Jim Cherry's Blog (78)

The Doors have officially released “She Smells so Nice” a track “L.A. Woman” producer Bruce Botnick found while going through session tapes of “L.A. Woman” while looking for alternate tracks for the forthcoming “The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Making of L.A. Woman” coming January 24th.

“She Smells so Nice” is more of a jam that sounds vaguely Greatful Dead-ish, or maybe in the vein of good time blues like “Roadhouse Blues.” Listening to the track you can hear why it didn’t make it to…

Today is Doors guitarist Robby Krieger’s 66th birthday. Krieger wrote most of The Doors more popular songs, such as, “Light My Fire”, reportedly written in 20 minutes, “Love Me Two Times”, “Touch Me”, (which was originally titled “Hit Me), “Love Her Madly”, and “Wishful Sinful”. He was also voted 91st in Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest guitarists.

Robby was born in Los Angeles. Developing an early interest in music, he played trumpet as a child and later after discovering the…

The Doors will release the full version of “She Smells so Nice” on their Facebook page on Monday January 9th at Noon (12PM) Eastern time. The song will be premiered for fans on Monday and released for radio station airplay on Tuesday, January 10th.

“She Smells so Nice” was discovered in the “L.A. Woman” session tapes by Bruce Botnik while he was compiling tracks for “The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Making of L.A. Woman” which will be released on January 24th, 2012.

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Danny Sugerman died seven years ago today at age 50. In the past I’ve run fairly ordinary stories on his life and accomplishments, so I wanted to find something that would give people a sense of Sugerman as a real person. One of Danny’s close friends graciously consented to write a memoriam for Danny. I hope you find it as sincerely moving as I did.

Danny Sugerman, Seven Years Gone

When paying tribute to the legacy of The Doors, there's probably one name that…

January 4th, 1967, Jac Holzman unleashed The Doors, in a burst of a single day. Elektra Records released The Doors debut album, a 45 of the first two singles off the album, “Break on Through” and on the flip side, “End of the Night”. To cap off the release Holzman put up the famous billboard of The Doors on Sunset Boulevard, which was the first billboard for a rock group on Sunset.

It had been a whirlwind spring and summer for The Doors. They started as the house band at The Whisky a…

The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin’: The Making of L.A. Woman will be screened at the Egyptian theater on January 20, 2012. The film documents the making of The Doors classic album, “L.A. Woman”. A discussion following the screening of the film will be hosted by DJ Jim Ladd and Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, plus special guests still to be announced. The screening is at 7:30PM at the Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA, 90028. For more details and tickets please click on…

Harry Burkhart, a German national was taken into custody Monday, January 2, 2012 in connection with the Los Angeles fires that officials have estimated to have caused $3 million dollars in damages including the Laurel Canyon house that Jim Morrison and “cosmic mate”, Pam Courson, lived in during the 60’s. The house inspired Morrison to write the song, “Love Street”, about their time there.

While the exact motivation for Burkhart starting the fires isn’t known, his mother was arrested…

Happy New Year to all The Doors Examinersubscribers and readers! Thank you for your support in the past year, and I hope you’ll continue to read and enjoy The Doors Examiner in 2012!

2011 The Year in Review: For me 2011 was an exciting and interesting year in the lives of The Doors and their activities, Ray and Robby on tour most of the summer, John inducting Jac Holzman into The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall…

New Years Day, a day of new beginnings, new resolutions looking forward to a new year. Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records wanted to make sure 1967 started with a bang for The Doors, the band he was hanging his hopes on to break into the rock world. The first part of the plan was The Doors debuting on the TV show, Shebang.

Shebang was a local dance show on KTLA TV in Los Angeles hosted by Casey Kasem and produced by Dick Clark, both of whom would go on to long careers in radio and…

The Doors had just had their biggest summer. “Light My Fire” had gone from a seven minute album cut, to an edited AM radio friendly length of 2:52, and on to being a part of the “Summer of Love’s” soundtrack and number 1 on the Billboard charts.

With “Light My Fire” hitting number 1 it pushed The Doors onto the national stage and the national variety shows started calling, Ed Sullivan, and in December the Jonathan Winters Show.

