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.