Writers: The Doors
Producer: Paul A. Rothchild
Recorded: Fall 1966 at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California
Released: January 1967
| Players: | Jim Morrison — vocals Ray Manzarek — keyboards Robby Krieger — guitar John Densmore — drums |
| Album: | The Doors (Elektra, 1967) |
The Doors formed in 1965 in the Los Angeles area after Florida transplant Jim Morrison met keyboardist Ray Manzarek in the UCLA Theater Art Department. Manzarek recruited fellow student John Densmore, who he met at a Transcendental Meditation course, and Densmore brought in Robby Krieger, who he'd played with in a band called the Psychedelic Rangers.
Morrison named the group the Doors, inspired by William Blake's poem “The Doors: Open And Closed,” which features the lines “There are things that are known and things that are unknown/In between are doors.”
Never a single, “Soul Kitchen” was a popular track from the group's self-titled 1967 debut album and continues to receive substantial airplay.
The song was inspired by Morrison's relationship with Pamela Courson, who he married in 1970.
Thanks to the chart-topping single “Light My Fire,” the Doors' debut album was a smash, peaking at Number Two on the Billboard 200 and selling more than two million copies.