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Merry Christmas from The Doors Examiner! I hope everyone has had a restful and happy holiday today!

I hope all The Doors Examiner subscribers and readers have enjoyed this year’s articles! It’s always amazing the journey The Doors still take us on 40 years after their heyday.

The Doors have proclaimed 2012 to be “the year of The Doors” with releases including 40th anniversary editions of…

What the picture shows-Two couples in the backseat of a car smiling broadly. The couples are Ray Manzarek and Dorothy Fujikawa, and Jim Morrison and Pam Courson. Ray and Dorothy just got married, at the Los Angeles courthouse, it’s December 21st, 1967.

What the picture doesn’t show- That it’s been a successful year for Manzarek and Morrison. In January of ‘67, their first album, “The Doors” was released and in the interim they’ve had a hit song in “Light My Fire,” they’ve…

Some times news and entertainment intersect, such was the life of Vaclav Havel, and The Doors drummer John Densmore has long taken public stands on issues and lent his name to causes. With the news this weekend of the death of Vaclav Havel, the first president of Czech Republic John Densmore released this statement:

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Mr.Mojo Risin: The Story of L.A. Woman” is set for release January 24, 2012, it’s a behind the scenes look at the making of The Doors seminal rock ‘n’ roll album, as told by the participants Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Elektra founder Jac Holzman and producer Bruce Botnick.

Eagle Rock TV which is releasing “Mr.Mojo Risin” has released a trailer for the DVD/Blu-Ray production, which you can watch in the left hand sidebar of this article. The trailer does reveal one…

Robby Krieger since ending the summer tour with former Doors bandmate Ray Manzarek and the Manzarek-Krieger Band has been appearing with blues legends, and will continue to do so in March 2012. Krieger will appear with the Experience Hendrix 2012 Tribute Tour.

The Experience Hendrix 2012 Tribute Tour will also include guitar players such as Buddy Guy, Billy Cox, Dweezil Zappa, Kenny Wayne Shepard, David Hidalgo, the tour will eventually go to twenty cities, more dates and cities will…

The Smothers Brothers were hip, and controversial because of their tackling the subjects of the day such as the anti-war movement, unrest on college campus’, politics and subjects that other variety and comedy shows would ignore. The Doors after their experience of the Ed Sullivan show asking them to change the lyrics of “Light My Fire” were leery of playing TV shows, but because of the Smothers brothers reputation The Doors played on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Show on December 15,…

December 11, 1970 The Doors play two sold shows at the State Fair Music Hall in Dallas, Texas, it’s the second to last dates The Doors will play with Jim Morrison as lead singer.

Not much has been known or discussed about the Dallas 1970 show. Years ago Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek commented that he always wished The Doors had been able to play the songs off “L.A. Woman” with Jim Morrison live, and fans lamented that too until a recording of the Dallas 70 show came to light and…

Usually for Doors history we have to climb into the Wayback machine, but today we only have to go back one year and to Florida. December 9, 2010, Jim Morrison is pardoned by the Florida Parole and Clemency Board.

The charges against Morrison in Florida stemmed from the March 1, 1969, “Miami incident” in which it was alleged that Morrison exposed himself. The official charges included lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent exposure, open profanity and drunkenness. Morrison was found…

Concatenation. A series of events that leads from one to another, the cosmic clicking of kinetic balls that in retrospect seem inexorable and inevitable. that’s arguably what lead up to the events in New Haven, Connecticut December 9, 1967.

The events that happened the night before in Troy, New York, on December 8th, Morrison’s 24th birthday, set in motion the events that lead to Jim Morrison‘s arrest in New Haven. By all accounts, the Troy show was a terrible. First, Morrison missed…

Today is Jim Morrison’s birthday, he would have been 68 years old. There are a few events that surround Jim’s birthday that are noteworthy for Doors fans, and that lead indirectly to Jim being the first rock star arrested onstage.

Skipping around in time, December 8, 1970 Jim and friends Frank and Kathy Lisciandro, Alain Ronay, Florentine Pabst and John Haeny go into the studio to record some of Jim’s poetry that later will be used for “An American Prayer.”

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