Just lately, Crimson Scorching Chili Peppers bassist Flea chosen punk rock icons X as his selection for best L.A. band. For X lead singer Exene Cervenka, her decide is an equally straightforward one. “It’s the Hollywood experience, the Walk of Fame, Lana Turner. The Doors are part of that, woven into that magic.”
The sand and surf would possibly belong to the Seaside Boys. However L.A. nightlife, the Sundown Strip, the avant-garde, the choice world all come from the mighty shadow of the Doorways. It started 60 years in the past when Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore lit the world on fireplace.
Within the 5 albums and 6 years they existed as a quartet earlier than Morrison died in Paris in 1971 at age 27, the Doorways crafted a legacy that’s not solely a cornerstone of L.A. lore, however has traveled from the seashores of Venice, the place they shaped, the world over numerous instances. The parable and legend of the Doorways continues to develop.
To commemorate the milestone anniversary, we spoke to dwelling Doorways members Densmore and Krieger in addition to Carlos Santana, Bootsy Collins, Cervenka, Chuck D (Public Enemy), L.A. jazz musician José James, British icon Robyn Hitchcock and paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara of the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum in New Jersey — about six many years of the Doorways.
Doorways members:
John Densmore: The songs have deepened for me. I’m nonetheless fathoming Jim’s lyrics. I really like his lyrics and I knew they had been deep, however right here and there, I’ll decide up an obscure lyric and I’ll simply flip for it. “No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.” What an excellent line. The songs are creation. Creation didn’t occur a very long time in the past and we’re going to all go to heaven. Creation is ongoing. That’s what we’ve got to maintain remembering within the face of all this darkness.
I hope [the music’s] all the time been an oasis, and therapeutic. Jim wrote “Unknown Soldier.” He didn’t say Vietnam, nevertheless it was throughout these instances that was clearly in opposition to that and all wars.
I hoped I may pay the lease for 10 years and it’s 60 or no matter it’s. I really like being complimented. However I’m extra excited and considering my jazz venture. I additionally did an album with Chuck D. It’s going to be alt hip-hop. And that’s coming. And I’ve a poetry album. I’m not writing poetry, however I’m studying and taking part in hand drums and studying, Jim and varied poets. That’s what turns me on and it’s not going to be “Light My Fire” and that’s OK as a result of it’s been downhill ever since. That f—ing music was primary for 26 weeks. What do you do after that?
It’s very touching to listen to individuals say the primary time they ever made love or acquired excessive, or they acquired by way of the wars within the jungles of Vietnam with our assist sonically. That pleases me tremendously.
The members of the Doorways are proven within the famed rock band’s glory days. From left, drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Krieger, singer/lyricist Jim Morrison and keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Morrison died in France in 1971 on the age of 27. Manzarek died in Germany in 2013 on the age of 74.
(Picture by Paul Ferrara/ © Doorways Property, LLC.)
Robby Krieger: I used to be amazed that we acquired on the radio within the first place, and performed at locations just like the Whisky, a lot much less 60 years later. No concept.
I’ve been taking part in these songs perpetually and ever. There was a time, say 20 years, after I was simply taking part in jazz and stuff like that. I used to be simply by way of with the Doorways. It’s not that I hated the Doorways or something like that, I figured the Doorways had been carried out. Jim was gone. We had tried to get alongside with out him for 3 or 4 years. We really had been doing fairly effectively. We performed Carnegie Corridor with simply me, John and Ray. It was fairly superb. So, we may’ve stored going because the Doorways, however we couldn’t get alongside. After Jim was gone, the three of us simply couldn’t get together with one another. The bond was damaged.
When the Oliver Stone film got here out, that actually piqued the curiosity within the Doorways once more. So, when that occurred we had so many requests to play these songs once more.
There have been a number of them that we actually by no means performed in particular person with Jim as a result of as soon as Miami occurred we couldn’t play hardly wherever as a result of they’d this factor known as the corridor supervisor’s affiliation and they might not allow us to play it as a result of they had been afraid, “Oh, we’re going to pull it out.” That’s why we did so many albums in such a brief period of time. We couldn’t get any gigs. So, we ended up simply recording lots. Then as soon as we recorded these songs they had been within the can, however we didn’t play them. So, it was bizarre, on the Whisky, we’re taking part in each album so as. Final week we did the primary album, each music so as, after which took a break, then we got here again and did another songs. So, after we began taking part in these Doorways songs once more, we mentioned, “Hey, why don’t we do such and such a song that we’ve never done before in person?” There are such a lot of of them they usually’re a lot enjoyable to play as a result of A) we’ve by no means performed them, and B) it’s simply cool to study a brand-new music that you simply’ve by no means performed earlier than in particular person.
Panelists: 
Carlos Santana
(Marylene Eytier / Courtesy Jensen Communications)
Carlos Santana: Sure, [I saw them] on the Fillmore. I used to be fairly mesmerized. I wasn’t ready as a result of the Doorways created this theater rock earlier than Alice Cooper or anyone. The very first thing that Jim Morrison mentioned, “Before we play any song, I want you to turn off all the lights, turn them off.” So, they flip off all of the lights. All you possibly can see was the exit signal. And I used to be like, “Holy s—, man.” They went into the theater of it. He began singing, “When the music’s over.” I turned transfixed with the Doorways.
