Interactive Chronological History
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Note: Some of the dates this year are estimates while using some dated guidelines. This is by far the vaguest year according to actual dates because the events are not documented like they are through concert dates and record releases. However, through exhaustive research, I feel that these events are very close to the actual date.
Legend:
(DU)
= Date Unknown, Date, EVENT, Review, Timeline, Link, Quote, Poetry/Lyrics
Throughout the site pictures are placed like above as previews to
photos of events you may access via links in upcoming months. They are
broken
up into quarterly segments unless otherwise noted.
I
N T H E B E G I N N I N G
"I see
myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star.
Everyone stops, points up and gasps 'Oh, look at that!' Then whoosh,
and I'm gone... and they'll never see anything like it ever again...
and
they won't be able to forget me - ever." - Jim Morrison
Thu. July 8: Jim and Ray Come Together - Venice Beach, CA
(DU - Some people believe this encounter took place in
August, as it is written in many books, but it is highly unlikely due
to the first hand account of Ray, as the one that was there, and who
has always claimed to remember this event very well and has always said
July)
Jim's view from
Dennis Jacob's rooftop After receiving a Bachelor's degree in
cinematography from UCLA and living on friend Dennis
Jacob's rooftop, Jim Morrison runs into his fellow film school
graduate Ray Manzarek on Venice
Beach this afternoon around 1:00 p.m. and the idea of a band is
formulated after Jim sings a couple of his songs in this order
"Moonlight Drive", "My Eyes Have Seen You" and "Summers Almost Gone"
"Sitting
on the beach thinking what I'm going to do with my life and who comes
walking
down the beach but the shaman himself. This transformation . . . Jim
transformed
himself. He went inside of a cocoon and came out absolutely gorgeous.
He'd
lost maybe thirty pounds. He was living on a friend's rooftop ingesting
massive quantities of a certain psychedelic substance and didn't eat .
. . was living off his baby fat and he was approximately 165, 170
pounds
at U.C.L.A. and then went down to maybe 135. Six feet tall, lean, hard
. . . his hair had grown. He looked like David, he looked like
Michelangelo's
David. I said, 'God, you look great man, what you been doing?' He said,
'Nothing, I haven't been eating' and he said, 'I've been writing some
songs'
. . . songs, aaahh." - Ray Manzarek
Let's swim to the moon
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening
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.
Jim tells Ray he wants to call the band The Doors, with reference to the William Blake line: "If the doors of perception were cleansed man could see things as they truly are, infinite". The idea of using the name is also in association to Aldous Huxley and his book The Doors of Perception which Ray digs as both of them are experimenting with drugs and expanding their consciousness. Huxley's book is primarily about his experiences and accounts of taking mescaline. While staying on the rooftop, Jim would take acid daily, which is legal at this time and available at the local head shop, and rarely come down off the roof while writing constantly and eating very little.
"There are things known and things unknown and
in
between are The Doors." - Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison wants to be
the
door by which others can experience the unknown and ultimately change
persons/society's way of thinking by becoming open to all things
possible. He wants to change the world's narrow perceptions and has
given over his life, willingly as sacrifice, to be the one to do
so. He will pass through the door with the fear of death gone and
along side an awakening of something greater
than life.
"But the man who comes back through the Door in the
Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He
will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied,
humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to
understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning
to the unfathomable Mystery which
it tries, forever vainly to comprehend." - Aldous Huxley, The Doors of
Perception,
last paragraph
Jim knows what he has to do and he will never do anything in moderation again. He believes that by ravaging the soul he can attain the unknown and holds strong to another Blake line - "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom". His accepted job, as a college graduate entering manhood, is to be the one to go out on the edge and bring his visions back to society, not unlike a shaman in a tribe, but the price he has to pay will be the greatest one of all. Jim also wants deeply to be remembered for what he is about to do and has a strong desire to be remembered long after he is gone like many of his idols; writers and poets. He sees poetry and writing as a way to eternal life and his plan is to use his words combined with music to reach the masses and change the world.
