ROADHOUSE BLUES: MORRISON AND THE DOORS LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

Reviews of ROADHOUSE BLUES

 Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties won the 2023 IPA Book Award in Music and has been lauded by critics, readers, and Doors aficionados across the globe.

2023 Independent Press Award for Roadhouse Blues

REVIEWS

“Fascinating, informative, extraordinary, and essential reading for the legions of Jim Morrison fans.” – Midwest Book Review

“Bob Batchelor writes with great eloquence and insight about the Doors, the greatest hard-rock band we have ever had, and through this book, we plunge deeply into the mystery that surrounds Jim Morrison. It is Batchelor’s warmth and compassion that ignites Roadhouse Blues and helps explain Morrison’s own miraculous dark fire.” – Jerome Charyn, PEN/Faulkner Award finalist

Splash page for Roadhouse Blues, designed by the eminent Brad Norr

“The most important book for Doors fandom since No One Here Gets Out Alive—and incomparably better! Grouped with Ray, Robby, and John’s books, this is the fourth gospel for fans of The Doors.” – Bradley Netherton, The Doors World Series of Trivia Champion and host of the “Opening The Doors” podcast

“Batchelor writes well and his narrative flows smoothly. His work is an insightful look at the Doors as creative artists and a compelling portrait of Morrison.” – Thomas Hauser, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee

“Smart, engaging…Batchelor has a technique and perspective that runs through his work: paint a vivid description of what happened, but then, more than a mere journalist or biographer, delve into how it happened and then why it happened. The what is documentarian; the how, and especially the why, require the kind of analysis with imagination that Roadhouse Blues provides.” – Jesse Kavadlo, PopMatters

Roadhouse Blues, published by Hamilcar Publications

JIM MORRISON'S LAST ALBUM, L.A. WOMAN RELEASED 53 YEARS AGO TODAY!

Blues- and Jazz-Infused Music From America’s Greatest Rock Band; Excerpt from Roadhouse Blues

The Doors released L.A. Woman on April 19, 1971, and Jim Morrison would be dead about 10 weeks later. The last album during his lifetime solidified the band’s standing and the singer’s legacy as an iconic figure in rock ‘n roll history.

Roadhouse Blues author Bob Batchelor with L.A. Woman

EXCERPT FROM ROADHOUSE BLUES: MORRISON, THE DOORS, AND THE DEATH DAYS OF THE SIXTIES (HAMILCAR PUBLICATIONS)

While incarceration loomed, Jim and the band got back into the studio. Ray, Robby, and John understood the seriousness of the situation. Densmore claimed that saving Jim was the band’s first priority: “Fuck, man, if we don’t get an album or two more out of Jim, so what? Maybe we’ll save his life.” They thought the creative process would reverse the spiral. The strategy had worked with Morrison Hotel.

Ironically, the album that would later be named after their adopted home—L.A. Woman—would be made without longtime producer Paul Rothchild. He hated the songs the band planned to use for the new record, telling them, “It sucks…it’s the first time I’ve ever been bored in a recording studio in my life.” At a dinner, according to Hopkins and Sugerman, Rothchild told them that they should produce themselves with Botnick’s assistance.

Although Rothchild may have disliked the tracks and sound, some felt that he still mourned Janis and was afraid to watch Jim’s journey down a similar path toward destruction. He also wanted a more controlled sound and believed the band couldn’t deliver, based on Jim’s commitment to partying and the tension that it caused with Ray, Robby, and John.

Rothchild had a point. Krieger remembered Jim’s drinking, saying, “When he got too drunk, he would become kind of an ass. It got harder and harder to be close with him.” The band kind of lined up on one side— on the other, Jim and his increasing number of drinking buddies and hangers-on. In his memoir, Ray called them “reprobates…slimeballs, and general Hollywood trash.”

