The 60th anniversary of The Doors is to be celebrated with a career-spanning studio box set, a live album and an anthology.
The releases come six decades after keyboardist Ray Manzarek first encountered poet Jim Morrison for the first time, at Venice Beach, CA, during the summer of 1965. Morrison’s prose impressed Manzarak, and the pair agreed to start a band, recruiting guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore before making their live debut a few months later at a UCLA film school screening.
Among the releases scheduled so far – with more to be announced – are The Doors 1967-1971, a six-album audiophile vinyl package containing all the band’s studio albums, from 1967’s self-titled debut to 1970’s L.A. Woman, and The Doors – Live in Detroit, a quadruple album set previously issued as a double CD in 2000 as part of the Bright Midnight Archives series.
The Doors 1967-1971 is limited to 3000 copies and will be available exclusively from Rhino and The Doors’ website. It’s released on November 22, but pre-orders are not yet available. The Doors – Live in Detroit will be available in-store on Record Store Day, November 29.
Also on the schedule is Night Divides The Day, an anthology devoted to the band, which includes a foreword by Nirvana bassist Krist Novolselic and an afterword by Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor who’s currently the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The anthology, which is limited to 1650 numbered copies, is signed by Krieger and Densmore, the surviving members of the band. The package also includes a 7” single featuring demo versions of Hello, I Love You and Moonlight Drive. It’s available to pre-order now from Genesis Publications, and will ship in the new year.
