the doors | Every Moment Has A Song

How the Doors Set the Night on Fire

09 Jul 2025 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: jim morrison, ray manzarek, robby krieger, the doors

By MARC MYERS

(Reprinted from The Wall Street Journal)

About six minutes into the song, a visibly stoned Jim Morrison bent over and pointed his leather-clad rear toward the Hollywood Bowl audience. Sensing trouble, keyboardist Ray Manzarek yelled “Jim!” The warning worked. Morrison stood up, retook the mike and completed the hit song: “Light My Fire,” as seen on “The Doors: Live at the Bowl ’68” (Eagle Rock), a newly restored DVD released Monday, Oct. 22.

Collaboratively written by the band in 1966, “Light My Fire” leaves a trail of history behind it. Originally lasting more than seven minutes, it featured one of rock’s first extended album solos. When the shorter single was released in ’67, it reached No. 1 on Billboard’s pop chart, and the following year, José Feliciano won a Grammy for his cover version.

Mr. Manzarek and Robby Krieger—two of the Doors’ surviving members—talked about the song’s famed keyboard intro, the Fats Domino connection, and why the single was faster-paced than the album version. Edited from interviews.

Ray Manzarek:By March 1966, we were running out of songs. Up until then, I had been putting chord changes to Jim [Morrison’s] sung lyrics. At a band rehearsal, Jim said, “Everyone go home this weekend and write at least one song.” But when we regrouped the following Tuesday, only Robby had written one. He called it “Light My Fire.”

Robby Krieger: I was living at my parents’ home in Pacific Palisades [Calif.] at the time. In my bedroom, I came up with a melody inspired by the Leaves’ “Hey Joe.” I also liked the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire,” so I wrote lyrics that used the word fire.

Mr. Manzarek: We had been rehearsing in the downstairs sunroom of a beach house at the very end of North Star Street near Venice [Calif.]. The people who lived upstairs were at work during the day, so we could bang away without disturbing anyone.

When Robby played his song for us, it had a then-popular folk-rock sound. But John [Densmore] cringed. He said, “No, no, not folk-rock.” He wanted it to sound edgier. He added a hard, Latin rhythm to the rock beat, and it worked.

Mr. Krieger: As Jim sang, he changed the melody line a little to give it a bluesy feel. Then he came up with a second verse right off the top of his head: “The time to hesitate is through/No time to wallow in the mire…”

Mr. Manzarek:Once the lyrics and melody were set, we realized we could jam as long as we wanted on the song’s middle two chords—A-minor and B-minor—the way John Coltrane did on “My Favorite Things” and “Olé.” All of us dug Coltrane’s long solos.

But we needed some way to start the song. At the rehearsal, I started playing a cycle of fifths on my Vox Continental organ. Out came a motif from the Bach “Two- and Three-Part Inventions” piano book I had used as a kid. It was like a psychedelic-rock minuet.

We didn’t use a bass player—I played the bass notes on a Fender Rhodes keyboard bass while my right hand played the Vox, which could be cranked up to a screaming-loud volume. My bass line for “Light My Fire” grew out of Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill,” which I loved growing up in Chicago.

Mr. Krieger: We started playing the song at the London Fog on the Sunset Strip in April and May 1966 and at the Whisky A Go-Go between May and July. Onstage, the song became this rock-jazz jam. Audiences loved it.

Mr. Manzarek: In August ’66, when we went into Sunset Sound to record our first album, producer Paul Rothchild wanted us to record “Light My Fire” just as we had been playing it live. We recorded two takes—each one lasting over seven minutes. Nobody was recording extended solos on rock albums then.

Mr. Krieger: Afterward, Paul felt the song needed a little more drama at the end. Because Paul loved what Ray had done with the minuet in the beginning, he said, “Hell, let’s put it at the end, too.” So he spliced in a copy of Ray’s minuet after Jim’s vocal, as an outro.

Mr. Manzarek: Paul brought in Larry Knechtel of the Wrecking Crew to overdub a stronger bass attack. Then the master was blasted into the studio’s cement echo chamber, which gave the song reverb.

Mr. Krieger: A few months after “The Doors” album came out in January 1967, Elektra founder Jac Holzman called and said the label wanted a single for AM radio. Dave Diamond, an FM disc jockey in the San Fernando Valley, had been playing the album version and was getting a ton of calls.