Still, Botnick agreed to co-produce the next album, and the band went to work to perfect the demos and create several more. They set up shop at the Doors offices at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard, which felt safe and secure for the band. With Jim across the street at the fleabag Alta Cienega Hotel, Robby remembered that the singer was reenergized by the process. Like the previous album, Botnick wanted to get a live feel. He said, “Go back to our early roots and try to get everything live in the studio with as few overdubs as possible.”

The Doors perform at the Hollywood Bowl

Continuing the creative process that had worked on Morrison Hotel, the band wrote songs together, often from poems Jim had been working on over the years. Adding to the new vibe, they used Elvis’s bassist Jerry Scheff and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno to add a deeper, more lush tone. Morrison sang in the adjoining bathroom to get the sound he wanted. To capture the desired live spirit, they didn’t do many takes and kept overdubs to a minimum.

Morrison’s concept of L.A. Woman centered on imagining the city as a sexy woman, his way to pay homage to the “City of Lights.” They also continued to explore what it meant to live on the West Coast and in the contemporary world. The sound was expansive, more alive than what they had done recently, despite the weight of Jim’s conviction.

The title track “L.A. Woman,” according to Densmore, epitomized the new sound, particularly Jim’s anagram for his name. “‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ is a sexual term,” the drummer explained. “I suggested that we slowly speed the track back up, kind of like an orgasm.” For Robby, it was the teamwork that pulled the best work from the band. “The title track was distilled from jam sessions, with all of us contributing equally,” he remembered. “Jim started with a handful of lines and added lyrics as he went while John kept it interesting with time changes and Ray and I harmonized on the melody and traded solos.”

In 2022, the editors at Bass Player named the bassline of “L.A. Woman” one of the forty greatest of all time. “True to the production values of the day, Ray Manzarek’s throbbing keyboard bass is all low frequencies and no mids, adding to its thunderous presence,” they said. That unforgettable sound “takes everything that was best about The Doors—acid-drenched psychedelia, a threatening blues edge and that era-defining drone—and anchors it all with a rock-solid bassline.” The enduring success of the song and its ranking among the best ever recorded is a demonstration of what the Doors could still create, particularly in their stripped-down, blues-infused era.

Despite the stress Jim experienced while putting the album together, the power of his vocals propelled the record. Morrison sounded lively—perhaps even sober—between takes. “I don’t follow orders. I’m just a dumb singer,” he playfully told his bandmates during one interval. Yet under Botnick’s guiding hand, songs like “L.A. Woman” came together, as the producer explained, with “a little bit of woodshedding.”

According to Robby, much of the beauty of “L.A. Woman” came from how he worked with Jim to bring the vocals and guitar into sync. “During the verses, I do these little answer lines to Jim’s vocals. That was just a natural thing he and I would do. He’d sing something and I’d respond.” The improvisation gave the song a timeless vibe, ramping up the power of the live feel. If you close your eyes, you can feel the sun on your face and hear the motor roaring as you’re chugging down the Pacific Coast Highway. The glint off the ocean is blinding, but the air is clean, and the grit of the city is in the rearview mirror.

As a tribute to the great jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington, Krieger wrote “Love Her Madly,” whose title comes from the way the Duke ended his shows by telling audiences: “We love you madly!” It took the rest of the band, however, to work it into the Doors groove. “We workshopped it together,” the guitarist said.

Roadhouse Blues by cultural historian and biographer Bob Batchelor

For the band, working collectively always worked best. “We tickled them and cajoled them and pampered them, and whipped them into line,” Ray said of those tracks. “It was like the old days.” L.A. Woman was a testament to that collaborative spirit.

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"Valuable insight into the historical moments of the 1960s that inform and shape our understanding of the television series." -- Journal of American Culture

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UNMASKING STAN LEE: FROM SUPERHEROES TO CULTURE IN 10 PIVOTAL MOMENTS -- GREAT LIVES LECTURE SERIES AT UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON

“Stan Lee: Spider-Man and Marvel Comics” — February 22, 2024

The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture

William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series

Biographical Approaches to History and Culture begins its third decade with a program on January 16, 2024. The schedule includes a total of 18 programs, running through March 28.

