"RIDERS ON THE STORM"...FOR LRS!!!

                                              "Though the favorites of the gods die young, 
                                            they also live eternally in the company of gods" 
                                                              Frederick Neitzsche

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 debut album was a massive hit, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other. With his rich, chilling vocals and somber poetic visions, Morrison explored the depths of the darkest and most thrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience.

Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that the Doors were hard-pressed to match it, and although their next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also began running up against the limitations of their recklessly disturbing visions. By their third album, they had exhausted their initial reservoir of compositions, and some of the tracks they hurriedly devised to meet public demand were clearly inferior to, and imitative of, their best early work. 

On "The Soft Parade" the group experimented with brass sections, with mixed results. Accused (without much merit) by much of the rock underground as pop sellouts, the group charged back hard with the final two albums they recorded with Morrison, on which they drew upon stone-cold blues for much of their inspiration, especially on 1971's "L.A. Woman".   

From the start, the Doors' focus was the charismatic Morrison, who proved increasingly unstable over the group's brief career. In 1969, he was arrested for indecent exposure during a concert in Miami, an incident that nearly derailed the band. Nevertheless, the Doors managed to turn out a series of successful albums and singles through 1971, when, upon the completion of "L.A. Woman", Morrison decamped for Paris.

  Jim Morrison was born on December 8, 1943 in Clearwater, Florida. He was found dead in his bathtub on July 3, 1971, the victim of an apparent (drug induced) heart attack. He was only 27 years old. Morrison was buried in the Poets' Corner of Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Yet the Doors' music and Morrison's legend continues to fascinate succeeding generations of rock fans. In 1991, director Oliver Stone made The Doors, a feature film about the group starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.

Jim's father was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, and the family thus moved around a great deal. A strict authoritarian, Morrison's father was probably a major source of the outlandish rebellion that his son later acted out on stage; when Morrison began his climb to stardom, he would falsely claim that both of his parents were dead.

 Jim Morrison is one of the most legendary and influential figures in rock & roll history. The disturbing, image-rich poeticism of Morrison's lyrics, perfectly supported by the Doors' swirling, eclectic psychedelic rock, have assured him continuing icon status, while his fondness for theatrical shock tactics and nihilistic angst have influenced countless imitators. Unlike other psychedelic artists, who tended to favor whimsy or mysticism, Morrison saw expansion of consciousness as a way of gaining access to the subconscious mind's dark, unacknowledged desires ...  

 His rampaging ideas dominated his songs with a lust for violence, sex, alcohol, drugs, self-destruction, anything forbidden for any reason by the authority of conservative middle America, and he tried to live out that lifestyle as best he could. Some of Morrison's work has been criticized - both during his lifetime and afterwards - as too melodramatic and calculatedly outrageous, but even at his most frustrating, Morrison's ideas have achieved a lasting resonance with newer generations as well as his initial fans, and his best material remains some of the most original and visionary rock music ever recorded.    

 Morrison's ever-increasing withdrawal and simultaneous indulgence in hedonistic excess threatened the band's stability. He destroyed some of the band's studio equipment in a drunken outburst of temper, and he designed his ever more erratic concert behavior -- miming sex, barrages of profanity, and similar antics -- to provoke intense, frenzied audience reactions. 

In March 1969, Morrison exposed himself to an audience in Miami and was arrested for displaying "lewd and lascivious behavior." After a two-month trial, he was found guilty, depleting the band financially and mentally and nearly causing their breakup. The Doors retreated to the studio, where they sounded musically rejuvenated on the hard-rocking Morrison Hotel (1970) and L.A. Woman (1971).  

 Supporting tours were marked by continued police harassment, and afterwards, a depressed Morrison left the country with Pamela, eventually settling in Paris to unwind and write poetry (he had had his first collection of poems, The Lord and the Creatures, published in 1970). But without the support of his bandmates, Morrison spiraled irrevocably out of control, and he was found dead in his bathtub on July 3, 1971, the victim of an apparent heart attack. He was only 27 years old. His girlfriend Pamela died of a heroin overdose 3 years later.
 

 Former manager and biographer of The Doors, Danny Sugerman is the author of what is considered to be the most definitve biography of Jim Morrison, No-One Gets Out of Here Alive  "Jim chose intensity over longevity. I don't think he wanted to die but I think he made a choice, and he knew it was too late to back out on the deal. I remember that he told me just before he went Paris that if he didn't come back that I would know that cat had run out of lives. 

                                                        until the end.........