Name	Robby Krieger
Landscape	Yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Robert Alan Krieger
Born	January 08, 1946 Los Angeles, California, United States
Genre	Psychedelic rock, acid rock, blues rock, hard rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter
Instrument	Guitar, vocals, harmonica
Years active	1965–present
Label	Elektra
Associated acts	The Psychedelic Rangers, The Doors, The Butts Band, Manzarek-Krieger
Url	Official website
Notable instruments	Gibson SG

Robert Alan "Robby" Krieger (born January 8, 1946) is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."

He is listed as number 91 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

Early life

Robby Krieger was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish family. His first exposure to music was mostly classical, as his father was a big fan of marching music, until he heard Peter and the Wolf, which was the first music that really caught him. When he was seven, Krieger accidentally broke his record player, but the radio began to reach his ears playing the likes of Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, and the Platters. At 10 he tried the trumpet, but found it wasn't for him. He began playing the blues on his parents' piano with much more success than the trumpet. At 14, he began to surf and it became an integral part of his life. Krieger's parents began to worry that his surfing was distracting him from school and they enrolled him in a private school.

While Krieger was attending a private school, there was study time at night that allowed him to teach himself to play the guitar. He began by learning flamenco, borrowing a friend's guitar. When Krieger was 18, he got his own flamenco guitar and took lessons for a few months. He bounced around genres, including flamenco, folk, blues, and jazz. After high school, Krieger attended the University of California, Santa Barbara (reportedly first experimenting with LSD in neighboring Isla Vista).

The Doors

Krieger was in The Doors with keyboard player Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and vocalist Jim Morrison. At an early Doors rehearsal Morrison heard Krieger playing bottleneck guitar and initially wanted the technique featured on every song on the first album. Krieger's fingerstyle approach to the electric guitar, eclectic musical tastes, and songwriting helped establish The Doors as a successful rock band in the 1960s. His only singing with the early Doors can be heard on the album The Soft Parade, on the song "Runnin' Blue".

Later career

After Morrison's death in 1971, The Doors continued as a trio and released two albums, Other Voices and Full Circle. Krieger shared lead vocal duties with Manzarek. After The Doors disbanded in 1973, Krieger formed The Butts Band with Densmore. He enjoyed some success as a jazz guitarist, recording a handful of albums as The Robby Krieger Band in the 1970s and 1980s, including Versions (1983) and No Habla (1986). For his 1977 solo release Robby Krieger & Friends, Krieger worked with rock artist Jim Evans to create a painting that became the album package.

In 1982, Krieger made an album with the Los Angeles group Acid Casualties. Their album, Panic Station, was released by Rhino Records and included a new version of the rare 1968 Pink Floyd single Point Me at the Sky. In the early 90s, Krieger formed a trio called the 'Robby Krieger Organization' featuring Skip Van Winkle (electric organ,organ pedal bass) and Dale Alexander (drums, backing vocals). In 1996, Krieger formed a new band simply known as the 'Robby Krieger Band' which featured his son Waylon Krieger (guitar), Barry Oakley Jr. (bass, backing vocals), Dale Alexander (keyboards) and Ray Mehlbaum (drums). The band performed shows in North America and Europe between 1996-1998. In 2000, Krieger released Cinematix, an entirely instrumental fusion album, with guest appearances from Billy Cobham and Edgar Winter.

Krieger and Manzarek reformed as the Doors of the 21st Century in 2002 with vocalist Ian Astbury, formerly of The Cult. Following a dispute with Densmore over The Doors name, the band is now known as Riders on the Storm. For a brief period, the reformed band also included Police drummer Stewart Copeland.

Krieger played guitar on a few tracks by Blue Öyster Cult and has worked on a number of tribute projects organized by Billy Sherwood. In recent times, Krieger has made some guest appearances with the band Particle and appears on the album Transformations Live. Together, they cover many of The Doors' songs.

In June 2008, ZYX Studio released his concert with Eric Burdon, called Live at the Ventura Beach California. They also played "Back Door Man" and "Roadhouse Blues".

In April 2009, Krieger and Ray Manzarek appeared as special guests for Daryl Hall's monthly concert webcast "Live From Daryl's House". They performed several Doors tunes ("People Are Strange", "The Crystal Ship", "Roadhouse Blues" and "Break On Through"), with Hall providing lead vocals. Krieger also played lead guitar on the Hall & Oates track "Kiss On My List".

Krieger has participated in the "Experience Hendrix" series of concerts over the last two years (2008–09), joining a number of high profile guitar players paying tribute to the musicianship and songwriting of Jimi Hendrix.

