Jimmorrison-blues - Blues For Morrison

Stunning Studio Portraits of The Doors Taken by Guy Webster, 08. 1967. 

Bobby Klein : "I was the first official photographer of the Doors, and this shot was taken early on. It was 1967 and we were heading to Venice Beach to take some publicity shots but got hungry, so Jim recommended stopping off at Lucky U Cafe, his favourite place in Los Angeles to grab breakfast. It was a tiny Mexican restaurant owned by a Chinese man, pretty much just a counter with no tables. Jim ordered a beer and a menudo – a beef and chilli soup – to line his stomach. It wasn’t uncommon to see him sink six beers in an hour. I’ve always enjoyed shooting people when they’re eating because it creates an intimacy. So I got behind the counter and started snapping away. Jim was beautiful. He looked like Michelangelo’s David. He was checking me out: “Who the hell is this guy?” He didn’t suffer fools, and this was early on in our relationship. There’s an intensity in his eyes: he was totally serious about being seen as a credible poet."

January 1967, Lucky U Café, Venice Beach, photo by Bobby Klein

April 21,22,23, 1967 The Doors performed at the Kaleidoscope at Ciro's, West Hollywood, CA

Kim Fowley Remembers the Doors

“I first saw them at Ciro's in 1966 - I think I'd first heard about them from Billy James. I got to Ciro's before the Doors' set began, and the musicians were up on stage setting up. A heckler started yelling at the band: 'You guys are horrible. You can't play. You're crap. You can't drink, you can't think, you can't fight, you can't fuck.' He was in dirty clothes and looked dangerous. The band looked nervous and started playing - and this guy hopped up on stage and started singing. It was Morrison, who'd been heckling his own band. That was one of the best things I'd ever seen in a club. No introduction - just the singer yelling at the band and then the music. I thought, 'My God, these guys are going to be interesting to watch.'

"First New York opening in a while. The Doors - Fresh from Los Angeles with an underground album of the hour - return. This time, they are worshipped, envied, bandied about like the Real Thing. The word is out or 'in' - 'The Doors will floor you'. So not all the pretty people in New York were present at opening night, but enough to keep a few publicity agencies busy. The four musicians mounted their instruments. The organist lit a stick of incense. Vocalist and writer Jim Morrison closed his eyes to all that Arnel elegance, and the Doors opened up. Morrison twitched and pouted and a cluster of girls gathered to watch every nuance in his lips. Humiliating your audience is an old game in rock 'n' roll, but Morrison pitches spastic love with an insolence you can't ignore. His material - almost all original - is literate, concise, and terrifying. The Doors have the habit of improvising, so a song about being strange which I heard for the first time at Ondine may be a completely different composition by now. Whatever the words, you will discern a deep streak of violent - sometimes Oedipal - sexuality. And since sex is what hard rock is all about, the Doors are a stunning success. You should brave all the go-go gymnastics, bring a select circle of friends for buffer, and make it up to Ondine to find out what the literature of pop is all about. The Doors are mean; and their skin is green." (Richard Goldstein, "Pop Eye," Village Voice, Mar. 25, 1967)

🔻March, 1967, photo shoot inside Ondine NYC, New York, photo by Thomas Monaster.

Jim Morrison - Photo by Edmund Teske,1969

Jim Morrison. Alexandria, VA, 1960

967.05.30 Hullabaloo, Hollywood, CA. Photographs by Barbara Gray

___________________________________________. "In The Mirror" – The Doors during a public photo shoot "Elektra Records", New York City, NY.  March 1967 - ©  Joel Brodsky

Photo shoot by Paul Ferrara, San Francisco, July 28-30, 1967.

When The Doors came together, “a diamond was formed. And it was clear and hard and luminous.” – Ray Manzarek

The Doors by Gene Trindl. During a  public photo  shoot for "Elektra Records", Los Angeles, California, late Summer-early Fall, 1966