caption_attribution_description: Whisky a Go-Go, 8901 W. Sunset Blvd., W. Hollywood, CA.
context_page_description: The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, mostly because of Morrison's lyrics and voice along with his erratic stage persona, and the group was widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
  The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including The Doors, Strange Days, and L.A. Woman. They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
  Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations.
context_section_description: The Doors began with a meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, both of whom had attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, on Venice Beach in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs (Morrison said "I was taking notes at a fantastic rock'n'roll concert going on in my head") and with Manzarek's encouragement sang "Moonlight Drive". The members came from a varied musical background of jazz, rock, blues, and folk idioms.
  Keyboardist Manzarek was in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. In August 1965, Densmore joined the group, which had been renamed the Doors. The five (Morrison having previously joined the band), along with bass player Patty Sullivan recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965 at World Pacific Studios, Los Angeles, California (officially made available much later in October 1997 on the Doors' Box Set CD release). This has circulated widely since then as a bootleg recording. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In mid-1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
  From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Ray Manzarek would later say that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness...that is where the magic began to happen."
  The Doors soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of Them's "Gloria".
  On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 – the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966 when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
caption: Whisky a Go Go
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