You blend those two together, and you have the complete, whole artist." Quite obviously, the Doors were no ordinary group. The proper artist combines Apollonian rigor and correctness with Dionysian frenzy, passion and excitement. The Dionysian side is the blues, and the Apollonian side is classical music. As Manzarek put it in a 1997 interview: "We just combined the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Their music combined classical elocution with jazzy improvisation and infused heady psychedelic rock with the earthiness of the blues. During that time, the group released six studio albums and left a smoldering trail of memorable and often controversial concert performances that cemented Morrison's legend.The Doors comprised vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. Only six years passed from the Doors' formation in 1966 to Morrison's death in 1971. Morrison pushed himself to the limit with drugs, alcohol and hard living, becoming one of rock's most celebrated martyrs when his body gave out at the age of 27. Yet he was given to more extreme and confrontational forms of behavior than those icons. Morrison was a brooding, charismatic frontman in the classic mold of Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger. A cult of personality continues to surround Jim Morrison, their tempestuous lead singer. Their words and music captured the Sixties zeitgeist with undeniable power. The impact of their meteoric career has resonated far beyond their brief half-decade as a recording and performing entity. There are also extended versions of "Soul Kitchen," "Break on Through," and "When the Music's Over" that flag considerably in comparison to the sleeker studio versions.The Doors were among the most intense and revolutionary bands of the Sixties (or any decade, for that matter). As for the music, the haunting "Universal Mind" and the basic blues-rocker "Build Me a Woman" are originals that are not found on their proper albums "Close to You" is a dull Muddy Waters cover sung by Ray Manzarek "Who Do You Love?" is a fair cover of the Bo Diddley standard, and the controversial "The Celebration of the Lizard" is a drawn-out opus that is as much poetry recitation as music. During much of this set, he seems not to be taking himself or the songs too seriously, tossing flippant asides to the audience, and seeming to treat the whole exercise as a charade. Recorded at concerts in 19, this was an era in which Jim Morrison was becoming increasingly dissolute and increasingly disinterested in the whole rock machine. There are no hits, but there's a lot of Morrison - improvising, reciting poetry, sometimes singing - not a record for the uninitiated. This sprawling collection demonstrated that, in concert, the Doors could be an enervating as well as an elevating experience.
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