16 Nov "VH1 Storytellers: The Doors' reunites Legendary Group for Their First Televised Performance Together in 30 Years, Premiering Sunday, November 26, 2000 at 10:00PM (ET/PT)
NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 2000 /PRNewswire/ —
The surviving members of The Doors — Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore — perform together for the first time in 30 years, telling the real stories behind their legendary songs and talking candidly about the late Jim Morrison, when “VH1 Storytellers: The Doors” premieres Sunday, November 26 from 10:00-11:30 p.m. (ET/PT).
The Doors’ keyboard player Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore are joined by special guest vocalists as they perform “L.A. Woman” (with Perry Farell); “Love Me Two Times” (with Pat Monahan of Train); “Whiskey Bar”/”Backdoor Man” (with Ian Astbury of The Cult); “The End” (with Travis Meeks of Days of the New); “Break on Through” and “Five to One” (with Stone Temple Pilots’Scott Weiland); and “Light My Fire” and “Roadhouse Blues” (with Scott Stapp of Creed).
Many of these artists had recently contributed tracks to the new CD, “Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors” (released on November 14), and their eagerness to perform live with the band was the impetus behind this special 90-minute edition of “VH1 Storytellers.”
In addition, Ray Manzarek tells the story behind Jim Morrison’s famous onstage arrest in New Haven for inciting a riot, as well as the controversial upcoming lease renewal on Morrison’s graveyard plot in Paris. “Jim Morrison is the number four tourist attraction in Paris,” he notes. “There’s the Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, the Beaubourg Museum and Jim. I’m sure he’ll stay there.”
Among The Doors’ reminiscences on “VH1 Storytellers: The Doors”:
— “Love Me Two Times”: Robby says “When I wrote ‘Love Me Two Times,’ ‘I was thinking about the soldiers going out to Vietnam, and how long they would have to be without their girlfriends. Therefore, ‘Love me two times, I’m going away.’ That’s how that came about. I wanted to write a blues, and whenever The Doors did a blues, we always tried to do something a little different. ‘Love Me Two Times’ was one of Jim’s favorites, and we always loved to play it.”
— “The End”: John recalls, “We were in Ray’s parents’garage. Or maybe it was Robby’s. When we were first writing songs, Jim didn’t play an instrument, he didn’t play a chord on guitar or piano, so he would sing a cappella. One day he said, ‘Hey man, I got a new song, “The End.” ‘I thought it was an epitaph! But it was beautiful, and maybe a little sad, and it developed into this giant epic with oedipal overtones.”
— “Break on Through”: John says, “This next one I’m sure was done in Ray’s parents’garage … [Ray] handed me a crumpled piece of paper and said, ‘take a look at some of Jim’s lyrics.’ I thought they were percussive, and I wanted to play to them. In fact, there was this Brazilian music coming up, the Bossa Nova, at that time, so I played a Bossa Nova beat but I made it kind of stiff for rock ‘n roll.”
— “Five to One”: Robby himself wondered about the meaning of the song, recalling that “I asked Jim one time and he told me the secret. At that time, like 1968, there was five times as many people under the age of 21 as there were over the age of 21, because of the baby boomers. And Jim’s idea was that we could take over ’cause we had so many young people. All we had to do was get together and we could take over.”
— “Light My Fire”: Robby remembers that in the early days of the band, when “We didn’t have enough songs. And Jim said, ‘Why don’t you guys go and write one?’ And I went home, and I came up with this little thing. The main part of the song is these three little words, and somehow nobody had ever thought of putting those three little words together like that. Three little words. It could have been ‘Kiss My Ass.'”
— “Roadhouse Blues”: Noting that this was one of Jim’s favorite blues songs, Ray says of its genesis, “Jim used to say in the studio – this was to get us in the mood, get the feel – ‘the four of us are driving in a ’65 Chevy, we’re out on a highway, we’re not going too fast, but we’re not going too slow either. We’ve got a six-pack there in the back seat … And we’ve got a couple of dubes, a couple of little jays… And we’re saving ’em for later when we get to the roadhouse, and we’re going to have ourselves a real good time.’ You know what it was about.”
“Storytellers: The Doors” caps a day full of programming on VH1 devoted to the legendary group on November 26, including Oliver Stone’s film “The Doors,” starring Val Kilmer, airing at 6:30 p.m. The one-hour VH1 special “Legends: The Doors” airs at 4:00 p.m., and “The Doors: Dance on Fire” airs at 2:00 a.m. (All times ET/PT.)