Discography

The Doors

Solo

Robby Krieger & Friends (1977)

Versions (1983)

Robby Krieger (1985)

No Habla (1989)

Door Jams (1989)

Cinematix (2000)

Singularity (2010)

The Butts Band

The Butts Band (1974)

Hear and Now (1975)

References

External links

Robby Krieger's official site

The Doors official site

Video interview with Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger May 2007 on Classic Rock Central

Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek on "Live From Daryl's House" - April 2009

Category:1946 births Category:American Jews Category:Living people Category:Jewish musicians Category:Lead guitarists Category:American rock guitarists Category:The Doors members Category:Songwriters from California Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Musicians from California Category:Alumni of University High School (Los Angeles, California)

Name	Ray Manzarek
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Raymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr.
Born	February 12, 1939
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Genre	Psychedelic rock, acid rock, blues rock, hard rock, blues, jazz fusion, funk
Occupation	Musician, Songwriter, Keyboardist, Filmmaker
Instrument	Keyboards, Vocals, Piano, Organ, Keyboard bass, Marxophone
Years active	1961–present
Label	Elektra
Associated acts	The Doors, Nite City Manzarek-Krieger Rick & the Ravens
Url	TheDoors.comThe Official Site of Ray Manzarek
Notable instruments	Vox Continental Gibson G-101 Rhodes Keyboard bass RMI Electra Piano

Raymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek (born February 12, 1939), is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, and The Doors of the 21st Century (renamed Manzarek-Krieger) since 2001. He is the oldest former member of the Doors.

Early life and career

Ray Manzarek is of Polish descent, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, as were his parents. Growing up, he took private piano lessons from Bruno Michelotti and others. He originally wanted to play basketball, but he only wanted to play power forward or center. When he was sixteen his coach insisted either he play guard, or not at all, and he quit the team. Manzarek said later if it was not for that ultimatum, he might never have been in The Doors. He went to Everett Elementary School on S. Bell St. and attended St. Rita High School in Chicago.

In 1962–1965, he studied in the Department of Cinematography at UCLA, where he met a film student named Jim Morrison. Forty days after finishing film school, thinking they had gone their separate ways, they met by chance on Venice Beach in California. Morrison said he had written some songs, and Manzarek expressed an interest in hearing them, whereupon Morrison sang a rough version of "Moonlight Drive." Manzarek liked the songs and co-founded the Doors with Morrison right there and then.

Manzarek met drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a Transcendental Meditation lecture. Densmore says, "There wouldn't be any Doors without Maharishi."

In January 1966, The Doors became the house band at a club on the Sunset Strip called The London Fog. According to Manzarek, "Nobody ever came in the place...an occasional sailor or two on leave, a few drunks. All in all it was a very depressing experience, but it gave us time to really get the music together." The same day The Doors were fired from The London Fog, they were hired to be the house band of the Whisky a Go Go. Their first performance at the Whisky was with the group Them.

The Doors' first recording contract was with Columbia Records. After a few months of inactivity, they learned they were on Columbia's drop list. At that point, they asked to be released from their contract. After a few months of live gigs, Jac Holzman "rediscovered" the Doors and signed them to Elektra Records.

The Doors lacked a bassist, so Manzarek usually played the bass parts on a Fender Rhodes piano Bass. His signature sound is that of the Vox Continental organ, an instrument used by many other psychedelic rock bands of the era. He later used a Gibson G-101 Kalamazoo (which looks like a Farfisa) because the Italian Continental keys "sticked" and remained "down" without pushing it.

Manzarek occasionally sang for The Doors, with a voice more bluesy than rock, including the live recordings of "Close To You." He also sang on the last two Doors albums, recorded after Morrison's death, Other Voices and Full Circle.

Later career and influence

Manzarek has been in several groups since the Doors, including Nite City. Ray also worked extensively with "Hearts of Fire" screenwriter and former SRC front man Scott Richardson on a series of spoken word and blues recordings entitled "Tornado Souvenirs".

His memoir, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, was published in 1998. The Poet in Exile (2001) is a novel exploring the urban legend that Jim Morrison may have faked his death. Manzarek's second novel, Snake Moon, released in April 2006, is a Civil War ghost story.

In 2000, a collaboration poetry album titled: Freshly Dug was released with British singer, poet/actor and pioneer Punk rocker Darryl Read. Read had previously worked with Ray on the Beat Existentialist album in 1994, and their latest poetical/musical collaboration was in 2007 with the album: Bleeding Paradise.

On August 4, 2007, Manzarek hosted a program on BBC Radio 2 about the 40th anniversary of the recording of "Light My Fire" and the group's musical and spiritual influences.

In April 2009, Manzarek and Robby Krieger appeared as special guests for Daryl Hall's monthly concert webcast Live From Daryl's House. They performed several Doors tunes ("People Are Strange", "The Crystal Ship", "Roadhouse Blues" and "Break on Through (To the Other Side)") with Hall providing lead vocals.

After living many years in Hollywood, Manzarek now resides in Napa County, California in a house he remodeled extensively. He also plays with local bands in the Napa area.

In 2009, Manzarek collaborated with "Weird Al" Yankovic, playing keyboards on the single "Craigslist" which is a style parody of the Doors.

Manzarek was a co-producer on a few tracks for Universal Recording artist, Michael Barber. A track recently hit the internet titled, "Be Ok", on Michael's Universal Records Debut.

In May 2010, Manzarek was recording with slide guitarist Roy Rogers in Studio D in Sausalito. The release was scheduled for the fall.

