Music Blog 6

This week I will be creating a new blog on another one of my favorite bands from the late 1960's and 1970's. The band I have decided to write about is one of the most well known bands to this day, The Doors! Some of their music has influenced many of today's singers and musicians 40+ years later. The Doors was an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The band consisted of (lead vocals) Jim Morrison, (keyboard player) Ray Manzarek, (drummer) John Densmore, and (guitarist) Robby Krieger. Within two years, the band landed their first record company and sold their first album The Doors, which ended up reaching #2 on the Billboard 200 list. Not bad for a newly formed band! In this album, the band's first number one single, "Light my Fire", helped shoot the band up in the charts and become well known. When 1968 came around, The Doors produced their second number one single "Hello I Love You". Men and women around the world loved The Doors music and  the ladies went crazy for lead singer, Jim Morrison. Around the early 1970's, inspired on their rise to fame, the band produced another successful album L.A. Woman. Towards the end of their fame, they earned a spot to put one of their songs for the end scene of the movie Apocalypse Now. The song, "The End", is a very appealing song to me, creating a very mystical and hostile environment throughout. It went very well with the new and successful Vietnam War inspired movie. One of my favorite songs by the band was "Break on Through (to the other side)", one of the most popular rock songs of multiple generations.

It's very unfortunate that drugs and alcoholism had gotten to the lead singer over the many years. He had begun to go down the wrong path with the use of them, and from there on it was a steep downslope to his death. On July 3, 1971 Jim Morrison had been found dead inside his apartment bathroom, not responding whatsoever. The mystery of his death will always be around, because no formal autopsy was done, due to the belief that there was no foul play involved. Many originally believed that his girlfriend who lived with Jim, had been apart of it, but this theory has merely been dismissed. We've come to the agreement that with his chronic respiratory illness, coughing of blood, and from personal accounts stating that he had been drinking a large amount of alcohol and he had accidentally snorted heroin thinking that it was cocaine. All these factors combined turned out to be a gruesome and sad death for the world-renowned singer. He will forever be missed, as well as the legend he has left behind in his music. R.I.P Jim Morrison! 

Photos from: http://homepages.uwp.edu/buss0002/thedoors.html
& http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=740&page=gr