Jim Morrison With Model Donna Mitchell, VOGUE Magazine Session, New York, September 1967. Photo By Alexis

Anaheim Convention Centre Anaheim CA 15th July 1967.

"Cheetah, Santa Monica,  California,  April 9, 1967. © Chuck Boyd

"Everybody was waiting for us. 'Break On Through' was out and people were turning onto the album. It was our first really large crowd. Over two thousand."-Robbie Krieger.

The Doors appear for two shows with The Jefferson Airplane playing to their largest crowd to date of over 2,000. This new Cheetah patterned itself after the one in NYC and just opened on March 21st sporting a 7,000 sq. ft. dance floor surrounded by stainless steel walls. Riding the upward swing of success their new album is producing, The Doors, for the first time, top billing over the biggest bands from rival San Francisco. Jim is highly delighted tonight and falls off the stage in a wild rage, some 8 feet, for the first time during a performance. This is obviously a big night for the band.

That was a great summer. I was hanging out at the film school and I was hanging out with friends in Venice. Ray had a house there, so I’d go and watch them rehearse sometimes because we were still hanging around that summer...A few years later, after we became friends, I told Jim about my first impression of him at that first show, and I said, “I thought you were terrible that night”. I remember he gave me a look that seemed to suggest that he didn’t like the word “terrible” [laughs]...

But then I told him he had improved tremendously and he was like a Frank Sinatra crooner who could also sing rock, and I asked him, “What changed?” He just said, “I just kept practicing and I kept practicing, practicing, practicing”. And obviously he had been doing something to improve. If you listen to their first demo and then their first album, there is such a difference and you can hear it. But they rehearsed a lot and they played a lot, too. I guess you can’t really help but improve if there’s the will and the talent, right?"-Frank Lisciandro

1966.08-09 Ray's Beach House Session ©Bill Harvey

I received an Aztec wall


of vision


& dissolved my room in


sweet derision


Closed my eyes, prepared to god


A gentle wind inform’d me so


And bathed my skin in ether glow

On March 3 and 4, 1967, The Doors performed at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. It's their first time performing at this concert hall, but they'll be back in April.

📌I don't know the photographer. If anyone has information, please share it.

By 1966, Guy Webster had established himself as a go-to guy for every record company in Hollywood, so it was hardly a surprise that fall when Jac Holzman of Elektra Records hired him to create the cover for the debut album by a new group Holzman had signed. What was a surprise, at least for Guy, was that when the band showed up at his studio for the shoot, the lead singer greeted him like an old friend. It turned out they had met years before when Guy was taking a philosophy class at UCLA. It was Jim Morrison, much thinner and with much longer hair than when Guy had last seen him in the classroom. The group, of course, was the Doors, and the album cover, dominated by Morrison’s handsome face, would earn Guy his second Grammy nomination.

1966,11.  Beverly Hills, CA. © Guy Webster

10/24/1966 The Doors give their first performance in New York. Billie Winters— a friend of Jim Morrison and Ondine club owner Brad Pierce, is hosting this concert for The Doors. Apparently, this performance is the first audition in residence in Ondine. After the first performance, Brad Pierce hired The Doors to perform throughout November. The Doors stay at the Henry Hudson Hotel during their stay in New York. The owner of the club, Brad Pierce, takes The Doors shopping during this period in search of new stage clothes. The Doors record their first album in Elektra Studio during the day and perform at night. During this period, Hit Parader editor and photographer Don Paulsen interviewed The Doors for the first official interview. On November 24, The Doors take a day off, they were invited to Paul Rothschild's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

📷1966.11 The Doors on the stage of the Ondine nightclub. Photo by Don Paulsen

Jim Morrison. Alexandria, VA, 1960

1967.09.13 Canton High School, Canton, IL