Discography

The Doors

Solo

The Golden Scarab (1973)

The Whole Thing Started With Rock & Roll Now It's Out of Control (1974)

Carmina Burana (1983)

Love Her Madly (2006)

Ballads Before The Rain (With Roy Rogers) (2008)

Translucent blues (With Roy Rogers) (2011)

Nite City

Nite City (1977)

Golden Days Diamond Night (1978)

Trivia

His birth name was Raymond Daniel Manczarek. The c was dropped in 1966 when he, Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore signed with Elektra as The Doors.

Ray wore (and still wears) glasses that are typical of the 1960s.

In Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors, Manzarek was played by Kyle MacLachlan. Ray has gone on record as saying he enjoyed the performance although he despised the movie, calling it "insidious" in his book.

The first Doors album included a cover of "Alabama Song," from a 1930s German opera called The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. This cover resulted from Manzarek's playing a record of that opera, sung by Lotte Lenya, to Jim Morrison, and suggesting that The Doors do a rock version of the song.

The solos in "Light My Fire" are based on John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things." Other examples: a Thelonious Monk line from "Straight, No Chaser" appears in "We Could Be So Good Together", the opening organ passage of "When The Music's Over" is inspired by Herbie Hancock's "Canteloupe Island," and finally the organ solo in "Take It As It Comes" is inspired by Bach. During a May 2006 public performance, Manzarek named Erik Satie as an influence.

He is known for playing the keyboard while shaking his head and not looking at the keys.

In a televised interview, Manzarek advised listeners to "open the doors of consciousness... but stay away from white powder!"

He played "some Psychedelic Guy from the Sixties" in Body or Brain's music video Be What You Can Be

References

http://www.roy-rogers.com/ May 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lIxz-5euSA&feature;=player_embedded

Books

Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors (1998) ISBN 0-425-17045-4

The Poet in Exile (2001) Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002 paperback: ISBN 1-56025-447-5

Snake Moon (2006) ISBN 1-59780-041-4

External links

Official website

The Doors official website

Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek

1998 Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview

Manzarek Interview from St. Petersburg Times (June 2005) about the legal battle with Densmore over the use of the Doors name

Article about Ray Manzarek's recent work, March 1, 2006

Article from the Napa Register (October 9, 2006) about Ray Manzarek

Ben Fong-Torres speaks to Ray Manzarek about the book The Doors (video)

December 2006 interview in Horror Garage magazine

Undercover video interview, April 2007

Video interview with Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger, May 2007

Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger on "Live From Daryl's House"

Ray Manzarek PR in Ireland

Category:American rock keyboardists Category:American record producers Category:The Doors members Category:American film directors Category:DePaul University alumni Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Musicians from Illinois Category:People from Napa, California Category:American musicians of Polish descent Category:American people of Polish descent Category:1939 births Category:Living people

Name	Jim Morrison
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	James Douglas Morrison
Alias	Mr. Mojo Risin' (anagram of "Jim Morrison"), The Lizard King
Born	December 08, 1943Melbourne, Florida, United States
Died	July 03, 1971Paris, France
Genre	Psychedelic rock, acid rock, blues rock, hard rock
Occupation	musician, songwriter, poet, filmmaker, actor
Voice type	Baritone
Instrument	Vocals, Percussion
Years active	1963–1971
Label	Elektra, Columbia
Associated acts	The DoorsRick & the Ravens
Url	thedoors.com

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American lead singer and lyricist of the American band The Doors. Morrison was ranked number 47 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and is widely regarded as one of the most iconic frontmen in rock music history.

Early years

James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, to future Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison and Clara Morrison. Morrison had a sister, Anne Robin, who was born in 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a brother, Andrew Lee Morrison, who was born in 1948 in Los Altos, California. He was of Irish and Scottish descent (see Clan Morrison). Morrison reportedly had an I.Q. of 149.

In 1947, Morrison, then four years old, allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, where a family of American Indians were injured and possibly killed. He referred to this incident in a spoken word performance on the song "Dawn's Highway" from the album An American Prayer, and again in the songs "Peace Frog" and "Ghost Song."

Morrison believed the incident to be the most formative event of his life, and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems, and interviews. His family does not recall this incident happening in the way he told it. According to the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison's family did drive past a car accident on an Indian reservation when he was a child, and he was very upset by it. The book The Doors, written by the remaining members of The Doors, explains how different Morrison's account of the incident was from the account of his father. This book quotes his father as saying, "We went by several Indians. It did make an impression on him [the young James]. He always thought about that crying Indian." This is contrasted sharply with Morrison's tale of "Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death." In the same book, his sister is quoted as saying, "He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don't even know if that's true."

With his father in the United States Navy, Morrison's family moved often. He spent part of his childhood in San Diego, California. In 1958, Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California. He graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in Alexandria, Virginia, in June 1961. His father was also stationed at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.

