Introduction

The Doors Guitar Tablature Anthology

The Doors were a celebration of all that was great, not-so-great, weird, and wonderful about the Magic Kingdom of Los Angeles. They sang of backdoors and bars, women and wine, and there was something uniquely Los Angelesque about them.
Perhaps it was because they met on the venerable campus of UCLA, a university situated in the student city of Westwood and just bordering the excess and glamour of Beverly Hills. A true LA institution. And maybe it's because some of the members of the band came together at Venice Beach, exchanging rogue ideas and views on philosophy and music and the lives of lizards. The bonds were formed in these places - along the Pacific coastline amidst the wild smells of see water and incense and musty buildings, and in the corridors of learning where youth flexed its cerebral muscles.
These images, these sounds, these smells became the substance of Doors music. You could hear it in the Vox Continental organ sounds keyboardist Ray Manzarek conjured; it was certainly there lurking beneath the surface of Jim Morrison's vocals; and even in the simplistic drum patterns of John Densmore there resided the percussive ghost of LA. That dark ebb and flow which is the City of Angels: not quite the ebony nightmare of New York, the windy fever which is Chicago, nor the homespun dustbowl of Texas. But rather a safer landscape, smokey and dramatic in its fashion, but somehow less threatening than these cities and other places where rock and roll was born.
And while Morrison was the obvious focal point of the band and Manzarek the main source of music it was really guitarist Robby Krieger acting as a catalyst who gave The Doors their fury, their tension and this unique shadow we've called 'the ghost of LA.' To learn that Krieger is a native Californian, native Los Angelino, is no surprise. Born on January 8 1946 he was the youngest member of the band and really the least imposing. Morrison had, well everything, Manzarek a quasi-Ben Franklin music doctor look, and Densmore a certain misty mystic aura. And Krieger? Dirt brown hair, a frizzy and scraggled beard, and a habit of not finishing sentences. Unassuming. But Krieger, a pre-Doors bandmate of Densmore in the Psychedelic Rangers, was the fire and the substance of the quartet. He fleshed the ghost.
It was his background as a musician, beginning with the guitar at age fifteen, which gave Krieger such a wide vocabulary from which to choose. He studied the classical subtleties of Montoya and Segovia, moved into the more celebratory realm of flamenco, and then just as quickly discarded these styles for folk or blues or rock. Not to mention the wonderful finesse and grace with which he played bottleneck. Krieger had it all and that's why his solos always sounded so different and yet, were always right on target.
Just as George Harrison, not the most gifted guitarist nor the most technical, always pulled the miracle riff from the bag, so did Robby always find the perfect notes. He didn't have great speed and yet there was a fluidity and strength in the notes he picked - there may not have been many of them but each one sang a song unto itself. One quick listen to the lines on 'Love Me Two Times' will confirm this statement. But here again, Krieger was always in control of his instrument and sonically capable of taking these anorexic-sounding tones and making them work majestically within the track.
'I just used an old Fender amp and an old Gibson SG', Krieger explained in a recent interview on television and in Guitar World magazine. 'We had what appeared to be Acoustic amplifiers but they were actually homemade jobs with about ten times as much power and big JBL speakers. They all had horns on top which didn't really make for that great-sounding of an amp. But they were loud. I used a Fuzz pedal and an Echoplex.'
Krieger is the first to admit that the amplifiers he used didn't exactly lend themselves to creating spatial and religious-sounding guitar squawks and squeaks. Krieger's command came beneath the fingers more than from the amp. But he is responsible for producing some wonderful six-string music not only on the Doors album but on his own solo albums as well.
There are four individual albums in release: Robby Krieger and Friends (1977); Versions (1982); Robby Krieger (1985); and his most recent, Door Jams. The newest is a compilation of chose first three records, ranging from the shrapnel-laden 'Gavin Leggit' to the jazzy 'The Ally.' It is valuable fodder for the Krieger fanatic and is testament EO those eclectic chops.
But for all the music he has made as a solo player, the guitarist will always and forever be remembered as one of the Doors. And so he should. Those records stand up to this day and it is no wonder chat artists like Billy Idol (re-doing 'LA Woman') and others are keeping Doors music alive. And it is that volume of work to which this book is dedicated. Krieger's playing on those records was textbook-simple, melodic and powerful.
The Doors was released in the beginning of 1967 during the Summer of Love, with the Vietnam war still raging madly, bell bottoms and paisley all the rage, and bands like Love, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention doing time in the many clubs lining Sunset Boulevard. It was a changing and fomenting period and rock and roll ended up having two heads: at the time it was easing the angst in these savage teenage breasts, it was stirring up the pot. Music added fuel to the fire and provided these essentially middle class kids with a banner, something to identify with. And boy, did they take The Doors to heart!
