Kubernik: The Doors 60th Anniversary, Record Store Day Releases
Photo of Jim Morrison by Henry Diltz, Courtesy of Gary Strobl at the Diltz Archive. 

Photo of Harvey Kubernik and Ray Manzarek by Heather Harris. 

All other images courtesy of Rhino. 

   In November, the Doors will kick off the 2025 60th Anniversary with a new anniversary logo, a series of physical releases, and anthology book, and much more to come. 

The Doors 1967-1971 6-LP set will arrive as the latest installment in Rhino’s acclaimed High Fidelity audiophile vinyl series on November 22nd, featuring all six of the band’s original studio albums cut from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio. The vinyl was pressed at Optimal Media and the box includes a heavyweight gatefold jacket featuring rare photos and liner notes by Doors archivist David Dutkowski. Only 3,000 copies of the limited-edition set will be available exclusively at thedoors.com and rhino.com.

   Additionally, for Record Store Day’s Black Friday on November 29th, The Doors will release The Doors – Live in Detroit, featuring the band’s performance from the Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan on May 8, 1970. This 4-LP set will be available on vinyl for the first time. 

Captured on tape during the band's 1970 US tour, it was one of the band's longest performances. In fact, the band played for an hour past curfew and were then banned from the Cobo Arena on future tours. The fiery set includes a number of Blues covers, including "Back Door Man," Junior Parker's "Mystery Train," and "Crossroads" by Robert Johnson. The Doors also tear through a 17-minute-plus version of "The End," as well as an over 19-minute version of "Light My Fire" and other rare tracks such as "Love Hides." This collection captures the band at their absolute zenith.

   The Doors’ eponymous debut album - which the BBC and Rolling Stone have each hailed as one of the greatest debuts of all time - released in January 1967 and features the chart-topping smash-hit “Light My Fire,” the bluesy, growling “Back Door Man” and seminal live-set showstopper “The End,” with its legendary Oedipal spoken word section. 

   Having cemented their place in the rock pantheon and the psychedelic rock revolution, The Doors returned to the studio resulting in the anticipated follow-up, Strange Days, which went to number three on the US Billboard 200 and featured “Love Me Two Times” and “People Are Strange.”

   In 1968, the band released Waiting for the Sun, their first number one album featuring the chart-topping single “Hello, I Love You,” along with “Love Street” and “Five to One.” 

   The Doors then dove further into uncharted psychedelic territory with 1969’s string and horn-laden album The Soft Parade, which included the Krieger-penned hit “Touch Me.”

   1970’s Morrison Hotel,which boasts fan favorites “Roadhouse Blues” and “Peace Frog,” took the band back to its bluesy roots. 1971’s L.A.Woman, the band’s final album with Morrison and recorded in the band’s rehearsal space, features “Riders on the Storm,” “Love Her Madly” and the title track.

   During their brief time together, The Doors delivered six studio albums before Morrison’s untimely death in Paris in 1971. Their electrifying achievements in the studio and onstage remain unmatched in the annals of rock, and today they remain as one of the best-selling bands of all time with over 100 million records sold worldwide. 

   In 1993 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Several years later, the songs “Light My Fire” and “Riders on the Storm” along with The Doors’ debut album were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The Library of Congress also recognized the band, selecting their self-titled album for inclusion in the National Recording Registry in 2014. The Doors also received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007.

Created to commemorate the upcoming 60th anniversary, The Doors’ first-ever complete anthology book Night Divides the Day will illuminate the band’s archives like never before with rare photography, intimate interviews with Robby Krieger and John Densmore, and meticulously sourced archival text from Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. With unlimited access granted by the band, Night Divides the Day includes a unique collection of historical ephemera – including childhood photos, song lyrics, poster artwork, movie stills, and much more – which adds context to the wealth of rare photography that documents the band’s musical odyssey.

   Joining Robby and John are a host of contributors, with a foreword by Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, and afterword by maestro Gustavo Dudamel. The anthology is presented in a limited-edition of only 2,000 numbered box sets, each hand-signed by Densmore and Krieger. Each set includes the 344-page signed edition, a 7” vinyl record with rare demos of “Hello, I Love You” and “Moonlight Drive,” and other assorted historical memorabilia. Available for pre-order now.

I went to a Doors concert at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, California, on December 14, 1968.

     On the bill were Jerry Lee Lewis, Sweetwater, and Tzon Yen Luie, who performed with a Chinese stringed instrument, the pipa. I am still recovering from that rendition of “Celebration of the Lizard,” and the Doors performing with a string and brass section with Curtis Amy.   

    In 1973 I coordinated two accredited upper-division English and music curriculum courses conducted by Dr. James L. Wheeler, assistant professor in the School of Literature at California State University, San Diego. A story in the April 14, 1973, issue of Billboard magazine reported the department’s academic aim as “the world’s first university level rock studies program.”  I placed Jim Morrison’s The Lords and the New Creatures on the required book list.

    Ray Manzarek heard about our classes and was very complimentary about students seriously studying Jim as a poet, along with the musical works of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Impressions, Leonard Cohen, The Band, Jefferson Airplane, the Beatles, Donovan, and Laura Nyro.

    One evening, Ray and associate Danny Sugerman made arrangements for me to screen the existing print of Jim Morrison’s Feast of Friends movie on campus.

      Ray penned the Foreword to my 2009 book Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon.  

     “I knew Jim was a great poet, Manzarek told me in 20004. "That’s why we put the band together in the first place. It was going to be poetry together with rock ‘n’ roll.  Not like poetry and jazz. Or like it, it was poetry and jazz from the ‘50s, except we were doing poetry and rock ‘n’ roll. And our version of rock ‘n’ roll was whatever you could bring to the table. I loved his poetry. The fact that he was doing ecological poetry. But don’t forget in late 1967, and the potheads were aware. That’s what was so great about marijuana opening the doors of perception. The pot heads were the first mass ecological movement. I hope they continue on and continue it into future because it’s our obligation to save the planet.  We were working in the future space. And many things have come to fruition that Jim Morrison wrote about.” 

       In 2016, I spoke with Robby Krieger.  

       ‘“Wild Child’ from The Soft Parade is one of my favorites because it’s live. That one didn’t need strings or horns.

    “When we did the first Doors’ album Jim was totally un-experienced in the studio as far as recording his vocals. He had a year with his voice playing live every night. He had never done anything in the studio. And I think by the time The Soft Parade came around his voice had matured a lot as far as low notes and range. I don’t think he could have sung ‘Touch Me’ nearly as good if that was on our first album.”

Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.       Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

   Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.

   He is currently writing a book Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll Television Moments) for 2025 publication.    

        Kubernik is in several book anthologies, most notably, The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski.   Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.  

  During 2006 Harvey spoke at the special hearings initiated by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 Kubernik appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their heralded Distinguished Speakers Series.The post Kubernik: The Doors 60th Anniversary, Record Store Day Releases first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.