Jim was inspired by the writings of philosophers and poets. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in Jim’s conversation, poetry and songs. He read "Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks" (Parallel Lives). He also read the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose style would later influence the form of Jim’s short prose poems. Jim was also influenced by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Patchen, Michael McClure and Gregory Corso. Jim’s English teacher once commented, "I felt that Jim was the only one in the class who read Ulysses, and understood it." Honoré de Balzac, Jean Cocteau, and Molière also interested Jim, along with most of the French existentialist philosophers. Jim’s senior-year English teacher said that, "Jim read as much and probably more than any student in class, but everything he read was so offbeat I had another teacher, who was going to the Library of Congress, check to see if the books Jim was reporting on actually existed. I suspected he was making them up, as they were English books on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century demonology. I’d never heard of them, but they existed, and I’m convinced from the paper he wrote that he read them, and the Library of Congress would’ve been the only source."

Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, where he attended classes at St. Petersburg Junior College. In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, where he appeared in a school recruitment film. While attending FSU, Morrison was arrested for a prank, following a home football game.

In January 1964, Morrison moved to Los Angeles, California, to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He attended Jack Hirschman's class on Antonin Artaud in the Comparative Literature program within the UCLA English Department. Artaud's brand of surrealist theatre had a profound impact on Morrison's dark poetic sensibility of cinematic theatricality.

Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA's film school and the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts in 1965. In an early display of rebellion, he refused to attend the graduation ceremony, his degree diploma being mailed to him. He made two films while attending UCLA. First Love, the first of these films, made with Morrison's classmate and roommate Max Schwartz, was released to the public when it appeared in a documentary about the film Obscura. During these years, while living in Venice Beach, he became friends with writers at the Los Angeles Free Press. Morrison was an advocate of the underground newspaper until his death in 1971. He later conducted a lengthy and in-depth interview with Bob Chorush and Andy Kent, both working for the Free Press at the time (January 1971), and was planning on visiting the headquarters of the busy newspaper shortly before leaving for Paris.

The Doors

In the Summer of 1965, after graduating from UCLA, Morrison led a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach. Living on the rooftop of a building inhabited by his old UCLA cinematography friend Dennis Jakobs, he wrote the lyrics of many of the early songs the Doors would later perform live and record on albums, the most notable being "Moonlight Drive" and "Hello, I Love You". According to Jakobs, he lived on canned beans and LSD daily for several months. Morrison and fellow UCLA student Ray Manzarek were the first two members of The Doors, forming the group during that same Summer of 1965. They actually met months earlier as fellow cinematography students. The now-legendary story claims that Manzarek was lying on the beach at Venice one day, accidentally encountered Morrison, and was impressed with Morrison's poetic lyrics, claiming that they were "rock group" material. Thereafter, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined. Krieger auditioned at Densmore's recommendation and was then added to the lineup. All three musicians shared a common interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Meditation practices at the time, attending scheduled classes, but Morrison was not involved in this series of classes, claiming later (prior to the famous Hollywood Bowl show in July 1968) that he "did not meditate".

The Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception (a reference to the "unlocking" of "doors of perception" through psychedelic drug use). Huxley's own title was a quotation from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake wrote: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Although Morrison is known as the lyricist for the group, Krieger also made significant lyrical contributions, writing or co-writing some of the group's biggest hits, including "Light My Fire", "Love Me Two Times", "Love Her Madly" and "Touch Me".

In June 1966, Morrison and The Doors were the opening act at the Whisky a Go Go on the last week of the residency of Van Morrison's band Them. Van's influence on Jim's developing stage performance was later noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm: "Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near-namesake's stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks." On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".

The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967. The single "Light My Fire" eventually reached number one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. Later, The Doors appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular Sunday night variety series that had introduced The Beatles and Elvis Presley to the nation. Ed Sullivan requested two songs from The Doors for the show, "People Are Strange", and "Light My Fire". The censors insisted that they change the lyrics of "Light My Fire" from "Girl we couldn't get much higher" to "Girl we couldn't get much better"; this was reportedly due to what could be perceived as a reference to drugs in the original lyric. Giving assurances of compliance to Sullivan, Morrison then proceeded to sing the song with the original lyrics anyway. He later said that he had simply forgotten to make the change. This so infuriated Sullivan that he refused to shake their hands after their performance and had a show producer tell the band that they would never do The Ed Sullivan Show again. Morrison reportedly said to the producer: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."

In 1967, Morrison and The Doors produced a promotional film for "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", which was their first single release. The video featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Morrison lip-synched the lyrics. Morrison and The Doors continued to make music videos, including "The Unknown Soldier", "Moonlight Drive", and "People Are Strange".

By the release of their second album, Strange Days, The Doors had become one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. Their blend of blues and rock tinged with psychedelia included a number of original songs and distinctive cover versions, such as their rendition of "Alabama Song", from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's operetta, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The band also performed a number of extended concept works, including the songs "The End", "When the Music's Over", and "Celebration of the Lizard".

