Award winning cultural historian Bob Batchelor takes on the Summer of Love and Gritty Seventies creating the most complete picture yet of Jim Morrison
Raleigh and Boston, August 25, 2022 – With the #1 smash hit “Light My Fire,” the Doors changed American music with a haunting, unforgettable sound. Within months, the Los Angeles band stood alongside the Beatles and Rolling Stones as the most popular in the world. Jim Morrison ushered in the idea of the rock god and his untimely, mysterious death in 1971 still captivates fans and admirers around the world.
Unlike other books and biographies of Morrison and the Doors, Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and Death Days of the Sixties by cultural historian and biographer Bob Batchelor presents a full portrait of the doomed singer and the era he dominated. Batchelor uses the band as a lens to examine the highlights and challenges of the fabled Sixties: America’s role in Vietnam, student protests, the popular culture of the era, and takes a deep dive into the music that countless millions of classic rock listeners have immortalized.
The infamous “Lizard King,” Morrison was a sex-charged rock god, but also a pinup for millions of teenagers across the country. His haunting lyrics and Ray Manzarek’s pulsing organ helped create rock music’s ultimate bad boy, an image that Morrison played full-throttle. The Doors reeled off five straight gold records, something no American band had ever done. But the fame and drinking caught up with Morrison, as would a series of arrests and charges of alleged public exposure at a concert in Miami that would change American culture forever.
“Roadhouse Blues is the book Doors fans have been waiting for. Filled with new analysis, fresh insights, and great writing, Bob Batchelor brings Jim Morrison, the Doors, and the magical Sixties to life for a new generation,” said Thomas Heinrich, award-winning historian and co-author A Concise American History (Oxford). “Roadhouse Blues takes you back in time and delivers an intimate, honest, and hard-hitting look at America’s greatest rock band.”
“Roadhouse Blues is the book Doors fans have been waiting for. Filled with new analysis, fresh insights, and great writing, Bob Batchelor brings Jim Morrison, the Doors, and the magical Sixties to life for a new generation,” said Thomas Heinrich, award-winning historian and co-author A Concise American History (Oxford). “Roadhouse Blues takes you back in time and delivers an intimate, honest, and hard-hitting look at America’s greatest rock band.”
“Led by Jim Morrison—haunted, beautiful, and ultimately doomed—the Doors steered the ship as the nation careened from decadence to debauchery, ultimately driving fear into the heart of Middle America,” Batchelor said. “Fueled by a menacing, psychedelic sound based on sex, drugs, and unbridled mayhem, the Doors offered fans a stark contrast to other popular bands. “All You Need Is Love” the happy-go-lucky Beatles tune gave way to the Doors’ Oedipal epic “The End.”
“Led by Jim Morrison—haunted, beautiful, and ultimately doomed—the Doors steered the ship as the nation careened from decadence to debauchery, ultimately driving fear into the heart of Middle America,” Batchelor said. “Fueled by a menacing, psychedelic sound based on sex, drugs, and unbridled mayhem, the Doors offered fans a stark contrast to other popular bands. “All You Need Is Love” the happy-go-lucky Beatles tune gave way to the Doors’ Oedipal epic “The End.”’
Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and Death Days of the Sixties (Hamilcar Publications, trade paperback, November 8, 2022, $18.99) examines the death days of the 1960s for listeners fed up with the happy ditties of the Beatles and mellow vibes of San Francisco hippie bands. In Morrison, fans had a living, breathing representation of the violence and anger raging through the national consciousness. As the band grew more popular, Morrison became wilder and volatile. A poet at heart, the singer drank prodigious amounts of alcohol and searched for ways to “Break On Through” to anarchy and destruction, a new vision of the Sixties as the decade gave way to the dirty Seventies. The cover and interior design are created by Brad Norr of Brad Norr Design, one of America’s most innovative and creative book designers.
Roadhouse Blues contains vivid, intriguing details about this significant era, including “guest appearances” by many of America’s most fascinating icons, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Norman Mailer. It also covers Morrison’s poetry, the Doors’ music, Vietnam, and more with insight from many of today’s professional musicians, historians, and cultural analysts who provide a fresh, twenty-first-century perspective on the significance of the band and the death days of the 1960s as America stood at a precipice.
Morrison is worshiped by artists who claim he’s been a major influence on their careers—Bono, Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Scott Weiland, Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Lana del Rey, Alice Cooper, and more —and his status as a pop-culture icon is unparalleled. Fifty-plus years after his death, public interest in his life is undimmed.
With songs in constant rotation for the last half-century, including “Light My Fire,” “Break On Through,” and “L.A. Woman,” the Doors are arguably the most popular rock-and-roll band to ever emerge from the United States. They remain a force in popular culture: The Doors Facebook page has 15.3M+ followers; The Doors Instagram has 1.8M + followers; The Doors Twitter account has 938k+ followers; The Doors YouTube has 826k+ subscribers; and total views of Doors videos on YouTube tops 207 million. Weekly streams of The Doors songs average 13.5M and reach 500,000,000 via radio.
Candid, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Roadhouse Blues is the biography of a man, a band, and an era that set the tone for the contemporary world. Beyond the mythology, the hype, and the mystique around Morrison’s early, mysterious death, this book takes readers on a roller-coaster ride, examining the impact the band had on America as the nation leered from decadence to debauchery. “We’re gonna have a real good time!”