Mr. Manzarek: But a single meant our 7:05-minute album version had to be cut down to 2½ minutes. Everyone groaned, but Paul said he’d take a crack at it. When we heard the result the next day, the organ and guitar solos were gone. Robby and I looked at each other and said to Paul, “You cut out the improvisation!”

Paul said: “I know. But imagine you’re 17 years old in Minneapolis. You’ve never heard of the Doors and this is the version you hear on the radio. Would you have a problem with it?” Jim sat there and said, “Actually, I kind of dig it.” We agreed.

Mr. Krieger: It was gut-wrenching to hear my guitar solo cut, but I actually liked the single better. I was never crazy about the album version. It had been mixed at a very low volume to capture everything. On the radio, it wasn’t very loud or exciting. The single, though, snapped. The secret was that Paul had wrapped Scotch tape around the spindle holding the pickup reel, so the tape would turn a fraction faster. This made the pitch a little higher and brighter, and the song more urgent.

Mr. Manzarek: I first heard the AM single with my wife, Dorothy, in our VW Bug. Dorothy started bouncing up and down like a jumping jack. I was pounding on the wheel. What a feeling.

Mr. Krieger: At first, I didn’t like José Feliciano’s 1968 version. It was so different and laid-back. But after a while, I came to love it. He made our song his own, which got others to record it. Thanks to José, the song is our biggest copyright by far.

Quora: Why didn’t The Doors have a bass player?

23 Mar 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: the doors

(Answered by Jim Vence)

There are two interpretations of this question:

1) Why did the Doors have no bass player? OR

2) Why did the Doors have no musician dedicated to playing bass?

To the first question, the Doors were unique among the classic rock bands in that their lineup did not include a bass-only musician (e.g., electric bass guitarist). Playing live, keyboardist Ray Manzarek used his right hand to play organ, and his left hand to play bass lines on a Fender Rhodes Piano Bass – the lower left octaves of a standard eighty-eight note piano. While unique, this configuration is not without precedent.

The Doors were a rock version of the jazz organ trio – a band led by an organist who plays bass lines with their left hand on the low notes of their instrument (or with their foot via bass pedals). Covering bass as well as harmony and melody, the jazz organist needs only a drummer for percussion – their kick drum accenting keyboard bass notes. The third player can be a saxophone or other horn soloist to add color, or a guitarist who can support the organist with chords as well as play solos. This keyboard/guitar/drums trio is the Doors instrumental lineup.

While the jazz organist often played bass and melody/harmony on the same instrument, Manzarek used a separate piano bass for a few reasons. The piano bass provided more punch to the low end than his electric organ’s bass register could provide. But even had he principally played a full electric piano a separate bass instrument was needed. Electrified bass instruments need higher wattage amplification than other (treble) instruments for rock music. Manzarek used separate amplifiers as well as separate instruments to handle his organ and bass double-duty with the Doors.

It is the second question that gets to the heart of the Doors sound, and the reception to their music.

Before the Doors, Ray Manzarek played in a band called Rick and the Ravens, a typical Southern California surf/frat party group which included Ray’s brothers – Ray incidentally was the lead vocalist. After that group disbanded, Ray looked to form another group, which he built around the lyrics and vocal styling of Jim Morrison, whom he first met as a fellow film student at UCLA. The band recruited John Densmore as their drummer, and Robby Krieger as a guitarist. They developed their songs in this lineup with Manzarek initially providing bass and harmony on the same electric organ. In the meantime, they auditioned electric bass players.

What Manzarek and the Doors found is that their music and lyrics gave the band a different vibe than the typical LA rock bands. The mood was darker, more dramatic, and had a hypnotic, trance-like quality which eventually drew in their fan base. Key to that quality was the simple and repetitive bass which rooted the music, and allowed Ray’s right hand, as well as John and Robby, to play more freely.

The auditioning bassists would come in and play walking bass lines and improvisation that turned the Doors back into a rhythm and blues group reminiscent of Rick and the Ravens. For that reason, Manzarek and the Doors determined the best course of action was to stick with Ray’s left hand playing bass, but with a separate keyboard bass instrument and amplification.

For studio recordings, the Doors and their producers used session electric bass players. Their roles in the recording, particularly with the first few albums, were to simply double up, note for note, whatever Ray was playing with his left hand.