Jim Morrison was 70 today the 8th December (posting this at midnight) and with the death this year of Ray Manzarek, the legend of The Doors has well and truly been put to bed. Although John Densmore the band’s drummer and Robbie Krieger the band’s guitarist survive Morrison and Manzarek, it was Manzarek’s signature organ sound and Morrison’s distinctive vocals and immense charisma that drove the unending appeal of the band. But we might like to ponder that Kreiger wrote or co-wrote some of their great songs and the best songs of the sixties era. Light My Fire, Love Her Madly, Love Me Two Times and Touch Me and Densmore’s drumming seems irreplaceable when you see live clips.
The Doors’ legacy lingers on but in 1973 when The Best Of The Doors was released, two years after Morrisons’s death, it only reached Number 158 in the US charts. In 1980 The Doors – Greatest Hits reached Number 17 and went 3 x Platinum.

‘This clips is presented by Noel Harrison who died recently. I wrote something about him on the In Deep site here:

http://indeepmusicarchive.net/2013/10/noel-harrison/

This amazing version of The End in a TV studio, I imagine somewhere in America, captures the art and danger of Jim Morrison. The band completely tuned into the dynamics and the mood as an uncomfortable seriousness oozes out of Morrison’s skin. The song was the closing track from their 1967 self-titled debut album, (recorded in 1966) that reached Number 2 on the US charts.