For most of us — if not all — the legacy of The Doors died with Jim Morrison. After all, if you could not hear songs like Light My Fire, Hello I Love You, Riders On The Storm, L.A. Woman, Roadhouse Blues, or The End (my personal favourite; also featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now) without his voice, no other singer could — or would — substitute for him.
Nevertheless, the balance members — drummer John Densmore, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and guitarist Robby Krieger — had other plans, and continued to record under the moniker of The Doors, even after Morrison’s demise, releasing three albums: 1971’s Other Voices, 1972’s Full Circle, and 1978’s An American Prayer, the latter being a collection of Morrison’s recorded poetry set to music, all due for re-release later this year marking, in turn, the final chapter in decades of Doors re-releases and previously unissued recordings from the vault.
However, better sense prevailed and messrs Densmore, Manzarek, and Krieger realised that with the magic of Morrison missing, so was the atypical Doors “sound”, and the remnants of the band passed into history. Or so it seemed…
But the greed of lucre had two of the balance three members (Manzarek, Krieger) embark on an ambitious project of touring as a reincarnation of The Doors in 2002.
That then, is the basis of a remarkable book, The Doors Unhinged, which I was fortunate to obtain from an international online mail order service delivering into India. It speaks of the legal battle over use of The Doors name by Densmore as soon as he became aware that Manzarek and Krieger began touring in 2002 as The Doors Of The 21st Century, leading Densmore to file a suit over the usage of The Doors name. Manzarek and Krieger countered with a US $40 million suit against Densmore for his refusal to provide a sign off in 2003 on the usage of Break On Through to car manufacturer Cadillac, which offered the band a record-breaking US $15 million deal to receive permission to do so. Krieger and Manzarek were desperate to see the deal go through, but Densmore balked, recalling a studio session in 1968 when singer Morrison discovered that the band was considering taking US $75,000 for a Buick ad. In that commercial, the car company would use the band’s Light My Fire, changing the lyrics from “Come on baby light my fire” to “Come on Buick light my fire”.
Eventually, Densmore won the suit in 2005, with the Honourable Court finding his former colleagues “liable for false advertising”, and prevented them from “performing, touring, promoting their band as The Doors, The Doors Of The 21st Century, or using any other name that includes the words, The Doors, without the written consent of all the partners of the old Doors partnership”. The learned Court also prevented Manzarek and Krieger from “using the name, likeness, voice or image of Jim Morrison to promote their bands or their concerts”. In fact, Manzarek and Krieger where scheduled to perform in Bangalore and Noida in February this year, as part of the Fly Music Festival which, unfortunately, was cancelled.
Despite the rift, the three surviving members managed a 2011 reunion of sorts — independent of one another being in the studio at the same time — for electronic musician Skrillex’s track, Breakin’ A Sweat. The trio then “reunited” again for Doors fanatic Tech N9ne’s hip-hop rendition of Strange Days, featured on an album called Something Else, which is due for release today i.e. July 30. They cut the new version in under a week, using tablas, guitars, sitars, and the original Gibson/Kalamazoo organ that Manzarek had played with the Doors.
So in this never ending saga, is there a happy end? “Yes” and “No”. Let me tackle the “no” first as keyboardist Ray Manzarek passed away on May 20, 2013. The “yes” is that guitarist Robby Krieger reached out to drummer John Densmore earlier this year, and they have decided to perform, together, selections from The Doors for a live tribute to Ray Manzarek later this year. “We’re going to do at least one show for Ray and have a big send-off,” Krieger announced to the media earlier in July, adding, cryptically: “That’s either the start or the end of it, I don’t know.”
After all, the music of The Doors still sells about a million units a year!
— The writer has been part of the media and entertainment business for over 23 years, still continues to pursue his hobby, and earns an income out of it!