In 1967, photographer Joel Brodsky took a series of black-and-white photos of Morrison, in a photo shoot known as "The Young Lion" photo session. These photographs are considered among the most iconic images of Jim Morrison and are frequently used as covers for compilation albums, books, and other memorabilia of the Doors and Morrison. In 1968, The Doors released their third studio album, Waiting for the Sun. Their fourth album, The Soft Parade, was released in 1969. It was the first album where the individual band members were given credit on the inner sleeve for the songs they had written.

After this, Morrison started to show up for recording sessions inebriated. He was also frequently late for live performances. As a result, the band would play instrumental music or force Manzarek to take on the singing duties.

By 1969, the formerly svelte singer gained weight, grew a beard, and began dressing more casually — abandoning the leather pants and concho belts for slacks, jeans and T-shirts.

During a 1969 concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure. Consequently, many of The Doors' scheduled concerts were canceled. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on Dec. 9, 2010. Drummer John Densmore denied Morrison ever exposed himself on stage that night.

(See also Miami incident)

Following The Soft Parade, The Doors released the Morrison Hotel album. After a lengthy break the group reconvened in October 1970 to record their last album with Morrison, L.A. Woman. Shortly after the recording sessions for the album began, producer Paul A. Rothchild — who had overseen all their previous recordings — left the project. Engineer Bruce Botnick took over as producer.

Solo: poetry and film

Morrison began writing in adolescence. In college, he studied the related fields of theater, film, and cinematography.

He self-published two volumes of his poetry in 1969, The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The Lords consists primarily of brief descriptions of places, people, events and Morrison's thoughts on cinema. The New Creatures verses are more poetic in structure, feel and appearance. These two books were later combined into a single volume titled The Lords and The New Creatures. These were the only writings published during Morrison's lifetime.

Morrison befriended Beat Poet Michael McClure, who wrote the afterword for Danny Sugerman's biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive. McClure and Morrison reportedly collaborated on a number of unmade film projects, including a film version of McClure's infamous play The Beard, in which Morrison would have played Billy the Kid.

After his death, two volumes of Morrison's poetry were published. The contents of the books were selected and arranged by Morrison's friend, photographer Frank Lisciandro, and girlfriend Pamela Courson's parents, who owned the rights to his poetry. The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison Volume 1 is titled Wilderness, and, upon its release in 1988, became an instant New York Times best seller. Volume 2, The American Night, released in 1990, was also a success.

Morrison recorded his own poetry in a professional sound studio on two separate occasions. The first was in March 1969 in Los Angeles and the second was on December 8, 1970. The latter recording session was attended by Morrison's personal friends and included a variety of sketch pieces. Some of the segments from the 1969 session were issued on the bootleg album The Lost Paris Tapes and were later used as part of the Doors' An American Prayer album, released in 1978. The album reached number 54 on the music charts. The poetry recorded from the December 1970 session remains unreleased to this day and is in the possession of the Courson family.

Morrison's best-known but seldom seen cinematic endeavor is , a project he started in 1969. Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project. Paul Ferrara, Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill assisted with the project. Morrison played the main character, a hitch hiker turned killer/car thief. Morrison asked his friend, composer/pianist Fred Myrow, to select the soundtrack for the film.

Personal life

Morrison's family

Morrison's early life was a nomadic existence typical of military families. Jerry Hopkins recorded Morrison's brother, Andy, explaining that his parents had determined never to use corporal punishment on their children. They instead instilled discipline and levied punishment by the military tradition known as "dressing down". This consisted of yelling at and berating the children until they were reduced to tears and acknowledged their failings.

Once Morrison graduated from UCLA, he broke off most of his family contact. By the time Morrison's music ascended to the top of the charts in 1967 he had not been in communication with his family for more than a year and falsely claimed that his parents and siblings were dead (or claiming, as it has been widely misreported, that he was an only child). This misinformation was published as part of the materials distributed with The Doors' self-titled debut album.

In a letter to the Florida Probation and Parole Commission District Office dated October 2, 1970, Morrison's father acknowledged the breakdown in family communications as the result of an argument over his assessment of his son's musical talents. He said he could not blame his son for being reluctant to initiate contact and that he was proud of him nonetheless.

George Morrison was not in support of his son's career choice in music. One day, an acquaintance brought over a record thought to have Jim on the cover. The record was the Doors self-titled debut. The young man played the record for Morrison's father and family. After hearing the record, Jim's father wrote Jim a letter telling him "to give up any idea of singing or any connection with a music group because of what I considered to be a complete lack of talent in this direction."

Women in his life

Morrison met his long-term companion, Pamela Courson, well before he gained any fame or fortune, and she encouraged him to develop his poetry. At times, Courson used the surname "Morrison" with his apparent consent or at least lack of concern. After Courson's death on April 25, 1974, the probate court in California decided that she and Morrison had what qualified as a common-law marriage (see below, under "Estate Controversy").

Morrison's and Courson's relationship was a stormy one, with frequent loud arguments and periods of separation. Biographer Danny Sugerman surmised that part of their difficulties may have stemmed from a conflict between their respective commitments to an open relationship and the consequences of living in such a relationship.

