AS THE '60S ENDED AND A NEW DECADE DAWNED THE DOORS FOUND THEMSELVES IN A RATHER PRECARIOUS SITUATION.

Since forming in Venice, California, in 1965, the group---Jim Morrison on vocals, Ray Manzarek on keyboards, Robby Krieger on guitar, and John Densmore on drums---had released four albums, all of which had reached the Top 10. They had also issued several singles, including two that went to #1: "Light My Fire" and "Hello, I Love You." Despite the chart success, concert promoters around the country were refusing to book the band due to the infamous, and now legendary, Miami '69 concert; those that did schedule concerts inserted an "obscenity clause" in the contract. If Morrison or the band used foul language or did anything else that was considered obscene, the promoter could refuse to pay them. They were stuck.

But the city of New York had always accepted The Doors with open arms, and in January 1970 the band headed to the Big Apple to play four shows at the Felt Forum, a 5,000-seat venue within Madison Square Garden. New York City had become a second home to the L.A.-based band. In late '66, The Doors played a month-long engagement at the hot underground nightclub Ondine. Located at the foot of the 59th Street Bridge, Ondine was the home base for Andy Warhol and a host of other mod habitués. In 1967, the year their first album was released, the band had played a three-week run at The Scene, a club run by Steve Paul. The shows garnered rave reviews in The New York Times and New York magazine and attracted numerous celebrities, including Jimi Hendrix, Paul Newman, and Brigitte Bardot. The following year, the group returned to New York for four shows at the Fillmore East. Demand was so strong that all 10,000 tickets sold out in an hour. In early August 1968, The Who opened for The Doors for a concert at the Singer Bowl in Queens, New York. Then, on January 24, 1969, The Doors headlined a show at the 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden. They were one of the first rock bands to play the cavernous arena, and, by all accounts, it was a massive success.

"New York is the most intellectual city on the planet," said Ray Manzarek. "And, certainly as far as The Doors were concerned, it was the most appreciative of our music. Even though we were an L.A. band, there was always a dichotomy in L.A. between The Doors and the folk-rock sound.  I always felt that L.A. loved The Doors but never really understood The Doors."

John Densmore concurred, saying, "New York was always our best audience."

This time around, however, The Doors opted to play the smaller Garden venue. "It was more intimate, and you could feel the audience more," Densmore said. "There was more interaction, and the acoustics were much better, because it was designed for music."

"We said, 'Do we have to play the big room again?" added Manzarek. "That's the place where the New York Knicks play the Los Angeles Lakers, and it's great for that. But it's not conducive to rock 'n' roll. Our manager told us about the smaller room, but we couldn't ask for the same amount of money we got when we played the arena. Then Jim said, 'Well, let's play a couple of nights. Heck, let's play a couple of shows each night. We've done that before. Let's do it again.' And we all said, 'Yeah! That's it!"

Prior to coming to New York, The Doors had completed work on their fifth studio album, Morrison Hotel. Coming after The Soft Parade---which featured horns and strings---the album marked a return to The Doors' more basic, blues-based sound. "I always felt that it was sort of obligatory for a rock band at some point to expand the sound and add some horns and strings and whatnot and, you know, get some hip arrangements, and that's what we did," said Manzarek. "But with Morrison Hotel, it was like, let's get back to basics! Let's get back to the blues."

"The Soft Parade was more like Jim Morrison and an orchestra," said Robby Krieger. "And it was fun to have a lot of horns and stuff. But Morrison Hotel was kind of getting back to what we really were."

The Doors began working on Morrison Hotel in November 1969 at Sunset Sound (Elektra Studios) in Los Angeles. Despite the various legal challenges he was facing, Jim Morrison was in good spirits during the sessions. "The enforced layoff caused by Miami resulted in a burst of creativity by Jim and Robby," says Ray Manzarek. "We were loaded with hot new songs. The rehearsals were very productive. We were having fun again...Jim was as relaxed and happy as a man facing possibly 13 years in the slammer could be. He simply put it out of his mind, as we all did---we never spoke of it. Instead, he threw himself into creativity. And the songs were hot!"

Rockabilly guitar legend Lonnie Mack played bass on two of the track---"Roadhouse Blues" and "Maggie M'Gill"---and former Lovin' Spoonful frontman John Sebastian played harmonica on "Roadhouse Blues," though he was credited as G. Puglese, his actual Italian name, in part to avoid possible problems with his recording contract.

