The Doors formed in Los Angeles in 1965 and quickly became known for their psychedelic sound, rowdy audiences, and onstage obscenity.
Many photos of the Doors, the rock band that soared to fame in the 1960s with hits like “Light My Fire,” feature the onstage antics of the charming but troubled frontman, Jim Morrison. While not much about the band would seem too shocking to a modern audience, that couldn’t have been further from the truth in the ’60s.
Morrison and Manzarek had both attended UCLA, and when they bumped into each other on Venice Beach in 1965, Morrison shared lyrics he'd written with Manzarek, who suggested forming a band together.The Doors/Facebook
The band is pictured here in Los Angeles in 1969.The Doors/Facebook
Morrison was a poet more than he was a singer, but the themes he touched on were basically unheard of in contemporary music. The Doors' "The End," for instance, starts as a song that's seemingly about a breakup. But over the course of its 11-minute runtime, it tells the tale of a killer stealing a face from a gallery and embarking on an Oedipus Rex-like quest to kill his father and lie with his mother. Interesting? Most certainly. Radio-friendly? Definitely not.
Between controversial lyrics, unconventional musical arrangements, and Morrison's onstage drunkenness and early death at just 27 years old, the Doors left behind a legacy as one of the most innovative bands of the late '60s and early '70s — and also one of the most controversial.
The Band's Formation And Photos Of The Doors' Early Years
In 1965, two UCLA film school alumni, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, decided to form a band. Morrison was an aspiring poet with a deep interest in philosophy and literature, and Manzarek was part of an unsuccessful group with his brothers and eager to try something new. When Morrison shared some of his lyrics, Manzarek knew he wanted to join him.
"Biblically, 40 days and 40 nights after we said our goodbyes after graduation, I'm sitting on the beach wondering what I'm going to do with myself," Manzarek told NPR in a 1998 interview. "Who comes walking down the beach but James Douglas Morrison, looking great, lost 30 pounds, was down to about 135, six feet tall... Michelangelo's David. He had the ringlets and the curly hair starting to kind of fall over his ears in gentle locks."
In other words, not only was Morrison a talented poet, but he was handsome, too. He had the kind of good looks that would surely attract teen girls to the band — a key to success, if Beatlemania was anything to go by. Now, all they needed was a name.
"What do we call the band? It's got no name. We can't call it Morrison and Manzarek, I mean, you know, M&M, or, you know, Two Guys from Venice Beach or something," Manzarek recalled. "He said no, man, we're going to call it the Doors."
The Doors/FacebookThe Doors at the Ondine Club in New York City. November 1966.
The name was inspired by Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, an autobiographical work written by Huxley while under the influence of mescaline in 1953. Huxley recorded his thoughts while taking the psychedelic, hoping that he would find insights into extraordinary ways of thinking and break down the ego. The title of his work was, in turn, taken from the William Blake poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell":
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
Huxley's work was greatly influential on Morrison, both in terms of his own philosophical writing and his use of psychedelics.
Morrison and Manzarek recruited guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore, and soon, the Doors were creating a sound unlike any other band at the time. Morrison's stage presence and lyrics cemented their status — but also created much of the controversy surrounding the group.
Fame, Controversies, And Growing Tensions
The Doors quickly established themselves in the Los Angeles music scene, becoming the house band at the legendary Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in 1966. Photos of the Doors from this time show how electrifying and unpredictable their performances were, with Morrison's charismatic stage presence and theatrical antics drawing acclaim and pushback from the very beginning.
Their real breakthrough came when Elektra Records president Jac Holzman signed them after seeing them perform at the nightclub. In January 1967, the Doors released their self-titled debut album to immediate success, with their signature song, "Light My Fire," quickly climbing the charts. They released their second album, Strange Days, later that year.
But even if the Doors were receiving plenty of air time on the radio, Morrison's lyrics were already a subject of controversy.
The first major incident came in September 1967 during an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Backstage, a producer told the band that during their performance of "Light My Fire," they would need to change the lyric, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," as it was "inappropriate" for a family show on national television due to the reference to drug use. Morrison angrily pushed back on this, but the band eventually told the producer they'd change it. Once the producer was gone, however, Morrison told his bandmates, "We're not changing a word."
CBS StudiosA photo of the Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967.
True to his word, Morrison did not change the line, and Robby Krieger gave a quick, knowing smirk to the camera. Sullivan notably did not shake their hands after the performance, and at the end of the show, the band was informed that they would never be brought back to The Ed Sullivan Show. Morrison replied, "Hey man, we just did the Sullivan Show."
It wasn't the last time Morrison courted controversy. The band also lost their residency at the Whisky a Go Go due to Morrison's expletive-filled rant during a performance of "The End," and Morrison was even arrested onstage in New Haven in 1967 after an altercation with a police officer backstage.
The officer, not recognizing him, had sprayed Morrison with mace, prompting Morrison to mock the police during the concert. He whipped the crowd into such a frenzy over it that the police chief stepped in to say that he'd gone too far, leading to his onstage arrest. In fact, Morrison was the first rock star to be arrested mid-performance.
The Doors continued to put out music in 1968 and 1969 with the albums Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade, though neither received the same attention or acclaim as their first two records. Morrison, for his part, was becoming increasingly interested in his identity as a poet rather than a rock star, and his alcohol consumption was escalating, leading to more and more erratic behavior.
Then came the infamous "Miami Incident."
The Miami Incident That 'Derailed' The Doors
During a concert in Miami on March 1, 1969, Jim Morrison allegedly exposed himself on stage and made provocative statements to the audience. While there are photos of the Doors' performance that night, none explicitly show Morrison's penis. Because of this, the exact details of what happened remain disputed, but Morrison was charged with indecent exposure and profanity. The incident led to the cancellation of numerous concerts and significantly damaged the band's commercial prospects.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesIt was often difficult to tell if Morrison's onstage antics were performative or simply drunkenness.
But even if Morrison hadn't exposed his genitals to the crowd, it was clear that his drinking was becoming a major problem. Despite this, the Doors managed to produce two of their finest albums during this period — Morrison Hotel in 1970 and L.A. Woman in 1971. Unfortunately, they had no idea at the time that L.A. Woman would be their swan song as a quartet.
By 1971, Morrison was exhausted by the pressures of fame and the ongoing legal troubles stemming from the incident in Miami. Seeking a change of scenery and hoping to focus on his poetry, he moved to Paris with his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson. On July 3, 1971, Morrison was found dead in his bathtub at the age of 27. The official cause was listed as heart failure, though no autopsy was performed.
Morrison's death effectively ended the Doors as they were known to the world. While Manzarek, Krieger, and Densmore tried to continue on as a trio — releasing Other Voices in 1971 and Full Circle in 1972 — they couldn't capture the same magic they'd had with Morrison. They officially disbanded in 1973, though they have reunited several times over the years.
Jim Morrison had his own thoughts on death, of course, as any philosopher would. "Death," he famously wrote, "makes angels of us all and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens' claws."
But there is another thing Morrison said about life and death that is even more illuminating:
"People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend."
After looking through these photos of the Doors, learn all about the infamous 27 Club and the members who joined Jim Morrison in it. Then, check out our gallery of 55 evocative photos from the biggest bands of the 1960s.