Bob Batchelor lecture on Stan Lee at University of Mary Washington

Join cultural historian Bob Batchelor on an exhilarating journey into the extraordinary life of Stan Lee, an icon whose legacy is as epic as the superheroes he co-created. Renowned for film cameos as the Marvel movie franchise conquered the world, Lee would have been 101 today, providing the perfect moment to delve into his profound impact on contemporary America and global culture.

Batchelor presents Lee’s life in 10 pivotal moments, each encapsulating an era of modern history. From the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression, the American Century to the twenty-first century, his journey mirrors the sweeping narrative of the nation itself. Lee’s vision and creative genius revolutionized pop culture, introducing us to superheroes that were as complex and fallible as their creator (and all of us).

Experience the highs and lows, drama and humor of Lee’s life via a narrative that not only explores a cultural visionary, but also uncovers the heart of a man who dreamed of writing the Great American Novel and, in the process, rewrote the script of global pop culture. This is the story of Stan Lee, a true American icon, whose legacy continues to entertain and inspire generations around the world. Excelsior!

BRIEF BIO

A 3-time winner of the Independent Press Book Award, cultural historian Bob Batchelor has been hailed as “one of the greatest non-fiction writers and storytellers” by New York Times bestselling biographer Brian Jay Jones. His books examine modern popular culture icons, events, and topics, from comic books and music to literary figures and history’s outlaws.

By day, Bob is a diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate and ally at The Diversity Movement, a Raleigh DEI consultancy. By night, he is the author of 14 books, editor of 19 books, and has been published in a dozen languages. He is best known as biographer of Marvel icon Stan Lee, having written 3 books on him and numerous essays and chapters, one on Spider-Man appearing in Time.

An interdisciplinary writer, Bob has published books on Jim Morrison and the Doors, Bob Dylan, The Great Gatsby, Mad Men, and John Updike, among others. He wrote an award-winning illustrated history of Rookwood Pottery, the revolutionary company that became one of the great art potteries in the world, and The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius, a rollicking tale of the infamous bootleg baron, as widely known in the Roaring Twenties as Warren G. Harding and Babe Ruth.

Bob’s work has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times, and PopMatters. He created the podcast “John Updike: American Writer, American Life” and “Tales of the Bourbon King: The Life and True Crimes of George Remus.” He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, PBS, the BBC, and NPR. Bob hosted “TriState True Crime” on WCPO’s Cincy Lifestyle television show.

Bob earned his doctorate in American Literature from the University of South Florida and an M.A. in History from Kent State University after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught at universities in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Vienna, Austria. Bob and his wife, antiques and vintage expert Suzette Percival live in North Carolina and have two wonderful teenage daughters.

STANLEY LIEBER BECOMES STAN LEE AND "MR. TIMELY COMICS"

How Does Stan Lee Get into Comic Books? A Stroke of Luck or Something Else?

Stanley Lieber uses the pseudonym “Stan Lee” in his first published story!

Rising up to his feet and towering over a messy desktop with drawings strewn haphazardly about and correspondence littering every square inch, Timely Comics head writer and editorial director Joe Simon reached out his hand to welcome his new young assistant. Cigar smoke is thick in the room as Simon’s big hand comes at the teenager sitting in front of him.

Still a little dizzy from getting the job, Stanley Leiber vigorously pumped the older man’s hand – A steady paycheck…He would make eight dollars a week! He had recently graduated from high school, the DeWitt Clinton Class of 1939.

For a young man struggling to find full-time work, the pay meant that he might help the family regain its footing. They had been reeling since his father Jack couldn’t find work in the dressmaking industry throughout the tough years of the Great Depression. The job gave the teenager security and a shot to prove himself in writing and publishing. Words appealed to the boy—always had.

Stanley dreamed of one day writing the Great American Novel.