In 1970, Morrison participated in a Celtic Pagan handfasting ceremony with rock critic and science fiction/fantasy author Patricia Kennealy. Before witnesses, one of them a Presbyterian minister, the couple signed a document declaring themselves wedded, but none of the necessary paperwork for a legal marriage was filed with the state. Kennealy discussed her experiences with Morrison in her autobiography Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison in an interview reported in the book Rock Wives.

Morrison also regularly had sex with fans and had numerous short flings with women who were celebrities, including Nico, the singer associated with The Velvet Underground, a one night stand with singer Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, an on-again-off-again relationship with 16 Magazine's Gloria Stavers and an alleged alcohol-fueled encounter with Janis Joplin. However rock musician and rock star expert, Alice Cooper, declared on his syndicated radio show that Jim was scrupulously true to Pamela on tour, eschewing all sexual encounters. Linda Ashcroft in her book "Wild Child: My Life With Jim Morrison" details her life with Morrison as well. Judy Huddleston also recalls her relationship with Morrison in "This is The End...My Only Friend: Living and Dying with Jim Morrison". At the time of his death there were reportedly as many as 20 paternity actions pending against him, although no claims were made against his estate by any of the putative paternity claimants.

Death

Morrison flew to Paris in March 1971, took up residence in a rented apartment on the rue Beautreillis on the Right Bank, and went for long walks through the city, admiring the city's architecture. During that time, Morrison shaved his beard and lost some of the weight he had gained in the previous months. The last studio recording was with two American street musicians  — a session dismissed by Manzarek as "drunken gibberish". The session included a version of a song-in-progress, "Orange County Suite", which can be heard on the bootleg The Lost Paris Tapes.

Morrison died on July 3, 1971. In the official account of his death, he was found in a Paris apartment bathtub by Courson. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison's cause of death.

In Wonderland Avenue, Danny Sugerman discussed his encounter with Courson after she returned to the U.S. According to Sugerman's account, Courson stated that Morrison had died of a heroin overdose, having insufflated what he believed to be cocaine. Sugerman added that Courson had given numerous contradictory versions of Morrison's death, at times saying that she had killed Morrison, or that his death was her fault. Courson's story of Morrison's unintentional ingestion of heroin, followed by accidental overdose, is supported by the confession of Alain Ronay, who has written that Morrison died of a hemorrhage after snorting Courson's heroin, and that Courson nodded off instead of phoning for medical help, leaving Morrison bleeding to death.

Ronay confessed in an article in Paris Match that he then helped cover up the circumstances of Morrison's death. In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman write that Ronay and Agnès Varda say Courson lied to the police who responded at the death scene, and later in her deposition, telling them Morrison never took drugs.

In the epilogue to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins says that 20 years after Morrison's death, Ronay and Varda broke silence and gave this account: They arrived at the house shortly after Morrison's death and Courson said that she and Morrison had taken heroin after a night of drinking. Morrison had been coughing badly, had gone to take a bath, and vomited blood. Courson said that he appeared to recover and that she then went to sleep. When she awoke sometime later Morrison was unresponsive, and so she called for medical assistance.

Courson died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was 27 years old at the time of her death. Contrary to initial reports circulating in 1974, she is not buried with Morrison, but rather her cremated ashes are interred in a wall at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, CA USA, with the plaque bearing the name "Pamela Susan Morrison".

In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman also claim that Morrison had asthma and was suffering from a respiratory condition involving a chronic cough and throwing up blood on the night of his death. This theory is partially supported in The Doors (written by the remaining members of the band) in which they claim Morrison had been coughing up blood for nearly two months in Paris. None of the members of the Doors were in Paris with Morrison in the months before his death.

According to an outside individual who witnessed the funeral at Pere Lachaise, a woman by the name of Madame Colinette who was at the cemetery that day mourning the recent loss of her husband, the ceremony was "pitiful", with several of the attendants muttering a few words, throwing flowers over the casket, then leaving quickly and hastily within minutes as if their lives depended upon it. Those who attended included Alain Ronay, Agnes Varda, Bill Siddons (manager), Courson, and Robin Wertle (Morrison's Canadian private secretary at the time for a few months).

In the first version of No One Here Gets Out Alive published in 1980, Sugerman and Hopkins gave some credence to the rumor that Morrison may not have died at all, calling the fake death theory “not as far-fetched as it might seem”. This theory led to considerable distress for Morrison's loved ones over the years, notably when fans would stalk them, searching for evidence of Morrison's whereabouts. In 1995 a new epilogue was added to Sugerman's and Hopkins's book, giving new facts about Morrison's death and discounting the fake death theory, saying “As time passed, some of Jim and Pamela [Courson]'s friends began to talk about what they knew, and although everything they said pointed irrefutably to Jim's demise, there remained and probably always will be those who refuse to believe that Jim is dead and those who will not allow him to rest in peace.” (August 2008).]] In a July 2007 newspaper interview, a self-described close friend of Morrison's, Sam Bernett, resurrected an old rumor and announced that Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in the Rock 'n' Roll Circus nightclub, on the Left Bank in Paris. Bernett claims that Morrison came to the club to buy heroin for Courson then did some himself and died in the bathroom. Bernett alleges that Morrison was then moved back to the rue Beautreillis apartment and dumped in the bathtub by the same two drug dealers from whom Morrison had purchased the heroin. Bernett says those who saw Morrison that night were sworn to secrecy in order to prevent a scandal for the famous club, and that some of the witnesses immediately left the country. There have been many other conspiracy theories surrounding Morrison's death but are less supported by witnesses than are the accounts of Ronay and Courson.

