Hey guys been a very long time,newez lemme start,"There are things known and things unknown and in between are The Doors",the following inspired Jim Morrison to start something never knew would rock the world till today.
Sometime in the summer of '65 on a beach somewhere in Venice,Jim Morrison recited the following to Ray Manzerek
Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the
City sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive
Ray was dumbstruck and told Jim that he had some great poetry there,and asked Jim to try singing it. REST IS HISTORY...........
James(Jim) Douglas Morrison born 8th Dec a writer poet and the charismatic frontman of one of the biggest bands in the US in the late 60's.Jim was very mysterious by nature and lot of rumors surrounding him about the same even till today.People never believed the fact that he died,they thought he fled to another place.
Jim and Ray studied together in UCLA film school and graduated majoring in film,but even they didn't have a clue on what they would be embarking on.Ray a genius at work in film or music recognized Jim's talent and he told him,"Jim can you Sing",Morrison said "No im not much of a singer",Ray told him just to give a try when Jim recited Moonlight Drive to Ray.Ray was hooked and mentioned to Jim that he knew a drummer and a Guitarist and told Jim that lets make a band and then it all began..............
Somewhere in the summer of '65 Ray,Jim,Robby,John started.They started with Moonlight Drive but were stuck on a chord for while,then one day Robby comes over and says that he wrote something last night,and strumming his guitar he sings.Ray asks Robby what are the chords on that and says "guys gimme a moment" and bamm The Doors No. 1 song to hit top of the charts "Light My Fire".Ironically there first hit single was written by Robby Kreiger.Likewise Jim wrote many great songs himself the famous ones being Riders on the Storm and the most controversial The Ghost Song.
According to Jim what inspired him to write the song(Ghost Song) is the something that happened on one of his family trips to New Mexico.
The first time I discovered death ... me and my mother and father, and my grandmother and grandfather, were driving through the desert at dawn. A truckload o
f Indians had either hit another car or something — there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death. I was just a kid, so I had to stay in the car while my father and grandfather went to check it out. I didn't see nothing — all I saw was funny red paint and people lying around, but I knew something was happening, because I could dig the vibrations of the people around me, and all of a sudden I realized that they didn't know what was happening any more than I did. That was the first time I tasted fear ... and I do think, at that moment, the souls of those dead Indians — maybe one or two of them — were just running around, freaking out, and just landed in my soul, and I was like a sponge, ready to sit there and absorb it.
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding / Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile egg–shell mind."
Even when I heard the song for the first time,I was like what kinda song is this and stopped the song sumwhere halfway through.Then after a while once when the music was on and it played after one of the other 'Doors' songs it caught my mind,was ver captivating and i wondered what went into making this song.The very fact of it being one of my Fav Doors would be firstly because of the lyrics,what they mean and the way they are sung or may i say the way they are recited,secondly the harmonics played on the guitar by Robby which really sounds very psychedelic,no wonder the genre is classified as Acid Rock which would mean consuming acid which would be LSD and making music,but we all know that in thosetimes the primary driving force for musicians was drugs,to all those thinking The Beatles was a pop band FYI The Magical Mystery tour was completely composed by the band under the influence of LSD.
Anyways shifting our focus to Ray Manzerek(Raymond Daniel Manczerek) also graduated out of UCLA film school and also directed one or 2 plays.Was a very talented artist in terms of music was a master on keys.Have any one of you ever wondered while listening to their songs whos playing the 'BASS',Jim on vocals,Robby on leads and rythms,John on drums and the bass.......Ray!!!!!.Yes, If you have noticed in any of their videos you would see Ray playing the normal keyboard with one hand and with the other hand he would be playing a smaller looking one,and that would be a Fender Rhodes Bass Piano,and thats how most of the songs have basslines inspite of having no bassist.The other band making use of the same concept was John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.
And now the hidden talent behind the band,its starnge but notice every band has a very talented musician but that musician is never noticed,like George Harrison of The Beatles was not as well known as Lennon and Mc Cartney similarly John Paul Jones also in Zeppelin,and here in The Doors it was Robby Krieger.Krieger was a great guitar player,it is said that in his younger days he tuned a ukulele like a flamenco guitar to learn the flamenco.Once he had mastered the flamenco he switched to guitars .We notice that the music style is very unique and eclectic.And his work is phenomenal while he was with The Doors,also the first hit which went no 1 was Light My Fire written by none other than Robby.
And finally John Densmore the drummer is also one of the members who is not so much remebered,though several rumors heard were that Jim hated John and couldn't stand him and as mentioned by Ray that he once had to talk Jim into not firing John.Though John has contributed very well to the band in many of the songs.