Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception and the unforgettable quote by William Blake (Jim’s favorite poet): "There are things known, and things that are unknown, in between the doors.", inspired Jim to name his new rock band ‘The Doors’. Jim later turned William Blake’s sentence into his own by changing it to: "There are things known, and things unknown and in between are the Doors.."

    Ray Daniel Manzarek was born on February 12,1939, in Chicago, Illinois. In the summer of 1965 Ray enrolled at UCLA. He met Jim in Venice, California. Unlike other rock bands The Doors do not have a bass player. Ray discovered a new electric keyboard that sounded like a bass and an organ at once. That’s were The Doors get their unique sound.
    Although The Doors were unlike every other band by not having a bass player.. Every band needs a guitarist and something of a drummer. So Manzarek called up his friends Robbie Krieger and John Densmore.Robbie Krieger was born on January 8, 1946 in Los Angeles, California. Krieger began playing the guitar when he was 17. Robbie was responsible for The Doors biggest hit – ‘Light My Fire’. During the summer of 1967, that song was the No. 1 song in the U.S. for 3 weeks.

    John Densmore was born on December 1,1944 in Santa Monica, California. John was a veteran drummer that usually played in Jazz bands but after receiving an exciting call from Ray Manzarek, John changed his tune.

 

      Jim attended UCLA Film School in early 1964. Jim dropped out after his end-of-term film received bad notes and moved on top of someone’s roof on Venice Beach. Ray Manzarek (future fellow Door) also attended UCLA around the time when Jim went to school there. As the story is told – One day Ray ran into Jim on the beach, he asked him what he had been doing with his life since he left school. Jim replied ‘writing’ and was asked to give a sample of his work. Jim sang ‘Moonlight Drive’ for Ray and Ray loved it. "I’d never heard lyrics to a rock song like that before. Let’s get a band together and make a million dollars." Ray said just as Jim was finishing his song. Of course they already had a name for the band, and The Doors were born.

      They started off playing at small clubs like London Fog. During this time period Jim was extremely shy. In fact Jim would perform most of his early shows with his back facing the audience. As he grew accustomed to being the center of attention (which didn’t take long), Jim became wilder and louder. He even got himself and the rest of the Doors kicked out of some clubs, whether it was for his wild behavior or his lyrics. Take for example the song ‘The End’ – it was a slow, somewhat spooky, solemn statement about death and violence. The ‘obscene’ lyrics in that particular number were the cause for The Doors getting kicked out of ‘Whiskey-A-Go-Go’ (popular club in LA at the time) right after they were through performing it. Not everyone thought ‘The End’ was inappropriate though.. In fact it was the reason for the band getting signed. The Doors producer, Paul A. Rothchild, loved ‘The End’ and in late 1966 The Doors recorded their first album for Elecktra Records. Right after The Doors hit it big ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ went from drugs to alcohol – sometimes he would be to drunk to even show up for sessions in the recording booth. But as far as anyone was concerned, Jim’s drug and alcohol problems just made The Doors a whole lot more popular with the teens of that era.

 

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