The New York concerts were set to take place on Saturday and Sunday, January 17 and 18. But Morrison almost didn't make it to New York. The singer had headed down to Mexico for a quick vacation. The other band members had already arrived in New York. The day he was due to arrive, Morrison called Doors manager Bill Siddons, saying he'd missed his flight. Siddons asked Morrison if he was sober, to which Morrison replied, "Wellll..." Siddons was well aware of the fact that if Morrison missed the concerts or, worse, if there was a repeat of the Miami incident, it would all be over for the band. Morrison told Siddons he had booked another flight, which had a layover in Miami. Siddons instructed Tony Funches, whom he had hired as Morrison's security, to meet the singer in Miami and make sure Morrison made it to New York.

Jim did arrive, and the concerts went off as scheduled. The Doors opened all four Felt Forum shows with "Roadhouse blues," the lead-off track on Morrison Hotel. Originally titled "HWY 9," its lyrics---"Keep your eyes on the road/Your hands upon the wheel"---referenced things Morrison would say to his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, as they drove to their cottage in Topanga Canyon. Like so much of Morrison Hotel, the song is a blue-based rocker. As the band was recording "Roadhouse Blues," Morrison told the other band members, "Hey gentlemen, gentlemen. Now the subject of this song is something you've all seen at one time or another. It's an old roadhouse. We're down in the South...or in the Midwest...or maybe on the way to Bakersfield, and we're driving a '57 Chevy. Can you dig it? You know? It's about 1:30, and we're not driving too fast, but we're not driving too slow, either. We got a six-pack of beer in the car, a few joints, and we're listening to the radio, and it's playing the blues."

Even though Morrison Hotel had not yet been released, the Felt Forum concerts featured several other songs from the LP. At the first show, four of the first five songs The Doors played were from the forthcoming album, "Peace Frog," which the band performed at two of the shows, was a critical commentary on the state of America in the late '60s, with lines like "Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago/Blood on the rise, it's following me." Morrison also inserted a spoken-word line into the song: "Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding/Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind." The lines refer to an event that occurred in 1947, when Morrison was four years old, and he and his family were driving in the desert near Albuquerque. They came upon an accident between a car and a truck full of Native Americans. The victims were scattered along the road, and Morrison believed that the soul of one or more of the Indians had entered his body.

Other Morrison Hotel songs on the Felt Forum set lists included "Ship Of Fools," "Blue Sunday," and "Maggie M'Gill." "Blue Sunday" was yet another song Morrison wrote about Pamela Courson, while "Maggie M'Gill" was a song that, according to the other band members, Morrison particularly related to. Quoting the song's lyrics---"Well, I'm an old bluesman/And I think that you understand/I've been singing the blues/Ever since the world began"---Manzarek said, "I think that sums up Jim. It was tough, man. It was tough on him. I think being a star was tough on Jim." Robby Krieger added, "Jim was very much into the blues at that time, and he wanted to be an old bluesman---that was the image he had in his mind."

And, in fact, the Jim Morrison who appeared at the Felt Forum was very different from the young, sexy frontman many remembered from earlier Doors appearances. He had put on some weight, and gone were the leather pants that had become so much a part of his image. "I think he was rebelling against the rock-star image," Krieger said. "He was trying to be just one of the guys. A lot of people think Jim was totally in control of his image at all times. I don't agree with that. I think he just kind of took each day as it came, and as he got heavier, well, he got heavy, you know?"

In keeping with the blues theme, The Doors also covered several blues songs during their stand at the Felt Forum: "Back Door Man," "Little Red Rooster," "Money," "Who Do You Love." "Those were the bluesy songs we always used to do," Krieger said. "We hadn't done some of them in years, but we resurrected them for these shows."

"It was like we had returned to the London Fog," added Manzarek, referring to one of the Hollywood clubs the band played in its early days. "I mean, talk about going back to basics. We used to do four sets a night at the London Fog, and we only had a small block of songs written up to that time. So we would do other people's material. And in New York, it was like the same thing as the London Fog. We've got four shows to play here, two sets tonight, two sets tomorrow night. Let's play whatever we want! Let's just go!"

