Do you rate The Doors highly?

[bassdude51]

IMHO............and "to each his own"....................The Doors did enough utterly fantastic songs to make up for the lousily ones.

(I am old enough that I could have seen The Doors live as a teenage but I doubt if I could have tolerated Jim's stage antics!)

 

[burpgun]

The Doors was one of my first favorite bands and the initial record is pretty much perfect: Great songs, great atmosphere, provides an eventual key support for Apocalypse Now. The rest of the catalog was pretty hit or miss and I'm personally indifferent to the bass player issue outside of being amazed how much Ray Manzarek was able to hold down on his own.

 

[dougjwray]

In an interesting video in which Grace Slick and Paul Kantner reminisce about Morrison, there's an astounding anecdote about a big Doors concert where Morrison was too incapacitated to go on. Ray Manzarek sang all of the lead vocals! No one even knew that he could sing! Presumably, he still played all his keyboard parts, including possibly the bass parts. (I don't know whether or not there was a bassist at that show.)
Ridiculous!

 

[jerry]

In an interesting video in which Grace Slick and Paul Kantner reminisce about Morrison, there's an astounding anecdote about a big Doors concert where Morrison was too incapacitated to go on. Ray Manzarek sang all of the lead vocals! No one even knew that he could sing! Presumably, he still played all his keyboard parts, including possibly the bass parts. (I don't know whether or not there was a bassist at that show.)
Ridiculous!

Manzarek sings one song on their Absolutely Live album, Jim even announces it. Ray was also the singer on the two albums after Jim died. I saw that version of the band in Central Park, he did a pretty good job.

 

[ThudThudThud]

There are a number of big acts from the 60s and 70s that I just don't care for. The Doors are one of them. Not my thing.

 

[Major Seven]

The Doors is strange headspace. It's not a place I want to be often. Sometimes it hits the spot.

I give the band members high marks for putting up with Jim.

Seems like there was always a kid in high school like him. And the hippie chicks bought it.

 

[Major Seven]

As others have said I never understood the bass on the record but not live thing.

Maybe they just assumed back in those pre-internet days that no one would know and the bass enhanced the sound of the recordings?

There was alot of talent in that band.

One less guy to pay?

 

[Ostie]

If they had a good bass player in the band I think they would have been even better. I enjoyed most of the Doors material but sone was a little over the top for me. That was probably due to Jim, who was always over the top, and finally hit the ceiling and crashed. Why he couldn’t just be happy that he was playing in a really cool and successful band is beyond me. Sone people just won’t let themselves be happy.

 

[Zooberwerx]

I enjoy and have played some of their tunes. OTOH, I remember George Will's take on Jim Morrison: "he was a drunk and a bad poet". Hey, it's all good in the end.

Riis

 

[58kites]

The Doors were a huge band for me because they were played on our stereo system often when I was a kid along with The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, The Young Rascals, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Neil Young, etc.
Strange Days played in my house almost every day for months and months so I saw them as contemporaries of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones when I was 6,7,8, 9 years old.

 

[Alkali Ike]

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Listening to their 2 "sessions" albums released by Rhino, I was surprised at the high level of musicianship during their jam sessions while they worked out each song. A lot of rambling though. Kind of like learning how sausage is made. Something I would only listen to once, but still enlightening.

 

[crobasster]

Appart from the bass guitar, I play Korg Microkorg, so yes, The Doors are cool !

 

[bobba66]

They don't tickle me in the right place.

 

[Jefenator]

For a minute there, Jim Morrison had me wanting to be a poet when I grew up. How many people can claim that?
I really don't care whether or not a band has a permanent bass player in their lineup.
A buddy of mine who was on the big-time scene in the late 1960s had bad things to say about what they were like to be around in person.
But, I'm not trying to hang with them; I just like listening to the recordings.

 

[WG Plum]

For a minute there, Jim Morrison had me wanting to be a poet when I grew up. How many people can claim that?
I really don't care whether or not a band has a permanent bass player in their lineup.
A buddy of mine who was on the big-time scene in the late 1960s had bad things to say about what they were like to be around in person.
But, I'm not trying to hang with them; I just like listening to the recordings.

I imagine them being pretentious twunts, but in my own forays into various scenes that's not exactly uncommon.

 

[morrisonhendrix]

I imagine them being pretentious twunts, but in my own forays into various scenes that's not exactly uncommon.

By all accounts, they were pretty friendly, especially Jim. I met three of them (not Jim) and they were very nice.

 

[fhm555]

Riders On The Storm was good, but that was about all of their work I really cared for.

 

[Nedmundo]

I haven't listened to them much in over 30 years, but I still rate them highly. When I started getting deeply into music in the late 1970s, The Doors were one of my early favorites along with The Who, Talking Heads, Joe Jackson, Bowie, Zeppelin, and a few others. When I started playing guitar in 1979, "Light My Fire" was among the first tracks I learned, and I read the Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive when I was 14. They were huge for me.

For my tastes, they haven't held up as well as The Who, Stones, Hendrix, and others from the classic rock era, but I still think the first album and L.A. Woman are excellent, and the others have some great tracks.