But in this new job, Stanley had to start at the bottom. He plied away as an office boy for Simon and the other full-time Timely Comics employee – artist and writer Jack Kirby. Little more than an assistant, some days he refilled Kirby and Simon’s inkwells. He had the mammoth task to get the two men sandwiches while the duo concocted new superhero stories.

Lieber worked with enthusiasm, even if he spent hours sweeping floors or erasing stray pencil marks on finished pages to prep them for publication. The youngster achieved his primary goal – simply finding a permanent position. He watched and learned from two of the industry’s budding stars.

More importantly, Stanley had a job! His father’s fate would not befall him. He set off on a career.

The Timely Job at Timely Comics…And a Mystery!

Many episodes in Stanley’s early life are shrouded in uncertainty. How the teenager bounded from Clinton High School to Simon and Kirby’s assistant at Timely involves both a bit of mystery and a touch of mythmaking.

There are several versions of his Timely Comics origin story. One account begins with his mother Celia. Clearly she put her hopes in her oldest son, particularly since her faith in her husband nearly led the family to ruin.

Here we have Celia telling Stanley about a job opening at a publishing company where her brother Robbie worked. Without delay, the young high school grad shows up at the McGraw-Hill building on West 42nd Street, but knows little about the company or comic books. With Robbie’s prodding, Simon explains the business and how comic books are made. He then offers the teen a job. Basically, he and Kirby are so frantic and overworked, particularly with their new hit Captain America, that they just need someone (anyone, really) to provide an extra set of hands.

Robbie Solomon is also at the center of a different account (here the main player), essentially a conduit between Simon and owner Martin Goodman. In addition to being Celia Lieber’s brother, Robbie married the publisher’s sister Sylvia. Goodman surrounded himself with family members, despite the imperious tone he took with everyone who worked for him. Receiving Robbie’s stamp of approval (and the familial tie) made the boy’s hire fait accompli. Simon, then, despite what he may or may not have thought of the boy, basically had to take Leiber on. “His entire publishing empire was a family business,” explained historians Blake Bell and Michael J. Vassallo. Solomon had a strange job – a kind of in-house spy who ratted out employees not working hard enough or playing fast and loose with company rules.

While the family connection tale is credible and plays into the general narrative of Goodman’s extensive nepotism, Lee offered a different perspective, making it more of a coincidence. “I was fresh out of high school,” he recalled, “I wanted to get into the publishing business, if I could.” Rather than being led by Robbie, Lee explained: “There was an ad in the paper that said, ‘Assistant Wanted in a Publishing House.’” This alternative version calls into question Lee’s early move into publishing – and throwing up for grabs the date as either 1940, which is usually listed as the year of his hiring, or 1939, as he later implied.

Lieber may have not known much about comic books, but he recognized publishing as a viable option for someone with his skills. He knew that he could write, but had no way of really gauging his creative talents. Although Goodman was a cousin by marriage, he did not have much interaction with his younger relative, so it wasn’t as if Goodman purposely brought Lieber into the firm. No one will ever really know how much of a wink and nod Solomon gave Simon or if Goodman even knew about the hiring, though the kid remembered the publisher being surprised the first time he saw him in the building.

The teen, though bright, talented, and hard working, needed a break. His early tenure at Timely Comics served as a kind of extended apprenticeship or on-the-job training at comic book university. Lieber was earnest in learning from Simon and Kirby as they scrambled to create content. Since they were known for working fast, the teen witnessed firsthand how two of the industry’s greatest talents functioned. The lessons he learned set the foundation for his own career as a writer and editor, as well as a manager of other highly talented individuals.

Stan Lee: A Life, by award-winning historian Bob Batchelor

ANNIVERSARY OF JIM MORRION'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN PARIS

Jim Morrison Died on July 3, 1971 — 52 Years Later, We are Still Contemplating His Iconic Life

Roadhouse Blues by cultural historian Bob Batchelor, published by Hamilcar Publications

Below is an excerpt from Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties that looks at Jim Morrison in the Twenty-First Century.

