The Doors
Stuff You Don't Know
About the 60s
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This excerpt is from the book "Follow the Music," the story of Elektra records as told by its founder, Jac Holzman.
Signing the Doors and Recording Their First Historic Album
JAC HOLZMAN: In May of 1966 I had flown to LA and was picked up at the airport by Ronnie Haran in her white convertible. Arthur Lee was playing the Whisky and expected me to drop by. It was 11pm LA time, 2am New York metabolism time. I was beat, but I went. Arthur urged me to stick around for the next band. Whoever they were, Arthur had a high opinion of them, and I had a very high opinion of Arthur's opinion, so I stayed.
It was the Doors, and they did nothing for me. There was another group that played the Whisky that I had fallen in love with and tried desperately to sign, Buffalo Springfield, but Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic was far more convincing. We were a smaller label without Atlantic's amazing track record of hit singles. Love had gotten my foot in the rock door, and now I needed a second group to give Elektra more of that kind of credibility, but the Doors weren't showing it to me.
Jim was lovely to look at, but there was no command. Perhaps I was thinking too conventionally, but their music had none of the rococo ornamentation with which a lot of rock and roll was being embellished-remember, this was still the era of the Beatles and "Revolver," circa 1966. Yet, some inner voice whispered that there was more to them than I was seeing or hearing, so I kept returning to the club.
Finally, the fourth evening, I heard them. Jim generated an enormous tension with his performance, like a black hole, sucking the energy of the room into himself. The bass line was Ray Manzarek playing a second keyboard, piano bass, an unusual sound, very cadenced and clean. On top of Ray, Robby Krieger laid shimmering guitar. And John Densmore was the best drummer imaginable for Jim-whatever Morrison did Densmore could follow, with his jazz drummer's improvisational skill and sensitivity. They weren't consistent and they needed some fine tuning before they would be ready to record, but this was no ordinary rock and roll band.
In my folk days, I would mike voices and instruments very close up, and the records sounded fat and full, the voice popping out, right in front of your living room speakers. I thought that with equivalent miking and proper stereo spacing we could make a virtue of the group's sparseness. Kurt Weill's 'Alabama Song' was a surprise coming from a rock band, and their arrangement impressed me. And when I heard, really heard, Manzarek's baroque organ line under 'Light My Fire,' I was ready to sign them.
RAY MANZAREK: Someone said, "The president of Elektra Records is here to see you and he wants to talk to you about a recording contract." All right! We just started jumping up and down. Elektra was a very hip label from New York. We were very impressed with the roster.
ROBBY KRIEGER: Koerner, Ray & Glover being on Elektra-when I was in high school they were my idols, that band and that label. To be on Elektra was the greatest thing.
RAY MANZAREK: The
Paul Butterfield Blues Band was on Elektra. Jac had Love. The Doors wanted
nothing more than to be as big as Love. We thought it was absolutely marvelous
that Elektra was a folk label that had gone electric and were now interested
in the psychedelic Doors.
Fortunately that night we had played 'Alabama Song.' I think that pushed
it over the edge-Jac said, "Aha! Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht. These
Doors are not just California pretty boys, they actually have some brains."
Finally, somebody's hip enough to understand what we're doing. And then
up to the dressing room came this tall, distinguished-looking gentleman.
JOHN DENSMORE: He seemed a little strange, with those glasses. But kinda hip. Hearing how he started with a motor scooter and a tape recorder and recorded folk groups-we loved it. An incredible entrepreneur.
RAY MANZAREK: He talked in his very officious and very correct manner, and we thought, "Jesus, this guy is not only hip, he's smart too." Because, frankly, the people we'd met in the record business in Los Angeles were a little less than brilliant, a little less than bright. He was a bit pompous, but why not? The man was standing six-three and had a good brain in his head, had a good carriage and a good delivery. I was, frankly, very impressed with him. I thought, "This is going to be real, real good." On the other hand, when he offered us the money and the points-absolutely minuscule. $2,500 front money-oh. Five percent-heinous. And he keeps all the publishing-yiyiyiyi! Jesus, he sure drives a hard bargain! This was like a Brill Building deal.
JAC: Here are the facts. I offered what was slightly on the generous side of a standard deal in 1966 for an unproven group. Elektra would advance all recording costs plus $5,000 cash to the band against a five percent royalty with a separate advance against publishing, of which the Doors would own seventy-five percent and we would own twenty-five. And as a show of faith, I committed to release three albums. If the first album did less than well, the Doors wouldn't be out on the street, another disheartened and discarded LA band.
BILLY JAMES: Ray came up to my house to have me tell him what I knew about Elektra. I told him in confidence that Jac had asked me to come work at Elektra, that my job was to establish a presence on the West Coast, in LA, and I could think of no better group to support than the Doors. By all means sign with Elektra-I thought it was a terrific idea.
RAY MANZAREK:
Jac wasn't offering much money. But a guarantee to record and release three
albums-that was fabulous. We could create anything we wanted to, and Elektra
would put it out. We had material for two albums. So we knew that all the
songs we had would be recorded, and the records would be in record stores,
and we also had the option of doing another record on top of that. So we
felt incredibly secure.
Jac was fabulous that way: "We're signing you, because we want you
to be creative." In effect, Jac Holzman to the Doors was like Diaghilev
to Nijinsky and Stravinsky.
It had all gotten rather anticlimactic at the Whisky because we had gotten
our recording contract. That was the important thing, to make records.
"Follow the Music" is the must-read story of Elektra records, as told by its founder Jac Holzman and the artists and staff of one of America's legendary record companies. (441 pages, hardcover and softcover, 140 illustrations)
The hardback book is 441 pages, with more than 140 illustrations. Order today from this site and from Amazon.com
Copyright 1998 by Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws. All rights reserved.