This eponymously-titled debut became an anthem for this efflorescent generation. The Doors was theatre; it had characters, scenes changes and story lines which captured hearts not only in California but across the entire country. And if Morrison was the leading man, Manzarek the director, and Densmore a supporting actor, then Krieger was the unequivocal music and sound effects man.
His guitar tone was eerie, spiritual, atramental; it spoke of dark things and hidden thoughts and it was decidedly seductive and it was everything six strings should sound like. And his solos, oh, his solos.
In this book there are four songs culled from this first release, 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)', *Soul Kitchen', 'Twentieth Century Fox', and 'Light My Fire". This latter cut became a paean to the Love hordes and it includes perhaps Krieger's finest solo ever (and certainly his most famous). It begins like a snake, slippery and lubricious, winding between two simple chord changes (two chord changes). The solo takes on form and direction and by the end of it Robby's SG is howling like a banshee and we are caught up with it. When the section is finally terminated we want to hear more and it's no surprise then that this song (writing credits were given to the entire band but Krieger was responsible for nearly all the words and music in this one) went to No. 1 in this country and catapulted the quartet from regional to national status.
'Love Me Two Times' and 'People Are Strange' from Strange Days, their follow-up, are both curious tracks in that they have no real guitar solo sections. Many of Krieger's guitar tracks were sans solos but he was such a wonderful and creative rhythm player that these lines provided buoy enough.
'People Are Strange' in particular, has a mesmerizing legato sort of rhythmic feel and again it bears that thin, stretching type of tone he was by now earmarking as his own.
Waiting The Sun came out in 1968 and it was a breathless piece of work from start to finish. A true opus, it would be difficult to choose another Doors album where Krieger played such an important role.
This was the first album on which the band used an outside bassist (Manzarek always covered those parts with a Rhodes piano bass) and perhaps it was to this new sonic backdrop Krieger was able to kick into high gear. 'Hello, I Love You', 'Love Street', 'Spanish Caravan', and 'Five To One' are represented here and they are all excellent examples of his various styles. This first cut is reminiscent of the Kinks 'All Day And All Of The Night' and showcases Robby's sledgehammer rhythm attack (one of the first quasi-heavy metal tones); 'Love Street' is a tribute to his jazz chops while 'Spanish Caravan' gives a nod to his Montoya/flamenco period. And the latter is simply Krieger laying back and allowing Morrison to go through his character metamorphosis.
'Touch Me' was the first time the band worked with a horn section (in fact, one of the first times any rock band worked with brass). The Soft Parade was also the first album listing individual writing credits and it's now plain to see just how prolific the guitarist was. He wrote or co-wrote five of the record's nine cuts (including 'Touch Me'). 'Wild Child', a Morrison composition, showcases Krieger's fiery side as he wrenches hell out of his neck and breathes real emotion into
this main guitar lick.
Morrison Hotel, shipped in 1970, was a strong comeback after the somewhat disappointing prior release. Krieger was little short of brilliant as he danced about his Gibson in a blues tango on 'Roadhouse Blues' and played some memorable lines on 'Peace Frog/Blue Sunday'.
The title track of LA Woman 'Riders On The Storm', and 'Love Her Madly' are representatives of the group's seventh album (their previous release was the non-studio Absolutely Live). 'Riders...' weaves fragile blues licks around Morrison's dreamy vocals and it is a testament to Krieger's strength not only as an interpreter of the singer's visions but as a proficient accompanist as well.
We'll probably never speak of Robby Krieger in the same breath as Jeff Beck or Eddie Van Halen. And rightly so because he is not that type of player. Krieger composes with his instrument; he orchestrates and invents and twists the musical cloth to produce an entirely new
fabric. No one else could have been guitarist for The Doors, no one else would have known how.
But Robby is not one to rest on his laurels. He is currently working on another instrumental album, a direct to DAT recording, with Arthur Barrow and Bruce Gary. He is also working on several soundtracks and is musical consultant on the Oliver Stone film The Doors.
Had Robby Krieger done nothing more than 'Light My Fire', his name would be in the record books. But he's provided us with a magical and moving scope of work and it is to these songs this book is dedicated.

Other Doors' titles available from Music Sales...
The Beat Of The Door
Order Nu.AM20298
The Doors: Complete Music
Order No.AM39272
The Doors Concise Complete
Order No.OP42787
The Doors Rock Score
Ordered. AM 73917
Th" Doors Supertab
Order No.AM73073

Music Sales' complete catalogue lists thousands a/titles and is free from your local music shop, or direct from Music Sales Limited, Please send a cheque or postal order fur £150 for postage to
Music Sales Limited, Newmarket Road.
Bury St. Edmunds. Suffolk IP33 3YB.

