Jim Morrison Life, Death, Legend

by Davis, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9781592400645
• ISBN10: 1592400647
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-17
• Publisher: Gotham

Summary

As an artist and persona, Jim Morrison epitomized the late 1960s, bridging a burgeoning counterculture and popular culture, while acting out the iconoclastic rage, rampant libido, and spectacular flameout of a tumultuous era. The music he created with The Doors has sold over 50 million records worldwide—with over 13 million in the last decade alone, as their songs have been embraced by a new generation. But despite Morrison’s seminal importance, there has not yet been an authoritative biography that does justice to him and his creative legacy. Until now.Stephen Davis, the preeminent rock biographer and author of the classic Led Zeppelin history Hammer of the Gods(over 600,000 copies sold in three editions, and a #1 New York Timesbestseller), has uncovered never-before-seen documents, conducted dozens of original interviews, and scoured Morrison’s unpublished journals and recordings to write the definitive biography of a misunderstood legend. Jim Morrisonis packed with startling new revelations about every phase of his life and career, from his troubled youth in a strict military household to his blossoming as a rock icon among the avant-garde LA scene to his voracious drug abuse and secret sexual experiments. Davis also investigates one of the greatest mysteries in rock history—the circumstances surrounding Morrison’s mysterious and unsolved death—as he pieces together new evidence to tell the true and heartbreaking story of Morrison’s last tragic days in Paris.Compelling and unforgettable, Jim Morrisonis destined to become a classic.

Author Biography

Stephen Davis-'s many acclaimed books include the Rolling Stones history Old Gods Almost Dead as well as the New York Times bestsellers Walk This Way (with Aerosmith), Fleetwood, and Hammer of the Gods.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	ix
BOOK ONE. JIMMY
CHAPTER ONE. THE LIZARD KING'S SCHOOL DAYS	3	(26)
CHAPTER TWO. CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION	29	(28)
CHAPTER THREE. LEARN TO FORGET	57	(42)
BOOK TWO. JIM MORRISON
CHAPTER FOUR BACK DOOR MAN	99	(58)
CHAPTER FIVE. THE WARLOCK OF ROCK	157	(64)
CHAPTER SIX. SUNKEN CONTINENTS	221	(84)
BOOK THREE. JAMES DOUGLAS MORRISON
CHAPTER SEVEN. LORD OF MISRULE	305	(52)
CHAPTER EIGHT. THE SOUL OF A CLOWN	357	(46)
CHAPTER NINE. LAST TANGO IN PARIS	403	(58)
EPILOGUE. THE COOL REMNANT OF A DREAM	461	(14)
AUTHOR'S NOTES	475	(4)
SELECTED SOURCES	479

Excerpts

Introduction He's been dead for decades, but he's still causing trouble.Jim Morrison was a mesmeric figure in the American sixties, a rebel poet and godhead in snakeskin and leather. He lived fast, died young, and left a less-than-exquisite corpse in Paris while hiding out from the law. In his prime the writers and critics went nuts trying to do his weird mojo some measure of justice. (One called him "an angel in grace and a dog in heat.") Jim was the greatest American rock star of his era, and one of its most publicized celebrities, but—more than three decades later—his life and works have yet to yield all their secrets and enigmas.Jim Morrison tried to set the night on fire. As lead singer of the Doors, he was an acid evangelist on a suicide mission to deprogram his generation from what he saw as a prisonlike conformity to social and sexual norms. He was a seer, an adept, a bard, a drunk, a bisexual omnivore. Jim styled his band "erotic politicians," and relentlessly urged his huge audience—at the height of the dangerous sixties—to break on through the doors of perception, to free themselves from robotic familial conditioning, to seek a higher, more aware consciousness. Doors concerts—throbbing with war-dance rhythms and superheated intimacy—were as close to the experience of shamanic ritual as the rock audience ever got. The Doors captured the unrest and the menace that hung in the air of the late sixties like tear gas, and they did it with hypnotic cool.Between 1965 and 1971 Jim Morrison wrote a hundred songs, recorded seven platinum albums, wrote and published four editions of poems, made three films, recorded his poetry, wrote screenplays, and filled dozens of notebooks with verse and notations. He played more than two hundred concerts with the Doors. He established himself as a sex icon and the major American rock star of the sixties. He violated all of puritan America's sexual taboos and—in a frenetic burst of political energy— even threatened the vindictive Nixon administration with his blatant invitations to protest and revolt.Jim Morrison, as it turns out, was much more important than anyone realized at the time. Critically dismissed as a has-been Bozo/Dionysius before his death, Morrison's poetic visions have stayed on the radio for more than thirty years, and on into the new century. They have become the classic texts of classic rock, reaching out to generations beyond the one that first understood the deepest meanings, the organic unity, and the transcendent qualities of his greatest work.Jim Morrison was the last incarnation of that quintessential late- romantic figure, the demonically aroused poet shaking with rage at his world and his contemporaries; a prophet with terrible eyes and rigid features, clad in black leather. He was arguably the major poet to emerge from the turmoil of the legendary American sixties. Decades later, Jim Morrison has materialized as the true avatar of his age. His words are burned into the brains of three American generations—the emergency telegram of "Break On Through," the visionary cadences of "L.A. Woman," and the mysterious whispered verses of "Riders on the Storm." His voice echoes on classic-rock stations from coast to coast. His image haunts dorm walls everywhere, emblazoned: JIM MORRISON/AMERICAN POET / 1943–1971. The Doors' album sales, as of this writing, are over fifty million units, and climbing.Today, more than thirty years after Jim Morrison died, important new revelations are emerging concerning his tumultuous life, his tragic death, and his enduring legend. And the questions about him still linger. Who was he really? Why did he destroy himself? Why was he failed by everyone who knew him? * * * It wasn't all great, being a rock god in the sixties. The tours were primitive and disorganized. The groupies were pretty, but they gave you herpes and the clap. The drugs and alcoho