Grave site

Morrison is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, one of the city's most visited tourist attractions. The grave had no official marker until French officials placed a shield over it, which was stolen in 1973. In 1981, Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin placed a bust of Morrison and the new gravestone with Morrison's name at the grave to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death; the bust was defaced through the years by cemetery vandals and later stolen in 1988. In the 1990s Morrison's father, George Stephen Morrison, placed a flat stone on the grave. The stone bears the Greek inscription: ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ, literally meaning "according to his own daemon" and usually interpreted as "true to his own spirit". Mikulin later made two more Morrison portraits in bronze but is awaiting the license to place a new sculpture on the tomb. Morrison is also one of the well known members of the 27 Club.

Estate controversy

In his will, made in Los Angeles County on February 12, 1969, Morrison (who described himself as "an unmarried person") bequeathed his entire estate to Courson, also naming her co-executor with his attorney, Max Fink; she thus inherited everything upon Morrison’s death in 1971.

When Courson died in 1974, a battle ensued between Morrison’s and Courson’s parents over who had legal claim to Morrison’s estate. Since Morrison left a will, the question was effectively moot. Upon his death, his property became Courson’s, and on her death her property passed to her next heirs at law, her parents. Morrison's parents contested the will under which Courson and now her parents had inherited their son’s property.

To bolster their position, Courson’s parents presented a document they claimed she had acquired in Colorado, apparently an application for a declaration that she and Morrison had contracted a common-law marriage under the laws of that state. The ability to contract a common-law marriage was abolished in California in 1896. California's conflict of laws rules provided for recognition of common-law marriages when lawfully contracted in foreign jurisdictions — and Colorado was one of the eleven U.S. jurisdictions that still recognized common-law marriage.

Artistic influences

As a naval family the Morrisons relocated frequently. Consequently Morrison's early education was routinely disrupted as he moved from school to school. Nonetheless was drawn to the study of literature, poetry, religion, philosophy and psychology, among other fields.

Biographers have consistently pointed to a number of writers and philosophers who influenced Morrison's thinking and, perhaps, behavior. While still in his teens Morrison discovered the works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He was also drawn to the poetry of William Blake, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac also had a strong influence on Morrison's outlook and manner of expression; Morrison was eager to experience the life described in Kerouac's On the Road. He was similarly drawn to the works of the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Céline's book, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) and Blake's Auguries of Innocence both echo through one of Morrison's early songs, "End of the Night". Morrison later met and befriended Michael McClure, a well known beat poet. McClure had enjoyed Morrison's lyrics but was even more impressed by his poetry and encouraged him to further develop his craft.

Morrison's vision of performance was colored by the works of 20th-century French playwright Antonin Artaud (author of Theater and its Double) and by Julian Beck's Living Theater.

Other works relating to religion, mysticism, ancient myth and symbolism were of lasting interest, particularly Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. James Frazer's The Golden Bough also became a source of inspiration and is reflected in the title and lyrics of the song "Not to Touch the Earth".

Morrison was particularly attracted to the myths and religions of Native American cultures. While he was still in school, his family moved to New Mexico where he got to see some of the places and artifacts important to the Southwest Indigenous cultures. These interests appear to be the source of many references to creatures and places such as lizards, snakes, deserts and "ancient lakes" that appear in his songs and poetry. His interpretation of the practices of a Native American "shaman" were worked into parts of Morrison's stage routine, notably in his interpretation of the Ghost Dance, and a song on his later poetry album, The Ghost Song.

Jim Morrison's vocal influences were Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, which is evident in his own baritone crooning style used in several of the Doors songs. It is mentioned within the pages of "No One Here Gets Out Alive" by Danny Sugerman, that Morrison as a teenager was such a fan of Presley's music that he demanded people be quiet when Elvis was on the radio. The Frank Sinatra influence is mentioned in the pages of "The Doors, The Illustrated History" also by Sugerman, where Frank Sinatra is listed on Morrison's Band Bio as being his favorite singer. Reference to this can also be found in a Rolling Stone article about Jim Morrison, regarding the top 100 rock singers of all time.

Legacy

Morrison remains one of the most popular and influential singers/writers in rock history as The Doors' catalog has become a staple of classic rock radio stations. To this day he is widely regarded as the prototypical rock star: surly, sexy, scandalous and mysterious. The leather pants he was fond of wearing both on stage and off have since become stereotyped as rock star apparel.

