The Doors?

A few did play with them, although Jerry Scheff is the only well known one. He was actually invited to join the band, but MoJo decided to "break on through to the other side", so it never happened.

 

many of their tunes had a bass doubling the keyboard-basslines...some of their songs had just basslines, like on "touch me"...

where's lizard-king????

 

In the studio, The Doors used various bassists.
Jerry Scheff(playin' great on LA Woman)is probably the 'best' known.
"Peace Frog" from Morrison Hotel has a pretty cool R&B-ish figure...though, I've forgotten who played the bass on this track.

LIVE? Ray Manzarek plunked out the basslines on a Fender piano bass.

 

"Light My Fire" is bass pedals...although Carole Kaye has claimed it!

Along with Jerry Scheff, there were two other bassists the Doors used. I forget their names. Doug Lahm(?) may be one...he later popped up in Billy Squire's band, where, as a dig at his Doors days, he was listed as "occasional bass." I can't recall the other. A name like Lubbick, maybe? I don't remember.

But they used three. Scheff was probably the best...the others seemed to play 1-3-5 lines constantly, which is probably because that was what Manzarek was forced to do live on his keys.

 

Hey Relman!! Here am Im too late though, its been answered d'oh!
There was another well known bass player that the Doors used on 'Morrison Hotel' (can't remember his name right now, I'll look it up, think its in Densmore's book), but he used a fake name in the credits because he didnt want people to associate him with the Doors ('Morrison Hotel' was recorded after the Miami incident, and at the height of Jim's infamy. The Doors were banned from playing in pretty much every state, and 10,000 (!) people gathered in the Rose Bowl to protest against the Doors, so its easy to see that playing with the Doors might not be the best publicity).
But yeah, theres some brilliant bass playing on all of the Doors albums, even the early ones played with a bass keyboard are still fun to play.

Lol!!

 

It's killin' me, so I got up & checked the credits-

Neither The Doors nor Strange Days list a bassist.

Morrison Hotel-
Ray Neopolitan-bass(that sounds like an alias!)
Lonnie Mack-bass on "Maggie McGill" & "Roadhouse Blues"

Waiting For The Sun-
Douglas Lubahn-occasional bass
On the "Unknown Soldier", Kerry Magness plays bass
On "Spanish Caravan", Leroy Vinegar plays acoustic bass & Douglas Luhbahn plays electric bass.
Damn...Leroy Vinegar!

The Soft Parade-
Harvey Brooks or Douglas Luhbahn-bass

Brooks is pretty damn bad, too...check out the Electric Flag's debut album & Super Session by Al Kooper/Steve Stills/Mike Bloomfield. Brooks has that '60s/'70s R&B/funk-thing happening.
...& Miles even used Brooks on Bitches Brew!

 

Strange Days clearly has a bassist...listen to "My Eyes Have Seen You," for instance. Maybe it was Lubahn again.

Nice work on the other credits...I had always read it was just the three, but I obviously read wrong.

 

Carol Kaye played tuba on most Doors recordings.



....with a pick.

 

Im pretty sure that was recorded with the bass keyboard. Its a great bassline though. A lot of the songs on Strange Days have really good basslines, but they were all recorded with the bass keyboard rather then a guitar.

 

I read that once myself but with new research I found out she didn't play a "Tuba" but a Baritone Euphonium. You were correct about the pick.

 

LA Women has some great bass parts. Love Her Madly, La Women, and of course, who can't groove to the bass line of Riders on the Storm.

 

All of which were Jerry Scheff's work.

 

Common misconception actually. My father's dentist's roommate's cousin's son played triangle on those sessions, and distinctly remembers it was simply a hard shell Bartione Euphomium case. She was known to keep a piccolo in that case. The Tuba she would latch onto the side of her bicycle on the way to gigs.

 

This darn internet thing is so full of half-facts.
Thanks for the update, I will track down my source and notify the webmaster.

 

talk about 1st hand news.

 

a lot of their basslines were just done on the Fender Piano Bass (Rhodes style electric bass piano). These come up for sale on ebay every now and then, I've tried to bid on a few, but they always go for a mint.

-KB

 

Yeah, the retro-geeks sop up those piano basses...I'm not enough of one, yet.

If I recall, the Fender piano bass has the exact same range as the Fender bass(Low E to a high D#), right?
I have an old '70s catalog somewhere...maybe I need to look at the picture as a refresher.

 

Picked up two of Robbie Krieger's late-'70s/early '80s albums...
Versions & [/i]Robby(sic) Krieger[/i]. Both can be had cheap & on ONE cd($8 @ Tower Records).
There are covers of The Doors' "Crystal Ship" & The Stones' "Street Fighting Man"; "Reach Out I'll Be There" is onboard as is a Chrissie Hynde tune.
In any event, the vibe is a funky/jazzy/Blues/R&B; some of the tunes have a Reggae feel.
The bassist is Arthur Barrow(I'm not familiar with him)...at times, he has that Jaco-16th note Funk thang goin' on(liner notes say Barrow plays "Fender Jazz & fretless basses").
John Densmore & Ray Manzarek show up for a couple tunes...all in all, a pretty cool little cd!

 

This is a serious bump, but I think I should clear this up. The Doors' first album was recorded with the fender rhodes piano bass. After that they had a session bass player for pretty much everything in the studio. Ray Manzarek still wrote all the bass lines, and someone just played them on bass because the piano bass didn't record too well. Besides, who wants to listen to that fake bass crap? Anyway, any of the live stuff had Ray playing the piano bass, so the real bass thing was exclusively for the studio. I read this stuff in an interview with Ray and Robbie Krieger, in case you were wondering.