We want the world and we want it, now, now,
NOW!
"I had been friendly with Jim at UCLA, and we talked
about rock 'n' roll even then. After we graduated, he (Jim) said
he was going to New York. Then, two months later, in July, I met him on
the beach in Venice. He said he had been writing some songs, so we sat
on
the beach and I asked him to sing some of them. He did, and the
first
thing he tried was 'Moonlight Drive'. When he sang those first
lines
- 'Let's swim to the moon/Lets climb through the tide/Penetrate the
evening/That
city sleeps to hide' - I said: 'That's it.' I'd never heard lyrics to a
rock song like that before. We talked a while before we decided to get
a
group together and make a million dollars." - Ray Manzarek
"The best songs come unasked
for. You
don't have to think about them . . . Summer is good for songs.
When
it's real warm, if you have a sense of freedom, not a lot on your mind,
and
a feeling there's plenty of time, it just seems to be a good climate
for
music." - Jim Morrison
" R i c k a n d t h e R a v e n s "
Early August
Jim writes lyrics to songs wherever he roams while
constantly
expanding
his mind and his vocal style. Jim is not a great singer at first but he
does have a strong desire to get better and with his strong rich voice
and good pipes it's only a matter of time. Ray strongly believes in Jim
and it is this commitment that gives Jim the confidence he needs to
develop into one of the greatest rock singers of all time.
This Month: Timeline
- Music
The
Beatles release Help!, Dylan releases Highway 61 Revisited,
and the single "Eve of Destruction" is topping the charts.
Wed. Aug. 11 - Mon. Aug. 16: Timeline
- Civil Rights
The
Watts Riots breakout in Los Angeles following the arrest of an
unemployed black man on charges of drunken driving. 34 persons
are killed, 1,032 injured, and 3,952 are arrested during the five day
riot. Fire damage and property loses total over 215 million
dollars.
Fri. Aug. 13: Timeline
- Music
The
Beatles play Shea Stadium to 55,000 and Marty Balin, singer and
songwriter of The Jefferson Airplane, co-opens The Matrix in
San Francisco.
D R U M M E R J O H N D E N S M O R E J O I N S T H E B A N D
Fri. Aug. 20: John Densmore - Joins
The Doors (DU)
John Densmore, while attending college and uncertain of his major, is
given
a call from Ray Manzarek to come to his parents house to play drums
with
the band. John and Ray know each other somewhat from a
meditation
class they both attend regularly.
John is currently working with
a band called the "Psychedelic Rangers" with friend Robby Krieger. John
meets a shy Jim Morrison and likes the originals more than the covers
the
band is practicing. He is intrigued by Jim's self-consciousness and
provocative mysterious lyrics and after a few rehearsals decides to
join the band two weeks prior to cutting a demo.
"So Ray finally did call me and I went down to his
parents' garage in Manhattan Beach, although he lived in Venice.
There wasn't any music. It was just Jim's words. Ray said,
'This is Jim, the singer.' He had never sung. But they
showed me some of the lyrics and I was attracted to them. Songs
like 'Moonlight Drive' and 'Soul Kitchen' were real out there, yet I
could see the fluidity and rhythm to them and right away thought, 'God,
put this to rock music? Yeah! . . . I'll rehearse for a while and see
what happens." - John Densmore
"There
was this blond guy with glasses and a Japanese girlfriend. At the end
of
the session he said he'd heard I was a drummer and asked if I'd like to
join a rock 'n' roll band. And then he said a curious thing. He said
he'd
call me in a few months because the time wasn't right yet. And I
thought,
'Gee, that's pretty cosmic. Far out.'" - John Densmore
Note: The time came sooner than expected and John was asked to join the band in a few weeks.
