Classic Albums: The Doors[DVD]

For every Doors fan, this is a thrill to have the first Doors album featured on a Classic Albums dvd. I have been a Doors fan since 1967 and have enjoyed their very unique style of music for 41 years.This dvd features 7 of their 11 debut album songs, 1.Break On Through (To The Other Side), 2.The Crystal Ship, 3.Back Door Man, 4. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar), 5.Light My Fire, 6.End Of The Night and 7.The End. It does not feature the following 4 songs: Soul Kitchen, Twentieth Century Fox, I Looked At You and Take It As It Comes. I wish they had covered all 11 songs, as it is fascinating listening to the surviving Doors Ray Manzarek (organ, piano and bass), Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums) telling how these songs began and how they evolved into one of the greatest albums of all time.Jim Morrison's poetry was almost always the beginning of their great songs, but there were many other influences that Ray, Robby and John brought into their unique sound from jazz, blues, latin, flamenco and bossa nova music. They even brought in some James Brown music!There is much bonus material that really makes this worth owning as well. Ray tells of learning to play a Marxaphone on Alabama Song that gives the song it's carnival sound. Robby tells about his slide guitar, which gave The Doors such a unique mystical sound. John tells many of his trade secrets on the drums, such as he uses size 7A drum sticks, which are very thin and break easily, but give him maximum speed.There are also great stories about Jim Morrison from 1967 told by The Doors. Bruce Botnick, the sound recording engineer for The Doors, plays many tracks from this fantastic album by themselves, so you can hear just single tracks of Jim Morrison's voice or just single tracks of the instruments. Jim Morrison can be heard singing with no accompaniment to show that his voice alone was unbelievably incredible!Ray was such a talent on the keyboard, that he was the bass player! They never needed a bass guitar player with the fantastic sounds Ray could make on his keyboard. They tell how Moonlight Drive never made it to this first album, because the sound was not quite right. Moonlight Drive did make it on the second album, Strange Days, when it was slowed down quite a bit and a harpsichord sound was added to it. There are also commentaries from manager Bill Siddons, Jac Holzman who signed The Doors to Elektra Records, friend and poet Michael McClure, LA DJ Jim Ladd, other musicians, a film student and a music writer.This dvd brought back many memories from 1967, when the shortened version of Light My Fire stayed at #1 on the record charts for that summer. The magic and genius of The Doors from 1967 is still there and it comes through on this dvd. I only hope that Classic Albums will feature more of The Doors truly fantastic albums like Strange Days and Waiting For The Sun, because listening to the origins of The Doors unbelievably fantastic songs is just like listening to The Doors songs for the first time in 1967!

Great group, great album, great series! Check out Electric Ladyland and Dark Side of the Moon as well-

Can't say enough positive things about this DVD. Doors' fans new and old will find content to appreciate. There's tons of subtle gems on here.Along with the anecdotes Ray Manzarek has recited many times, he offers new details throughout, with his dynamic keyboard demonstrations. He's more than happy to tell us who and what was an influence on certain parts of the songs, while being the "left hand" bass player of The Doors.Bruce Botnick, producer and engineer, provides a lot of insight throughout, isolating tracks, adding commentary which has not been seen before, there is one demo that I've never heard before, etc.Robby Krieger breaks a lot of his guitar parts down so you can see how he played them. He even shows how he plays that one fill on The End @ the beginning of the song; that crazy sounding run of notes.John Densmore gets one of the most memorable moments of the disc, saying at one point, "... it just seemed like magic and you don't control that, it just flows through you."There's lots of Hollywood Bowl concert film interspersed w/the commentary (a minor criticism as most Doors' fans have seen all that), but there really is a lot of stuff here that made me want to make note of the particulars that I enjoyed.It's a cool disc and inexpensive too. There's a ton of bonus features, that leave you wanting more. Classic Albums: LA Woman, Classic Albums: Waiting For The Sun - can we see them? Please?

excellent

Doors fans will love this. Like all of the Classic Albums series it is detailed, intelligent, entertaining and illuminating. Ray, Robby and John are excellent interviewees and Bruce Botnick is delightful as he navigates the viewer through the music. The 'outsiders' brought in to enhance the commentary work well here.Anyone familiar with the album will know that it is ground-breaking and the remaining members of the band present a strong sense of the importance of their work in rock music history - as John says at one point, this wasn't Ob-La-Di Ob-La-da they were recording. The editing of the documentary is appropriate and the extra material is good fun. Fascinating stuff.

This is a great film for any long time Door's fan or a new comer to their music. I love how this series takes you with the producers and sound engineers and lets you see how a record is really made(or was made i should say) and also allow you to hear Jim without the music behind him, you really hear how amazing and gifted a voice he had. It also goes over how the band met and where they rehearsed,etc. etc. I can't wait to watch this with my now infant son when he is older.

Very satisfied with purchase. super fast shipping.

If you are a Door's fan, you must own this DVD, great interviews and insight into the mind of Jim Morrison and also the music Genius of the band as a whole, one missing link in the band would have changed it all!!