In addition to playing the role of the old bluesman, Morrison also had numerous interactions with the audiences at the Felt Forum, laughing and joking easily with the fans. "You know, being onstage for Jim was his proper place," said Manzarek. "That's where he belonged, performing before an audience of 5,000 people---sold out, Felt Forum, every night, every show, sold out. And there was Jim, the center of attention, performing before the people. Singing his poetry and singing Robby's poetry, singing our songs, Doors songs, for the people. And no matter what he did, he had his band behind him to back him up, to fill in the dead spaces, to play if he didn't feel like saying something. If he did feel like saying something, something new, we could follow him anywhere he went. He was completely at home, completely secure, and that moment in time is all that existed for him. Being onstage, and what could be better than being onstage in New York City? There was nothing else. There were no problems. There was no fear. There were no troubles. There was only the music of The Doors."

Dozens of fans leapt onto the stage, trying to embrace Morrison. At one point, after a young man jumped up onstage, Morrison joked, "Well, that's New York for you. The only people that rush the stage are guys!" At another point, after one audience member threw a joint onto the stage, Morrison said, "That's a New York joint for ya---you can pick your teeth with a New York joint."

"Jim always had a pretty good sense of humor," Krieger said. "People think he was so morose and thinking about death all the time. But the guy was a funny guy when he wanted to be. He was hilarious."

"He was a performance artist," added Densmore. "He knew how to have fun, and he knew how to break down the fourth wall, the separation between the stage and the audience."

Everyone involved with the Felt Forum shows recalls them as one of the highlights in The Doors' performance career. "They rate high up in the 'A' category," Manzarek said. "We played great in New York City."

Bruce Botnick, The Doors' longtime engineer and the producer of their final album with Morrison, L.A. Woman, added, "New York was a love-fest. They were locked in, and they were smoking! There are incredible moments, like on 'Who Do You Love.' You know, they just clicked. They were happy in New York. They had a good time!"

Morrison Hotel was released the first week of February 1970, just after the Felt Forum shows, and it quickly sold 500,000 copies, making The Doors the first American rock band to score five gold albums in a row.

The Doors, it seemed, were back on top of the world.

~ James Henke

James Henke is the vice president of exhibitions and chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to coming to the Hall of Fame, he spent 15 years at Rolling Stone magazine as a writer and, for 10 years, music editor. He has also written numerous books, including biographies of Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, and John Lennon.

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NEW YORK - BOY, DID WE LOVE TO PLAY THERE.

In January of 1970, The Doors headed off to New York City for their first show in a long time---due in part to the Miami fiasco. So, Paul Rothchild, Fritz Richmond, and I left sunny Los Angeles a couple of days early in order to be ready to record and to adjust to the time difference. Of course, one of the first things you do when you hit Manhattan is to search out all your friends and go to some great funky restaurants, listen to some blues in a club, have a drink and a toke, and just immerse yourself in the energy.

We were all pumped up, everybody was at the concerts, and the vibes were superb. Jim was terrific. For all four concerts, the air was filled with a high expectation of supercharged excitement, and there was a feeling that something amazing might happen. Robby's solo on "Little Red Rooster" is a classic---his technique and passion just ooze all over the stage. A couple of versions of "Light My Fire" have similar moments in the dialog between Robby, Ray, and John; and when The Doors were locked and hitting on all cylinders, nobody could match them for virtuosity and feel. Everybody's favorite bar song, "Roadhouse Blues," started off all the concerts with Jim's amazing basement-to-the rooftops scream, "Come on, yeah!" The crowd went wild. Later on, Jim was calling out, "Bring out your dead...bring out your dead." It was rock theater at its best.

TECHNICAL NOTE: A long, long time ago, when nobody thought that we would ever need the 8-track tapes again, many bits and pieces were removed from these shows and were scattered through many Doors albums. Large chunks were used in Absolutely Live, An American Prayer, and Alive, She Cried. Goings-on between Jim and the audience, as well as parts of songs from the 8-track masters, have disappeared forever, though some do exist on the live 2-track tapes. Through the generous help of a few of our Doors collectors, we were able to obtain personal copies of audience recordings that helped sort out the road map, show us what bits went where, and determine exactly what was missing.

In putting this project together, The Doors and I agreed that it was very important to have complete shows. The plan was to insert the audience and the live 2-track recordings where chunks were missing from our masters, in order to have a faithful reproduction of the concert. So, you might be rocking to "Five To One" or "Light My Fire," and all of a sudden the sound might change into the live 2-track or an audience recording, and then back again. We tried to keep this at a minimum, but felt that going about it in this fashion would, in the end, be a more satisfying experience.

