The Best Of The Doors

Liner Notes

From the greatest hits to exclusive rarities, this “must have” Doors Collection has it all. With live performances to television and filmed performances, all the greatest hits are here, including “L.A. Woman”, “Break on Through”, “Light My Fire” and the epic “The Unknown Soldier”. Also included exclusively on “The Best Of The Doors” is the controversial MTV-banned clip for “Gloria” and 1995’s “The Ghost Song”, a never-before released homage to Jim Morrison from his band mates. The Doors themselves have opened their private archives to present rare on-the-road footage, candid backstage scenes and the last known filmed interview with Jim Morrison, all exclusives on The Best of the Doors.

Track Listing

Strange Days	New video by Kit Fitzgerald
Break On Through	1967 Elektra Promo
Jim on Poetry	From 1969 ‘Critique’ Interview
Spanish Caravan	Clip from Hollywood Bowl
The Unknown Soldier	Compilation edit
The Changeling	Archival Footage
Card Game	The Doors playing cards in 1967
Moonlight Drive	From Hollywood Bowl
Horse Latitudes	From “The Soft Parade” and Hollywood Bowl
Wild Child	Studio Footage
Gloria	1983 MTV version
Touch Me	Smothers Brothers
Alabama Song/Back Door Man/Five To One	Hollywood Bowl
Jim on the Future	From 1969 ‘Critique’ Interview
LA Woman	Ray Manzarek video
1969 Venice Photo Shoot	Narrated by Henry Diltz
Wishful Sinful	Critique performance with archival footage.
Wake Up	Hollywood Bowl
Light My Fire	Ed Sullivan
Jim’s Last Interview	San Diego, Sept 5,1970
Awake/Ghost Song	New video of Ray,Robby and John
Card Game part 2	More from The Doors cards game in 1967
Hello, I Love You	4-3-2-1 Hot & Sweet TV ’90s edit

Credits

Directed By	Ray Manzarek
Producer	Rick Schmidlin
Camera	Paul Ferrara
Editor	Dave Farr
Sound Design	Robby Krieger

Archivist Notes

This release hasn’t really received much attention mainly because it was only released on VHS and never on DVD. Many parts used here were included in previous releases such as “Dance on Fire, “Live At The Hollywood Bowl” and “The Soft Parade“, but the pieces that are new are really well done and the editing on this release is superb. The “new” items included on this release were the “Strange Days” video, Jim’s last interview and “The Ghost Song” plus two things not mentioned in the track listing, the 1967 “Doors Card Game” footage/outtakes, and the Henry Diltz narrated photo Gallery. This version of the Strange Days video is only available on this release, since a different cut was released on R-Evolution. The Card Game footage has not been released again, and the Henry Diltz segment was later included on 1999’s “The Doors Collection“. Although they did reuse material from previous releases, they actually used new edits in some cases. Overall a great release. It’s too bad this one was never made available on DVD.

Random notes:

Intro	During the intro while displaying The Doors logo, there is newly recorded music of “The End” playing. In the end credits they list the “Opening Composition” as being by Robby Krieger and Pablo Manzarek.
Strange Days	This video was created for this release by Kit Fitzgerald, who also worked with Ray on his 1980 video for Carmina Burana. The video starts out with an amazing recreation of the “Strange Days” album cover that literally comes to life before your eyes. They actually found the same person who was the midget on the original album cover to be in this video. The others are actors. In this version of the video, we see various shots of the three actors (the midget, the juggler and the acrobat) running around integrated with footage of The Doors from the Doors archive. We also see multiple cameos from Ray and John, including Ray dressed as a priest. No sign of Robby in this video. In one of my first conversations with Danny, we discussed the making of this video. He had told me that the initial version of the video was more of a short story about the midget, the acrobat, and the juggler, but they decided to remove most of that and add in Doors archive footage for the more casual fan. That was the last I heard of that video until we discovered the original in the Doors vaults in 2013. It was that “Director’s Cut” that was released on the 2013 release, “R-Evolution“. Click here to watch the original version.
‘Critique’ Interview Excerpts	This release contains two excerpts from the 1969 ‘Critique‘ interview. The first is Ray and Jim’s response to the question “What is the difference between a rock lyric and poem”. After Ray provides his answer to the first question, they show a clip of “Wake Up” from the Hollywood Bowl and then transition directly into the last part of “Spanish Caravan” live at the Bowl. The second interview clip is Jim’s genius comment on the future of music, which is so spot on it’s incredible.
Unknown Soldier	Edit of the original 1968 film, Danish TV, Hollywood Bowl and “Doors Are Open” that appeared on “The Soft Parade” release.
Card Game footage	This is a clip of Jim, Ray and Robby playing Five Card Draw at a Holiday Inn hotel on October 22, 1967. It is synced with the original audio and ends with Robby taking the entire pot. In part two of the footage we see outtakes from the card game including Robby and Ray trying to explain how fun the game they are playing is, and Jim just doesn’t seem to agree!
Gloria	This is the original 1983 Gloria video made for MTV consisting of archival footage combined with ’80s Los Angles scenes and people. This also includes two ’80s era actors portraying Jim and Pam. This would also be included later on the 2013 “R-Evolution” release.
Last Interview	A short interview with a television reporter who asks Jim questions about the Miami trial and his plans after the trial is ended.
Ghost Song	Created for this release, it includes newly shot footage of Ray, Robby and John in the studio playing “Awake/The Ghost Song” as images of Jim from HWY are displayed.
Hello I Love You	Beneath the closing credits you will see this 1968 lip synced performance of “Hello I Love You” from the German television show “4-3-2-1 Hot & Sweet” recorded in Frankfurt’s Romer Square. This show was originally in color, but this version is in black and white. Plus, in the original 1968 version there is a German girl in a mini skirt dancing throughout. In this version they also have edited in newly shot footage of a 1990’s girl dancing. The original, color version of this would later be released on R-Evolution.