Henry Diltz took the photos for many iconic album covers in the 1970s: the Eagles, Jackson Browne, CSN&Y and many more. But Diltz finds people are most impressed when they find out he was responsible for the images on The Doors’ fifth studio album. The typical reaction, he says, is one of admiration mixed with disbelief: “Dude! You did Morrison Hotel?!”
The hotel that gave the 1969 album its name was a low rent, single-room occupancy guest house located at 1246 South Hope Street in Downtown Los Angeles (rooms £2.50 a night, according to a sign in the window). The Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek discovered it while he was driving around. “It was the kind of place where you could start a religion or plan a murder,” said Manzarek in 2005.