Jim Morrison in a thoughtful moment during the Isle of Wright concert

Jim Morrison in the Twenty-First Century

What can a singer dead for more than five decades tell us about twenty-first-century America? Well, if we’re searching for insight from the life and enduring legend of Jim Morrison, the answer is contained in an unending string of impulses that combine to create the contemporary world.

Morrison matters today because we can use his brief life and long afterlife to examine the issues and topics that still bedevil modern society. From women’s rights to our thinking about war and freedom, Morrison’s vantage offers context. He also helps us understand philosophical questions about history, nostalgia, fame, and celebrity as an industry.

Looking at Morrison’s life has another critical component—it demonstrates how our thinking transforms over time. The most straightforward example is how he was venerated in the 1980s by a generation who viewed him as the ultimate party animal. Following his lead, Gen Xers and others could give the middle finger to people in roles of authority while reveling in his booze-filled, hedonistic lifestyle.

While this perspective may always be a part of Morrison’s legacy based on how young people choose to exert their freedoms, examining his life from today’s viewpoint reveals a young man struggling with addiction and desperately in need of help. From Jim’s life, we can learn much about addiction, recovery, and treatment in hopes of saving lives.

While generations of observers have filled Morrison with any number of meanings, near the end of his own life, he realized that he was on a search for something more. Even though many people would have traded their lifestyles for his in an instant, he hoped for a deeper purpose:

I’m not denying that I’ve had a good time these last three or four years…met a lot of interesting people and seen a lot of things in a short space of time…I can’t say that I regret it, but if I had it to do over again, I would have gone more for the quiet, undemonstrative little artist plodding away in his own garden trip.

***

Perhaps the greatest debut album of all-time!

“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps ‘Oh, look at that!’ Then whoosh, and I’m gone…and they’ll never see anything like it ever again…and they won’t be able to forget me—ever.”

—Jim Morrison

***

What we do not get from Morrison—as a person with a full range of human complexities—is a single perspective or fixed point on how to interpret him or his era. He is part of a larger puzzle for understanding the Sixties and early Seventies. What I argue, along with other historians, is that history is the craft of presenting information based on viewpoints, analysis, documentation, and other points of reference, but not what actually happened. Even if you were beside Jim as he lived his life, it would not be history but rather your interpretation of that time frame from your own perspective. Historians create the framework.

This is important in examining and piecing together a contentious era like the Sixties. We are attempting to shine light into the dark night that brings together the lived experiences and lifetimes of people who valued the time for different reasons. For example, I contend that it is impossible to comprehend the Sixties without layering in Vietnam, whether economic, political, or cultural. However, I’ve interviewed people who have never mentioned the war or its consequences on their lives. It is not as if these individuals lived in an alternate reality; it’s just that they found a way to circumvent the topic in a way that makes sense to them in their recollections.

Even when examining the parts of the Sixties that seemed to flow logically into the next, for example, as if the self-help and meditation of the 1970s had to be the outcome of the free-love and activist 1960s, we understand this equation is never the straight line it might appear to be on paper, film, or video. In fact, when it does seem like a direct path, it’s most likely that someone has created that narrative.

For literary critic Morris Dickstein, who grew up in the 1960s, a multitude of influences melded to create the era’s foundation: “The cold war, the bomb, the draft, and the Vietnam War gave young people a premature look at the dark side of our national life, at the same time that it galvanized many older people already jaded in their pessimism.” The role the Doors played in exposing the dark side and bringing it to the mainstream is significant.

The depth of Morrison’s life called for writing this book. Few cultural icons have had a more lasting impact. But, as I have shown, the importance of the Doors includes the group too. It wasn’t strictly the Jim Morrison show, although his myth is of course a big factor in the band’s enduring fame.

