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The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles by keyboardist Ray Manzarek, vocalist Jim Morrison, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. They were one of the most controversial bands of their time, due mostly to Morrison's cryptic lyrics and unpredictable stage persona. Since the band's dissolution in the early 1970s - and especially since Morrison's death in 1971 - interest in the Doors' music has remained high, perhaps even surpassing that which the band enjoyed during its own lifetime. The Doors have sold over 50 million albums worldwide.

The origins of The Doors lay in a chance meeting between acquaintances and UCLA film school students Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach, California in July 1965. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs and, at Manzarek's encouragement, sang Moonlight Drive. Impressed by Morrison's lyrics, Manzarek immediately suggested they form a band.

Vox-Organ-player Ray Manzarek was already in a band called Rick And The Ravens with his brother Rick Manzarek, while Robby Krieger and John Densmore were playing with The Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from yoga and meditation classes they were both taking. In August, Densmore joined the group and along with members of the Ravens and female bass player Patty Sullivan, recorded a six-song demo in September 1965. This was widely bootlegged and appeared in full on the 1997 Doors box set.

That month the group recruited guitarist Robby Krieger and the final lineup - Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore - was complete. The band took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, which was in turn borrowed from a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a poem by the 18th century artist and poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite".

The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar whilst playing live. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, and other keyboards with his right hand. However, the group occasionally used bass players such as Jerry Scheff, Doug Lubahn, Harvey Brooks, Kerry Magness, Lonnie Mack, Larry Knechtel, Leroy Vinegar, and Ray Neapolitan on their albums.

The Doors' self-titled debut LP, recorded in August 1966 but not released until the first week of January 1967, caused a major sensation in music circles. It featured most of the major songs from their set, including the 11-minute musical drama, "The End." The band recorded the album in only a few days in late August and early September 1966, almost entirely live in the studio with most songs captured in a single take. Morrison and Manzarek also directed an innovative promotional film for their first single, "Break on Through," a significant advance in the development of the music video genre.

Their second single, "Light My Fire", established the group along with Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead as one of the top American counterculture bands. It was released in April and replaced The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" at #1 (with the long middle organ and guitar solos cut out) in July.

In May 1967, the group made their "National" broadcast television debut by recording a dazzling version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at their Yorkville Studios in Toronto (Yorkville was Canada's version of Haight-Ashbury). It remained unseen since its original broadcast until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002.

The Doors quickly earned a reputation as a challenging, rebellious, and entertaining live act. With his saturnine good looks, magnetic stage presence, and skin-tight leather trousers, Morrison quickly became a major pop sex symbol, although he soon became frustrated with the strictures of stardom. Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network censors demanded that Morrison change the lyrics to Light My Fire, by altering the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" (because of the possible reference to drugs) before the band performed the song live on September 17, 1967, on the Ed Sullivan Show. The line was changed to, "Girl, we couldn't get much better". However, Morrison sang the original line instead, and on live television with no delay, CBS was powerless to stop it. A furious Ed Sullivan refused to shake the band members' hands, and they were never invited back. According to one account, Morrison was told he would never appear on the program again; he replied, "We just did the Ed Sullivan Show " �at the time, an appearance was a hallmark of success. Morrison later insisted that nervousness caused him to forget to change the line. They also performed a new single, "People Are Strange," which they repeated for DJ Murray The K's TV show on September 22.

Morrison further cemented his status as a rebel on December 10 when he was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut, for badmouthing the police to the audience. Morrison said he had been maced by an overzealous police officer after he was caught backstage with a girl. The group finished a successful year. On December 24, the band taped "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for the Jonathan Winters Show. From December 26 to December 28 the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. An excerpt taken from Stephen Davis' book on Jim Morrison p.219-220: "The next night at Winterland, a TV set was wheeled onstage during the Doors set so the band could see themselves on the Jonathan Winters Show. They stopped playing Back Door Man when their song came on. The audience watched the Doors watching themselves on TV. They finished the song when their bit was done, and Ray walked over and turned the TV off. The next night was their last ever in Winterland."They played two more dates in Denver on December 30 and December 31, capping off a year of almost constant touring.

The second Doors LP, Strange Days, was more subdued and less spontaneous than their debut, but the album was notable for its evocative lyrics and atmosphere. The closing track, "When the Music's Over", was, like "The End," lengthy and dramatic, and helped establish Morrison's reputation as the wild shaman of rock. Yet the album was also strongly commercial, and featured now-classic Doors songs such as "People Are Strange" and "Love Me Two Times."

In April, the recording of the third album was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol. Approaching the height of their popularity The Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.

The band began to branch out from their initial form in their third LP, because they had exhausted their original repertoire and began writing new material. It became their first #1 LP and the single "Hello, I Love You" was their second and last US #1 single. It further isolated them from the underground cognoscenti; for instance Lilian Roxon said of it in her 1969 Rock Encyclopedia, the album "strengthened dreadful suspicion that the Doors were in it just for the money." It also included the eventually banned (from radio play due to its provocative and controversial lyrics for the time) song "The Unknown Soldier", for which they created another self-directed music video, and "Not to Touch the Earth", excerpted from their legendary 30-minute concept piece Celebration of the Lizard, although they were reportedly unable to record a satisfactory version of the entire piece for the LP. This was eventually released on a greatest hits CD compilation.

A month after riotous scenes at the Singer Bowl in New York, the group flew to Britain for its first dates outside of North America. The group held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at The Roundhouse Theatre. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open which was later released on video. The group then played dates in Europe, including a show in Amsterdam without Morrison after he collapsed from a drug binge. Morrison returned to London on September 20 and stayed for a month.

Although Morrison received the most attention, including getting a far larger image on the cover of the group's debut album (he would get his revenge on the cover of L.A. Woman when he slouched to appear shorter than the rest of the group), he was adamant that all the band members should get recognition. Before one concert when the announcer introduced the group as "Jim Morrison and The Doors", Morrison refused to appear unless he announced the group again as "The Doors". While he never felt close to his real-life family, he was extremely protective of his fellow band-members. Reportedly, he once told Ray Manzarek that he never felt comfortable in a social setting unless Ray or another band member was with him. Many people have concluded that he viewed The Doors as his surrogate family. He repeatedly turned down every solo album opportunity he was offered, and after his death the remaining band members refused to replace him.

In the last two years of his life Morrison curtailed his prodigious intake of psychedelic drugs and began drinking heavily, which soon affected his stage and studio performances. Apparently trying to escape the image of "The Lizard King" that had come to dominate him, Morrison put on weight and grew a thick beard, forcing Elektra to use photos taken earlier in his career for the cover of the Absolutely Live LP, released in 1970. The album features performances recorded on The Doors' 1970 American tour and at the 1969 Aquarius Theatre gig and includes a full-length live performance of "The Celebration of the Lizard".

In 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison decided to take some time off and moved to Paris with girlfriend, Pamela Courson, in March. He had visited the previous summer and, for a time, seemed content to write and explore the city. But by June he was again drinking heavily and nearly fell from a second storey window in May. On June 16 the last known recording of Morrison was made when he befriended two street musicians at a bar and invited them to a recording studio. The results were later released in 1994 on a bootleg CD titled The Lost Paris Tapes.

Morrison died under mysterious circumstances on July 3, 1971; his body was found in the bathtub of his apartment. It was concluded that he died of a heart attack, although it was later revealed that no autopsy had been performed before Morrison's body was buried at P�re Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.

Rumors persisted for many years that Morrison had faked his death to escape the spotlight or had died at a Paris nightclub and that his body had been surreptitiously taken to his apartment.