Beyond the audience recordings that have been circulating through the Doors-o-sphere, this is the first time that we have all four concerts complete.

"Where's John Sebastian?" you might ask. When John came onstage to join the Doors for the Sunday second show encore, he was handed a microphone that was only going through The Felt Forum's sound system, and not plugged into the Fedco Audio Labs mobile truck. As a consequence, John's harmonica didn't get recorded. So, earlier in 2009, we arranged for Sebastian to join Ray Manzarek and myself at Skywalker Sound in San Rafael. John replayed his parts as closely as possible against the PA leakage from the audience tracks on the original recorded 8-track masters. We are quite happy with the result. Some of you may think that this is sacrilege and would have preferred to have these songs the way they were. In order to accommodate you, these versions will be up on the Rhino Web site for you to download using a code that will come along with your purchase of this boxed set.

POSTSCRIPT: After the last concert on Sunday night, we all repaired to the New York Hilton for Jac Holzman and Elektra's most fabulous, most talked-about after-party. I remember walking down Broadway from the Felt Forum to the Hilton, and when I got into the lobby, there in front of me was a man dressed in a tuxedo, down on his right knee with a diamond ring in his outstretched left hand, singing the "Indian Love Call" (the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald song) to a woman in fine evening wear. I guess it may not have been unusual in 1970 to propose in this manner, a carryover from the 1950s. Anyhow, this sort of set the stage for the ride up the elevator to the penthouse. When the door opened into the penthouse, the aroma of underground celebrity came wafting over me. Everywhere the color from Max's Kansas City, with its retinue of Factory superstars, gave sense that we were in the presence of royalty. When Jim and Pam arrived, they were enveloped like a blanket.

This boxed set has been a long time coming, and we all hope that you enjoy it.

~ Bruce Botnick
Ojai, California, July 2009

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THE FELT FORUM CONCERTS PARTY

AFTER A MAJOR CONCERT, IT WAS THE CUSTOM OF MOST LABELS TO THROW A LAVISH PARTY FOR THE ACT.

And so, following the closing evening of the 1970 Felt Forum concerts, Elektra assigned Steve Harris, Elektra's VP for Artist Relations, to honcho the arrangements. Steve booked the Presidential Suite at the New York Hilton, a building-wide duplex on the 55th floor, with a commanding 360-degree view of Rockefeller Center and the city skyline. The suite featured a winding staircase often draped with models during major fashion shows. The first impression on entering were luxury, expansiveness, and power, so Steve decided to offer a bit of contrast by serving a menu of hamburgers, beer, and burger accessories, which could be reordered quickly in copious quantities, and were, by Hilton standards, moderate in cost.

We intended this to be a party, not a press event, though some press and radio people were invited. The Doors received 50 tickets to spread amongst their circle, and Jim, in an egalitarian mood, mischievously handed out 20 to the street people who had crowded around the stage door of the Forum. The presidential suite was to become a combination party place, brothel, and homeless shelter.

Should Jim get bored, Steve had thoughtfully arranged for a 16mm projector and a Hitchcock movie, The Lady Vanishes. Jim loved movies and was inevitably drawn in to them, no matter the surrounding chaos.

As he entered the suite, Jim thoughtfully looked around and said, "I haven't been this sober, this late in the evening, in years." We figured this was Jim's down payment on good behavior following the alleged "exposure" incident in Miami.

The party was a big success and ran late. The suite's many bathrooms and several bedrooms found immediate and constant use, especially by Jim's invited street urchins who thought the suite was just about their style. Towel service was, by necessity, continuous.

The Doors had delivered the final album under their Elektra contract and were free to move to another label. As the evening drew to a close and Jim and Pamela were departing, Pam said, "Well, in case we're on Atlantic next year, thanks for the swell party." I nearly died. Of course, Jim had put her up to it. He was wearing his sly, "gotcha" smile as they shuffled out.

Exhausted and upset by Pamela's zinger to my sensitive psyche, I decided that, for what this duplex suite was costing me, I'd be crazy not to drop myself on the Presidential featherbed and enjoy the luxury of the marble-fixtured bathrooms. So I did.

P.S. We successfully negotiated for one additional album, L.A. Woman, The Doors' final album with Jim and an appropriate conclusion to their incandescent career.

~ Jac Holzman
Founder and Chairman, Elektra Records, 1950-1973
Santa Monica, California, June 2009