This book is a reassessment of a significant era in American history and an example of how we might gain from that exercise. According to David Strutton and David G. Taylor: “The examination of history allows one to acquire experience by proxy; that is, learning from the harsh or redemptive experiences of others…Mythology is less reliable than history as narrative of actual experience; yet it may hold more power than history.”

By revisiting Morrison, the Doors, and the death days of the Sixties, we give the era meaning as it existed in its day and at the same time create a tool to use to navigate our lives and the future. For example, Vietnam has become synonymous with America’s intervention in overseas wars, particularly against enemies that appear doomed on paper. The wars in the Middle East over the last several decades have been examined via the Vietnam lens, but the comparison sadly did not lead to a different outcome. In this case—and concerning future warfare—we might ask ourselves the reasonable question: Where were the protesters who played such a pivotal role in illuminating what was happening in Southeast Asia in the Sixties and Seventies? For that matter, why were the journalists in the Middle East “embedded” rather than emboldened like their media forbearers? Perhaps the most significant difference was the draft, but the real emphasis is that reevaluating the decades gives a measure of what is happening today—and offers a potential lens for anticipating the future.

***

We all need tools to examine society’s larger questions, but Morrison’s life can also help us understand each other on a more intimate level. How did Jim view himself in the world?

One of the most striking aspects of Jim’s life versus the legend that grew after he died is the gap between what people thought of the public person versus the more private individual. After his death, the mythmaking and apocryphal aspects of his life seemed to eclipse who he really was.

For example, journalist Michael Cuscuna said, “The antithesis of his extroverted stage personality, the private Morrison speaks slowly and quietly with little evident emotion, reflectively collecting his thoughts before he talks. No ego, no pretensions.” For writer Dylan Jones, Jim stood as “the first rock’n’roll method actor” and “an intellectual in a snakeskin suit.” Ultimately, hinting at the singer’s true nature, he saw “a man who, when he revealed himself, was often to be found simply acting out his own fantasies.”

Jim embraced this notion of self-creation and wore different masks publicly and privately. In 1968, Morrison admitted that his image as the Lizard King was “all done tongue-in-cheek.” He explained, “It’s not to be taken seriously. It’s like if you play the villain in a Western that doesn’t mean that’s you.” But the singer cautioned, “I don’t think people realize that.” Were these really different masks for Morrison, or did the true Jim get lost (or stuck) in the alcoholic stupor?

Before the band hit the big time, there were some musicians and hippies in Los Angeles who saw Jim as little more than a poseur, as someone who wanted to become part of the scene and yearned for attention and approval. They saw him not as a poet but as just another lost angel longing for fame and fortune in the City of Lights.

A foundational aspect of human life is the need to create meaning. People engage in this activity from birth, investigating and examining the world in relation to other people and things around them. This type of exploration is called semiotics, which in plain terms means asking what something means in relation to ourselves and others. From this vantage point, Morrison’s public persona was cast in symbolic terms, like how a celebrity/star acted and what they could get away with versus noncelebrities. When he yelled out, “I am the Lizard King…I can do anything!” it seemed he believed it—at least the version of Jim who had assumed that symbolic role.

People use symbols, then, to adapt to a complex world that contains an enormous amount of abstraction. Krieger pinned Morrison’s worldview on his antiauthority nature. “You couldn’t tell Jim Morrison what to do. And if you tried he would make you regret it,” the guitarist recalled. “He was forever rebelling against his navy officer father. Anyone who attempted to step into a role of authority over him became the target of his unresolved rage.” What he learned to lash out at was not his powerful father but those in authority who attempted to control him.

Psychotherapist Jeannine Vegh saw the lasting effects of growing up in a military family. “Jim suffered from a crisis in his mind. His words seem destined for a prophet, but, instead, he succumbed to drink and drugs. I assumed that he had been exposed to some form of family trauma.” She believes it may have been that his parents preferred “dressing down” to other forms of punishment. “When a child is berated and humiliated in front of others, it takes a toll on them spiritually, physically, and mentally.” The turmoil from this kind of upbringing is a clear factor in Jim basically disowning his parents even before he became famous. When his father told him that joining a band was stupid, he never forgave him and never spoke to him again.

