In the mid-1960s, if you were a musician in Los Angeles, the place to play was Whisky a Go Go. This iconic venue hosted legends like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, and Otis Redding. When The Doors were an up-and-coming group, they would walk down to the Whisky to sneak in and watch the headliners, hoping to one day have their names on the marquee there - until they became the house band there in 1966. “The Whisky was finally a gig we could be proud of,” says drummer John Densmore.

Once a two-story building at Santa Monica and La Cienega boulevards—now the site of a beloved hot-dog place—it was once The Doors Workshop. “We needed a place to rehearse,” remembers keyboardist Ray Manzarek. “I scoured West Hollywood, an area that was central to everybody, and then I found it. It was a little building with a large room downstairs, two rooms upstairs. Perfect. Music on the first floor, business on the second.”

“That place has been the same since the ’30s,” says Manzarek. “It was kind of a writers’ intellectual bar, great assortment of whiskey behind the bar, beer on tap—lots of beer. It was just a great place to hang out and very conducive to talk!”

Located on La Cienega within walking distance of The Doors Workshop, Elektra Sound Studios, now home to Electric Entertainment, was the perfect location for The Doors to record. The band recorded both The Soft Parade and Morrison Hotel albums here.

“By the beginning of 1966, the marquee of the London Fog read ‘The Doors,’” remembers Densmore about the nightclub that’s now home to Chado’s Barbershop. “We had made it to the Sunset Strip. Having hit all the clubs along the Strip, we talked the owner of the Fog into booking us for a month, after we packed the house with friends.”

“We played the Aquarius in Hollyweird, California,” Manzarek says with a smile. “Our hometown. It was a classy place with art deco sculptures and moderne motifs of nudes and studs. It was a magical time in the City of Angels. And I feel blessed to have been there.”

Jim Morrison once said: “I see you live on Love Street. There’s this store where the creatures meet.” Right next door to Jim and Pam’s Rothdell Trail apartment, this was one of the main hangouts for the musicians of Laurel Canyon in the mid-to-late 1960s. If you hung out there long enough, you might be treated to an impromptu jam on the front patio. Jim and Pam loved spending time there, and on many occasions the party moved from the store to their apartment next door.

According to Morrison’s best friend, Babe Hill, Hinano Cafe was one of his favorite spots to grab a cold beer or two, circa 1969. 

“We recorded the first two albums and part of the third at Sunset Sound,” says guitarist Robby Krieger. “In those days, studios had cottage-cheese ceilings and crummy linoleum flooring, but this studio had a great echo chamber, which we utilized quite a bit.”

“On Jim’s last birthday, he went into the recording studio and treated himself to a birthday present of recording some of his poetry,” says Manzarek. Seven years after Morrison died, Ray, Robby, and John reunited and recorded backing tracks over his poetry and created The Doors’ final studio album, An American Prayer. 

“It was a great honor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” says Densmore. “It’s a street that Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, and I traipsed up and down, going into bars, asking if they’d hire a rock band.”

Morrison once described Venice as “a beach town with the atmosphere of a dying arcade.” For The Doors’ first publicity shots, photographer Bobby Klein took the band back to where it all started: Venice Beach. Klein and the band spent an entire afternoon roaming the Venice canals, taking candid shots along the banks and bridges.

The Ennis House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was built in 1924 for Charles and Mabel Ennis. It has been featured in films, TV shows, and commercials over the decades. The unique textile block architecture made it a perfect spot for Morrison and photographer Paul Ferrara to stop and take a few shots one day in 1968. Ferrara had his black Lab, Stone, along for the ride, and he made it into a few photos with Morrison.

The Doors played five weekends at The Fillmore in 1967. “We took the stage to a light smattering of applause and a few scattered boos after Bill Graham’s announcement of ‘Ladies and gentlemen, from Los Angeles, California…The Doors!” says Manzarek. “You see, San Francisco didn’t like L.A. Too plastic, not a real city. And here was a band being featured as coming from L.A. and calling themselves The Doors? Well, how pretentious and how very plasticine. ‘Boo, hiss!’”

“The Matrix was a cool and intimate place to do some experiments with arrangements and poetry placements,” says Manzare about the bar that's now White Rabbit. Densmore adds: “We were on the lip of great success, and we didn’t know it. Neither did the audience, which was very cool. It was an echo chamber with no people, but we got to rehearse our songs.”

“In the early days, it was scary at times. Like at The Fillmore in New York,” remembers Densmore. “Jim would get hurt, not from the audience attacking us or anything, but because it got so heavy. You wondered if something weird was going to happen because Jim was so intense. We were all together: us and the audience. It was incredible, it was like a community. It was a religious experience between us and the audience.”

In March 1971, after The Doors had finished L.A. Woman, Morrison told his bandmates he was going on an extended vacation in Paris to live the life of a poet. His girlfriend, Pamela Courson, had already flown to Paris to find a place for them. She stayed at one of the luxury apartments at the George V Hotel, the same hotel Morrison had stayed in during a past visit to Paris. The hotel was one of the most exclusive in Paris and known as a perfect place for rock stars to escape and not be bothered.

As once described by Morrison, “In London, The Doors played the Roundhouse, an old circular train shed in the northwest suburb of Chalk Farm. It held a few thousand people, and the group shared the bill with Jefferson Airplane.” Manzarek elaborates, “Paul McCartney was there, as were Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. All there to see The Doors and Jefferson Airplane. What a double bill!”

“You can see Jim looking up while he’s singing,” says Krieger. “We’re in this beautiful square with incredible architecture all around. I know he was just looking at all the cool stuff surrounding us.”

“Every time I go to Paris, I drop by his grave, check it out,” says Krieger. “Jim gets some interesting people hanging out there with him. It’s kind of cool, all the people that are there. And Jim loved that place. He always said he wanted to be buried there.”