Late
August: Partying with College
Friends, Getting to Know John, Avoiding the Draft, Soul Kitchen
"It's like gambling somehow, You go out for
a night of drinking and you don't know where your going to end up the
next
day. It could work out good or it could be disastrous. It's
like
the throw of the dice." - Jim Morrison
Thu. Aug. 26: Timeline - Vietnam War
This
is the last day marrying can improve your draft status.
Sun. Aug. 29: Timeline
-
The Beatles play The
Hollywood Bowl.
Tue. Aug. 31: Timeline
- Vietnam War
LBJ
signs the Selective Service Act making draft card burning a federal
offense.
Thu. Sept. 2: World Pacific
Jazz Studios - Los Angeles, CA
"Rick and the Ravens" have some free studio time
coming from a trade off on an Aura Records deal. The Doors (without Robby Krieger) cut a demo which sounds
very little like The Doors with a very young sounding Jim Morrison. The
six songs on the demo are all Morrison originals. The band immediately
begins to locally shop the demos around after
the three hour session. Jim is delighted after hearing his voice on a
record for the first time.
"Moonlight Drive"
"Hello I Love You"
"Summers Almost Gone"
"My Eyes Have Seen You"
"End of The Night"
"Go Insane (A Little Game)"
"Actually, I think the music came to my mind
first
and then I made up the words to hang onto the melody, some kind of
sound. I could hear it, and since I had no way of writing it down
musically, the only way I could remember it was to try and get words to
put to it. And
a lot of times I would end up with just the words and couldn't remember
the melody." - Jim Morrison
Sun. Sept. 4: Jim Writes His
Parents in London (DU)
Around this time, Jim writes his parents in London
disclosing his plans to sing with a band. Jim's father, an admiral in
the
navy, vehemently disagrees with Jim's choice and is very upset with his
son. He writes Jim back conveying his objection while mentioning
paying
for four years of college, Jim abandoning his piano lessons as a child,
never caroling with the family, and most importantly mentioning the
band
will never amount to anything. Jim never saw his father after this
point and probably never had any contact either verbally or in letter.
Jim was on his own. He would however stay in touch with his brother
Andy and more so with sister Anne.
"We
got transfered to London in 1965 [Adm. Morrison was on the staff of the
commander in chief, Naval Operations, Europe], and my dad annd Jim had
a falling out because Jim wanted to go into music or borow some money.
And I didn't hear from him for two years." - Andy Morrison, Jim's
younger brother p.14 The Doors by The Doors
"He
called me and told me he was going on the road with a rock band. I told
him it was ridiculous. I said, "You're not a singer. You can't sing."
He never had. Driving across country, we all liked to sing. It was just
to pass the time. I didn't think any of us had a voice. I said,
''You're on the wrong track here. Get yourself a job. That's not a job."
Amiral Steve Morrison p. 14 The Doors by The Doors
Adm. Morrison is said to have written in his letter back to Jim "I think it's a crock,"
"I tried
piano for a while, but I didn't have the
discipline to keep it up. I think I got to about the third grade book."
"Some people surrender their freedom
willingly but
others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth.
Society, parents they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you were
born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel.
You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature.
You imitate what you see." - Jim Morrison
Mon. Sept. 5: Timeline - Of Interest
Writer
Michael Fallon coins the term "hippie" in describing the San Francisco
counterculture.
G U I T A R I S T R O B B I E K R I E G E R J O I N S T H E B A N D
Late September: Robby Krieger - Joins
The Doors (DU)
Uncertain and dissatisfied with the direction of the
band Rick and Jim Manzarek decide to quit returning to school.
John asks friend Robby Krieger to play guitar with the band.
Robby is a
talented guitar player who can play many styles including a mean
bottleneck
that Jim loves immediately and asks him to play on every song they
rehearse.
Robby likes the feel of the music and continues to play with the band
quitting his other band The Clouds and becoming the final member
completing the
group.