	Introduction by Steven Rossen
	The Doors Guitar Tablature Anthology The Doors were a celebration of all that was great, not-so-great, weird, and wonderful about the Magic Kingdom of Los Angeles. They sang of backdoors and bars, women and wine, and there was something uniquely Los Angelesque about them. Perhaps it was because they met on the venerable campus of UCLA, a university situated in the student city of Westwood and just bordering the excess and glamour of Beverly Hills. A true LA institution. And maybe it's because some of the members of the band came together at Venice Beach, exchanging rogue ideas and views on philosophy and music and the lives of lizards. The bonds were formed in these places - along the Pacific coastline amidst the wild smells of see water and incense and musty buildings, and in the corridors of learning where youth flexed its cerebral muscles. These images, these sounds, these smells became the substance of Doors music. You could hear it in the Vox Continental organ sounds keyboardist Ray Manzarek conjured; it was certainly there lurking beneath the surface of Jim Morrison's vocals; and even in the simplistic drum patterns of John Densmore there resided the percussive ghost of LA. That dark ebb and flow which is the City of Angels: not quite the ebony nightmare of New York, the windy fever which is Chicago, nor the homespun dustbowl of Texas. But rather a safer landscape, smokey and dramatic in its fashion, but somehow less threatening than these cities and other places where rock and roll was born. And while Morrison was the obvious focal point of the band and Manzarek the main source of music it was really guitarist Robby Krieger acting as a catalyst who gave The Doors their fury, their tension and this unique shadow we've called 'the ghost of LA.' To learn that Krieger is a native Californian, native Los Angelino, is no surprise. Born on January 8 1946 he was the youngest member of the band and really the least imposing. Morrison had, well everything, Manzarek a quasi-Ben Franklin music doctor look, and Densmore a certain misty mystic aura. And Krieger? Dirt brown hair, a frizzy and scraggled beard, and a habit of not finishing sentences. Unassuming. But Krieger, a pre-Doors bandmate of Densmore in the Psychedelic Rangers, was the fire and the substance of the quartet. He fleshed the ghost. It was his background as a musician, beginning with the guitar at age fifteen, which gave Krieger such a wide vocabulary from which to choose. He studied the classical subtleties of Montoya and Segovia, moved into the more celebratory realm of flamenco, and then just as quickly discarded these styles for folk or blues or rock. Not to mention the wonderful finesse and grace with which he played bottleneck. Krieger had it all and that's why his solos always sounded so different and yet, were always right on target. Just as George Harrison, not the most gifted guitarist nor the most technical, always pulled the miracle riff from the bag, so did Robby always find the perfect notes. He didn't have great speed and yet there was a fluidity and strength in the notes he picked - there may not have been many of them but each one sang a song unto itself. One quick listen to the lines on 'Love Me Two Times' will confirm this statement. But here again, Krieger was always in control of his instrument and sonically capable of taking these anorexic-sounding tones and making them work majestically within the track. 'I just used an old Fender amp and an old Gibson SG', Krieger explained in a recent interview on television and in Guitar World magazine. 'We had what appeared to be Acoustic amplifiers but they were actually homemade jobs with about ten times as much power and big JBL speakers. They all had horns on top which didn't really make for that great-sounding of an amp. But they were loud. I used a Fuzz pedal and an Echoplex.' Krieger is the first to admit that the amplifiers he used didn't exactly lend themselves to creating spatial and religious-sounding guitar squawks and squeaks. Krieger's command came beneath the fingers more than from the amp. But he is responsible for producing some wonderful six-string music not only on the Doors album but on his own solo albums as well. There are four individual albums in release: Robby Krieger and Friends (1977); Versions (1982); Robby Krieger (1985); and his most recent, Door Jams. The newest is a compilation of chose first three records, ranging from the shrapnel-laden 'Gavin Leggit' to the jazzy 'The Ally.' It is valuable fodder for the Krieger fanatic and is testament EO those eclectic chops. But for all the music he has made as a solo player, the guitarist will always and forever be remembered as one of the Doors. And so he should. Those records stand up to this day and it is no wonder chat artists like Billy Idol (re-doing 'LA Woman') and others are keeping Doors music alive. And it is that volume of work to which this book is dedicated. Krieger's playing on those records was textbook-simple, melodic and powerful. The Doors was released in the beginning of 1967 during the Summer of Love, with the Vietnam war still raging madly, bell bottoms and paisley all the rage, and bands like Love, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, and Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention doing time in the many clubs lining Sunset Boulevard. It was a changing and fomenting period and rock and roll ended up having two heads: at the time it was easing the angst in these savage teenage breasts, it was stirring up the pot. Music