Iggy and the Stooges are said to have formed after lead singer Iggy Pop was inspired by Morrison while attending a Doors concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of Pop's most popular songs, "The Passenger", is said to be based on one of Morrison's poems. After Morrison's death, Pop was considered as a replacement lead singer for The Doors; the surviving Doors gave him some of Morrison's belongings and hired him as a vocalist for a series of shows. Wallace Fowlie, professor emeritus of French literature at Duke University, wrote Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, subtitled "The Rebel as Poet – A Memoir". In this he recounts his surprise at receiving a fan letter from Morrison who, in 1968, thanked him for his latest translation of Arthur Rimbaud's verse into English. "I don't read French easily", he wrote, "...your book travels around with me." Fowlie went on to give lectures on numerous campuses comparing the lives, philosophies and poetry of Morrison and Rimbaud.

Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam, Layne Staley, the late vocalist of Alice in Chains, Scott Weiland, the vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, James LaBrie of Dream Theater, as well as Scott Stapp of Creed, claimed Morrison to be their biggest influence and inspiration. Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver have both covered "Roadhouse Blues" by the Doors. Weiland also filled in for Morrison to perform "Break On Through" with the rest of the Doors. Stapp filled in for Morrison for "Light My Fire", "Riders on the Storm" and "Roadhouse Blues" on VH1 Storytellers. Creed performed their version of "Roadhouse Blues" with Robbie Krieger for the 1999 Woodstock Festival.

The book The Doors by the remaining Doors quotes Morrison's close friend Frank Lisciandro as saying that too many people took a remark of Morrison's that he was interested in revolt, disorder, and chaos “to mean that he was an anarchist, a revolutionary, or, worse yet, a nihilist. Hardly anyone noticed that Jim was restating Rimbaud and the Surreal poets.”

Books

By Jim Morrison

The Lords and the New Creatures (1969). 1985 edition: ISBN 0-7119-0552-5

An American Prayer (1970) privately printed by Western Lithographers. (Unauthorized edition also published in 1983, Zeppelin Publishing Company, ISBN 0-915628-46-5. The authenticity of the unauthorized edition has been disputed.)

Wilderness: The Lost Writings Of Jim Morrison (1988). 1990 edition: ISBN 0-14-011910-8

The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison (1990). 1991 edition: ISBN 0-670-83772-5

About Jim Morrison

Dylan Jones, Jim Morrison: Dark Star, (1990) ISBN 0-7475-0951-4

Linda Ashcroft, Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison, (1997) ISBN 1-56025-249-9

Lester Bangs, "Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus a Decade Later" in Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, John Morthland, ed. Anchor Press (2003) ISBN 0-375-71367-0

Patricia Butler, Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison, (1998) ISBN 0-8256-7341-0

John Densmore, Riders on the Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison and the Doors (1991) ISBN 0-385-30447-1

Dave DiMartino, Moonlight Drive (1995) ISBN 1-886894-21-3

Wallace Fowlie, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison (1994) ISBN 0-8223-1442-8

Jerry Hopkins, The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison (1995) ISBN 0-684-81866-3

Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) ISBN 0-85965-138-X

Patricia Kennealy, Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison (1992) ISBN 0-525-93419-7

Frank Lisciandro, Morrison — A Feast of Friends (1991) ISBN 0-446-39276-6, Morrison — Un festin entre amis (1996) (French)

Frank Lisciandro, Jim Morrison — An Hour For Magic (A Photojournal) (1982) ISBN 0-85965-246-7, James Douglas Morrison (2005) (French)

Ray Manzarek, Light My Fire (1998) ISBN 0-446-60228-0L. First by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman (1981)

Peter Jan Margry, The Pilgrimage to Jim Morrison's Grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery: The Social Construction of Sacred Space. In idem (ed.), Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam University Press, 2008, p. 145-173.

Thanasis Michos, The Poetry of James Douglas Morrison (2001) ISBN 960-7748-23-9 (Greek)

Mark Opsasnick, The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia (2006) ISBN 1-4257-1330-0

James Riordan & Jerry Prochnicky, Break on through : The Life and Death of Jim Morrison (1991) ISBN 0-688-11915-8

Adriana Rubio, Jim Morrison: Ceremony...Exploring the Shaman Possession (2005) ISBN

The Doors (remaining members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore) with Ben Fong-Torres, The Doors (2006) ISBN 1-4013-0303-X

Films

Documentaries featuring Jim Morrison

The Doors Are Open (1968)

Live in Europe (1968)

Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1968)

Feast of Friends (1969)

The Doors: A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)

The Doors: Dance on Fire (1985)

The Soft Parade, a Retrospective (1991)

Final 24: Jim Morrison (2007), The Biography Channel

The Doors: No One Here Gets Out Alive (2009)

When You're Strange (2009)

Films about Jim Morrison

The Doors (1991), A fiction film by director Oliver Stone, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison and with cameos by Krieger and Densmore. Kilmer's performance was praised by some critics. Members of the group criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison, and noted that numerous events depicted in the movie were pure fiction.

References

External links

Earliest film of Jim Morrison

A lost painting collaboration with Jim Morrison intended for his American Prayer Album

George Washington High School Alumni Association, Alexandria, Va., Morrison page

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