So, they’d a radio contest in San Francisco, the Doorways in opposition to the Rolling Stones. They performed “Light My Fire,” after which they performed “Satisfaction.” They’d individuals vote, and the Doorways received unanimously. The entire Bay Space mentioned, “We like the Rolling Stones, but the Doors’ ‘Light My Fire,’ that’s it. Dropped the mic.” Each unbelievable songs, however that’s how massive the Doorways had been. They had been larger than the Rolling Stones. Now, once you see Steven Tyler, from Aerosmith, and Mick Jagger, you possibly can inform that they noticed Jim Morrison they usually wished a few of that as a result of this man was a rock star earlier than the phrase “rock star.” The way in which he carried himself on stage, it was simply him and Jimi Hendrix who had that aura of rock stars.
Rapper Chuck D performs with Public Enemy Radio throughout a Bernie Sanders rally on the Los Angeles Conference Heart on March 1, 2020.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
Chuck D: I occur to be sufficiently old to be a child at a really prime time of the Doorways. And I used to be 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
They had been Identifiable individually. They meshed collectively so far as cohesive drive. And I believe the sum of the elements — every half, I believe, are individually nice. However the sum of the elements collectively was very important to me. I by no means acquired an opportunity to fulfill Manzarek. However he all the time appeared like a cool man on the opposite aspect of the documentary display.
X vocalist Exene Cervenka at their recording studio in Eagle Rock on March 10, 2020. Ray Manzarek produced X’s first 4 albums.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
Exene Cervenka: It’s timeless. Possibly it will get higher over time, nevertheless it’s all the time there ready for you once you want it. If you’ll want to hear “Strange Days,” you really want to listen to “Strange Days” and it’s there and I really like that. The massive factor concerning the Doorways is you set the file on the turntable and sit down and hearken to it. That’s the Doorways, it’s not similar to, “Oh it comes up every once in a while on your music feed at the gym or something.” It’s like “Go put ‘Strange Days’ on and just listen.” It’s superb as a result of they had been an important orchestral band. Their preparations and their ideas that went into every little thing.
Right here’s my Doorways expertise. Once I was 11 or 12, “Light My Fire” got here on the radio and it was this unbelievable music, however I used to be just a little child dwelling in a really small city in the course of nowhere in Illinois. Then at some point the radio was taking part in, and the Doorways got here on and it was the lengthy model. So, I’m sitting again there, I’m 12 years previous, it’s wintertime and I’m simply sitting there listening to the music and swiftly it launches into that complete unbelievable musical passage. That modified me perpetually that second. You’re 12, you’re going into puberty, you see Jim Morrison, you hear that music, it’s the ‘60s, you’re in the course of nowhere in Catholic faculty. It’s going to alter you basically for the remainder of your life, simply that second. Simply that 5 minutes.
Robyn Hitchcock: I nonetheless really feel the identical approach concerning the songs and concerning the performances and about Jim Morrison that I did after I first heard them in 1968. I nonetheless hear it by way of the emotional ears of a 15-year-old. However, having spent a lifetime as a musician, I do understand how good they had been technically, how the panorama that significantly Ray Manzarek did, however I believe all three of them, it was a type of very complementary assortment of individuals like Led Zeppelin, there was no fats, there was no spare something, the keyboard participant needed to play the bass together with his ft the identical approach you recognize John Paul Jones did if he was taking part in keys in Led Zeppelin. However the important thing determine continues to be Jim Morrison for me.
Kenneth Lacovara: One of many issues is after I do fieldwork, like I spent 5 winters in southernmost Patagonia summers excavating a large dinosaur that I later named Dreadnoughtus. Excavating is tough work. We had been on the market about 100 kilometers off the grid. I spent over a 12 months of my life dwelling in a tent subsequent to this animal. And we’d play music again then on my iPod hooked as much as the pickup truck audio system. The Doorways had been considered one of our bands. I employed two gauchos, that are like South American cowboys, to work with us. We might use their horses to pull dinosaur bones out of the desert. And their favourite music was “Riders on the Storm.” They might all the time ask for it. So, that turned type of the theme music of the Dreadnought excavation. That was our music. Now after I hear that music it takes me again to that place in Patagonia.
José James: At their core they’re a band and that’s what makes the music so enduring. They’re nice musicians, they performed very well collectively. What strikes me about it at present listening as a musician is the looseness of the band, just like the interaction. You possibly can hear that jazz phrasing, within the drums in Densmore’s taking part in. Behind the snare is hitting in a rock approach however there may be that wash that you simply solely get from jazz coaching and listening to jazz. The dynamics of the band actually are stunning. They actually took a music on a journey, which to me is such a jazz idea. They may rock, clearly, they might get all the way in which up their quantity, however they might additionally actually pull again and discover in these delicate contours, which is so distinctive in that style. Musically they had been so forward of their time.
Bootsy Collins: The stuff doesn’t sound ingrained within the time. It nonetheless appears like at present.
The mix of the music that they performed and from the totally different backgrounds of music had lots to do with the sound and the course of the entire thing. They’d a sure chemistry that might work with one another. They’d that happening, whether or not consciously or not.