added fuel to the fire and provided these essentially middle class kids with a banner, something to identify with. And boy, did they take The Doors to heart! This eponymously-titled debut became an anthem for this efflorescent generation. The Doors was theatre; it had characters, scenes changes and story lines which captured hearts not only in California but across the entire country. And if Morrison was the leading man, Manzarek the director, and Densmore a supporting actor, then Krieger was the unequivocal music and sound effects man. His guitar tone was eerie, spiritual, atramental; it spoke of dark things and hidden thoughts and it was decidedly seductive and it was everything six strings should sound like. And his solos, oh, his solos. In this book there are four songs culled from this first release, 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)', *Soul Kitchen', 'Twentieth Century Fox', and 'Light My Fire". This latter cut became a paean to the Love hordes and it includes perhaps Krieger's finest solo ever (and certainly his most famous). It begins like a snake, slippery and lubricious, winding between two simple chord changes (two chord changes). The solo takes on form and direction and by the end of it Robby's SG is howling like a banshee and we are caught up with it. When the section is finally terminated we want to hear more and it's no surprise then that this song (writing credits were given to the entire band but Krieger was responsible for nearly all the words and music in this one) went to No. 1 in this country and catapulted the quartet from regional to national status. 'Love Me Two Times' and 'People Are Strange' from Strange Days, their follow-up, are both curious tracks in that they have no real guitar solo sections. Many of Krieger's guitar tracks were sans solos but he was such a wonderful and creative rhythm player that these lines provided buoy enough. 'People Are Strange' in particular, has a mesmerizing legato sort of rhythmic feel and again it bears that thin, stretching type of tone he was by now earmarking as his own. Waiting The Sun came out in 1968 and it was a breathless piece of work from start to finish. A true opus, it would be difficult to choose another Doors album where Krieger played such an important role. This was the first album on which the band used an outside bassist (Manzarek always covered those parts with a Rhodes piano bass) and perhaps it was to this new sonic backdrop Krieger was able to kick into high gear. 'Hello, I Love You', 'Love Street', 'Spanish Caravan', and 'Five To One' are represented here and they are all excellent examples of his various styles. This first cut is reminiscent of the Kinks 'All Day And All Of The Night' and showcases Robby's sledgehammer rhythm attack (one of the first quasi-heavy metal tones); 'Love Street' is a tribute to his jazz chops while 'Spanish Caravan' gives a nod to his Montoya/flamenco period. And the latter is simply Krieger laying back and allowing Morrison to go through his character metamorphosis. 'Touch Me' was the first time the band worked with a horn section (in fact, one of the first times any rock band worked with brass). The Soft Parade was also the first album listing individual writing credits and it's now plain to see just how prolific the guitarist was. He wrote or co-wrote five of the record's nine cuts (including 'Touch Me'). 'Wild Child', a Morrison composition, showcases Krieger's fiery side as he wrenches hell out of his neck and breathes real emotion into this main guitar lick. Morrison Hotel, shipped in 1970, was a strong comeback after the somewhat disappointing prior release. Krieger was little short of brilliant as he danced about his Gibson in a blues tango on 'Roadhouse Blues' and played some memorable lines on 'Peace Frog/Blue Sunday'. The title track of LA Woman 'Riders On The Storm', and 'Love Her Madly' are representatives of the group's seventh album (their previous release was the non-studio Absolutely Live). 'Riders...' weaves fragile blues licks around Morrison's dreamy vocals and it is a testament to Krieger's strength not only as an interpreter of the singer's visions but as a proficient accompanist as well. We'll probably never speak of Robby Krieger in the same breath as Jeff Beck or Eddie Van Halen. And rightly so because he is not that type of player. Krieger composes with his instrument; he orchestrates and invents and twists the musical cloth to produce an entirely new fabric. No one else could have been guitarist for The Doors, no one else would have known how. But Robby is not one to rest on his laurels. He is currently working on another instrumental album, a direct to DAT recording, with Arthur Barrow and Bruce Gary. He is also working on several soundtracks and is musical consultant on the Oliver Stone film The Doors. Had Robby Krieger done nothing more than 'Light My Fire', his name would be in the record books. But he's provided us with a magical and moving scope of work and it is to these songs this book is dedicated. Other Doors' titles available from Music Sales... The Beat Of The Door Order Nu.AM20298 The Doors: Complete Music Order No.AM39272 The Doors Concise Complete Order No.OP42787 The Doors Rock Score Ordered. AM 73917 Th" Doors Supertab Order No.AM73073 Music Sales' complete catalogue lists thousands a/titles and is free from your local music shop, or direct from Music Sales Limited, Please send a cheque or postal order fur £150 for postage to Music Sales Limited, Newmarket Road. Bury St. Edmunds. Suffolk IP33 3YB.
	Август 11, 2006 © Blurman