The band rehearses for the first time together with
Robby at friend Hank Olguin's garage behind a Santa Monica
Greyhound bus depot in Venice. According to Robby, the first song they
ever did together was "Moonlight Drive". The band rehearses one more
time with Robby at Hank's and a third time at Robby's parents house in
which Jim did not show up because he had gone on an adventure with some
friends to Arizona but only got as far as Blithe, CA in which he got
into a bar fight with some bikers and was arrested. The band members
had called around looking for Jim and found out about the trouble he
had got into and went to bail him out of jail. (info - Doors 40tth
Anniversary Interview 2007)
"In
the beginning we were creating our music, ourselves,
everynight...starting
with a few outlines, maybe a few words for a song. Sometimes we worked
out in Venice, looking at the surf. We were together a lot and it was
good
times for all of us. Acid, sun, friends, the ocean, and poetry and
music."
- Jim Morrison
"Looking around Ray's place,
I
felt a college buzz and an Oriental flair. Books, film magazines,
Oriental rugs, Indian bedspreads, erotic photos. Whole new worlds were
opening up to me in this room." John Densmore - Riders On The Storm p.
39
"I
was in another group and John was telling me about this group he was in
called The Doors. They had this wild and crazy guy, Jim Morrison, who
was
going to be the lead singer even though he couldn't sing at the time.
But
I knew he had potential because he had just started singing about a
month
before and he was already pretty good. A couple weeks after John joined
they needed another guitar player. John brought Jim over to my house
and
we hit it off good. So we rehearsed and that was it." - Robbie KriegerFall: Timeline - Fashion
Mini-skirts
appear nationwide in stores.
"One day late in '65, I came back from
lunch
and there were these guys waiting for me. It was them, The
Doors.
They had a quality that attracted me to them immediately. I guess
they appealed to the snob in me because they were UCLA graduates and I
thought, 'Great, here are some intellectual types getting involved with
rock 'n' roll.'
They played me an acetate of several songs they'd recorded. The
music was so raw, so basic, so simplistic, so unlike anything I was
familiar with.
It intrigued me that they could combine this sort of music with such
interesting lyrics." - Billy James
"It's incredible they got a deal off that first demo,
because they almost sounded incompetent. The female bass
player is like a full beat behind on everything." - Bill Siddons
The band gets a few rare gigs at bar mitzvah's, weddings, and fraternity parties leaning heavily on a few easily recognized songs such as "Louie, Louie" and "Gloria" while occasionally slipping in one of their own compositions. Jim is too shy to sing most of the songs where Ray handles the vocals and Jim punctuates the music with a harmonica or yelling "Yeah!" or "Drive on!" occasionally.
Fri. Nov. 5: Pioneer Club Boat Ride - Los Angeles, CA (DU)
This is one of The Doors
earliest engagements outside of frat parties and playing for friends.
Fri. Nov. 19: Hughes
Aircraft Union Dance - Los Angeles, CA (DU)
Jim and Thor (Ray's brother's doberman) on an abalone hunt with Ray,
Dorothy and Ray's mother. (DU) Jim was still staying at Ray and
dorothy's at this time.
Photo Credit Ray Manzarek. Scanned from p. 15 of The Doors on The Doors
The Doors begin auditioning in various small clubs, but are continuously turned down for either being too different or having no bass player. The band auditions bass players but none fit the mold. Ray, while auditioning for a gig, finds a unique Fender Rhodes piano bass organ which Columbia picks up the bill for. The Doors sound is finalized.
"We
never found a bass guitarist we wanted to work
with. The bass players invariably played too much. No bass
player would want to play the way we wanted which was sparse and
hypnotic. Then one day we were auditioning at some place - we
didn't get the gig of course because we were too weird - but the house
band there had an instrument called a Fender Rhodes piano bass sitting
on top of a Vox Continental organ just like I had. I switched on
the amplifier, played the thing, and realized it was a keyboard
bass. When I saw that I said 'This is it.
We have found our bass player!' " - Ray ManzarekIn that year we had a great visitation of energy
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w . d o o r s h i s t o r y . c o m
