When Doors lead singer Jim Morrison got drunk, he liked to sing blues numbers at their jam sessions. "Roadhouse Blues" is one of the songs he came up with at one of those inebriated sessions.
If there was an actual roadhouse that inspired this song, it was probably the Topanga Corral, a windowless nightclub in the counterculture enclave of the Topanga Canyon, where Jim Morrison lived. To get to the venue you had to take Topanga Canyon Boulevard, which is full of twists and turns - you really did need to "keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel."
The Corral, where Little Feat and Canned Heat played and Linda Ronstadt was often spotted in the audience, burned down in 1986.
There was a cabin behind the Topanga Corral that many sources say Morrison bought for his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. This could be what provided the line, "In back of the Roadhouse they got some bungalows."
John Sebastian from the Lovin' Spoonful played harmonica on this track. He is identified on the album as "G. Puglese" because he was afraid to be identified with The Doors in light of Morrison's arrest at a concert in Miami when he was accused of exposing himself to the crowd. Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and sentenced to six months in jail, but he died while the case was being appealed. In 2010, Florida governor Charlie Crist granted Morrison a pardon, clearing him of the charges.
Guitar great Lonnie Mack played bass on this one. The Doors didn't have a bass player in their lineup so when they needed that instrument, they had to outsource it.
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger joined Creed on stage at Woodstock '99, where they performed this song. You can hear it on the Woodstock '99 album.
This is the first song on Morrison Hotel. The album was a return The Doors' earlier style. On their previous album, The Soft Parade, they used a lot of strings and horns. Jim Morrison didn't do much on that album because he was drunk for most of it and had nothing to do while all the instrumentation was being worked out. Before The Doors had a record deal, they played many Blues songs in their long club shows.
Outtakes from one of Morrison's recording sessions were used to dub his voice into a version of this on the 2000 tribute album
Stoned Immaculate, where he duets with John Lee Hooker.
In 2000, the surviving members of the Doors taped a VH1
Storytellers episode with guest vocalists filling in for Morrison.
Scott Stapp from Creed sang on this.
"Roadhouse Blues" was released as the B-side of the "You Make Me Real" single
The Doors occasionally recorded old blues songs, but even though this sounds like it could have been one of them, the wrote it themselves.
This has been called "the ultimate bar song," and it continues to be played by bar bands everywhere.
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger recalled to the
NME July 17, 2010 how the album title came about: "Ray (Manzarek, keyboards) had been driving around downtown LA, and he saw this place called Morrison Hotel. So we decided to go down and shoot some photos there, but the guy who owned the hotel wouldn't let us inside it. I guess they thought we were hippies. There were a lot of drunks and bums hanging around that area. Anyway, we snuck in there real quick when he wasn't looking and got the shot that became the cover of Morrison Hotel."
The album helped make the Morrison Hotel a destination for musical tourism, but it got even more run-down over the next few decades and was vacated in 2008. It was
destroyed by a fire in 2024.
The Doors put together a video for this song using footage shot for a tour documentary called Feast Of Friends that was never completed.
Status Quo covered this song on their 1972 album
Piledriver, and the song quickly became a live favorite for the band. The group was wildly successful in England, and like many UK acts, was influenced by American rockers, often doing successful covers (their version of John Fogerty's "
Rockin' All Over The World" went to #3 in the UK). They were never able to conquer America, however, in part because they didn't tour there until 1973.
The Doors reissued their fourth studio album, The Soft Parade, on the 50th anniversary of its release. Among the reissue's bonus tracks is a version of "Roadhouse Blues" sung by "Screamin' Ray Daniels," who's actually Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