Morrison, by studying film, literature, and sociology, understood more deeply and theoretically what his contemporaries like Jagger, McCartney, Lennon, and Joplin knew—fame served as one of many disguises he had to wear as a rock star. For Jim, there was the hyperindividual aspect of fronting a band and presenting himself to an audience and then there was the other piece of it, the communal vibe from the collective experience. That high from being on stage—the rush of emotion, the intensity, the energy—was likely another form of addiction for him.

When in his rock star guise, Jim could also turn into the hideous performer, especially when drunk. If Morrison didn’t feel or perceive what he wanted from the audience, he turned against them, essentially doing what he did in one-on-one relationships: goad and aggressively provoke a reaction—any reaction. “I don’t feel I’ve really done a complete thing unless we’ve gotten everyone in the theater on kind of a common ground,” he said. “Sometimes I just stop the song and just let out a long silence, let out all the latent hostilities and uneasiness and tensions before we get everyone together.”

Yet whether the show went well frequently depended on the other principal ingredient—alcohol. The booze distorted his perceptions, which the singer believed helped him reach new horizons, but the mixed-up sensitivities of an alcohol-addled mind washed out of him in ways that neither he nor the band completely understood. Misperception led to the attempted riot and arrest in New Haven and the beginning-of-the-end Miami incident.

Morrison realized and manipulated the power he possessed as rock star and purposely baited the crowd in ways that were new to them. A person going to a concert has expectations and understands (roughly) how they should act as a part of the community. The Doors, however, constantly messed with that pact because it titillated Jim’s worldview and allowed him to see both his true self and his growing authority after a lifetime of poking at the figures and institutions of power in his life. Morrison told a reporter: “I like to see how long they can stand it, and just when they’re about to crack, I let ’em go.”

Once questioned about what might happen to him if the crowd turned, even threatening his own safety, Jim responded in typical narcissistic fashion, claiming, “I always know exactly when to do it.” Rather than fear them or what they might do to him, he craved control over the masses. “That excites people…They get frightened, and fear is very exciting. People like to get scared.” Intensifying his controversial comments, he used sex as an analogy: “It’s exactly like the moment before you have an orgasm. Everybody wants that. It’s a peaking experience.” The domination over the crowd and its collective retort fascinated and mesmerized Morrison. He could directly influence their experience or lead the band into a frenzy—with Ray and Robby urging the emotional response while John pounded out a driving beat.

Examining Bob Dylan’s career, you can see similar uses of the mask metaphor as a way to make sense of complexity and abstraction. In the early 1970s, Dylan faced a period of agitation as he coped with the decline of his marriage to his wife Sara. Looking back on the period, he spoke about the many sides of himself that existed and kind of threw him off-kilter. Dylan explained: “I was constantly being intermingled with myself, and all the different selves that were in there, until this one left, then that one left, and I finally got down to the one that I was familiar with.”

To cope with fame, Dylan constantly created new personas and masks. He could alternatively exist as a singer, writer, musician, revolutionary, poet, degenerate, or any of the other labels that might be thrust at him. Dylan even spoke about himself in the third person to underscore the difference between him and the character named “Bob Dylan.”

Obviously, while there is ultimately a person there—waking each day, eating, working, daydreaming, bathing—there is another aspect of Dylan that defies simple definition. Dylan, a member of an elite category of iconic figures, exists outside his physical form and represents numerous meanings that give people a tool to interpret the world around them. As a result, the artist isn’t only a member of society but a set of interpretations and symbols that help others generate meaning. As fans and onlookers, people are familiar with this tradeoff. They accept it with each side gaining something in the exchange. A regular human being could never have handled the pressure of being called the spokesperson of a generation. Instead, Dylan used different personas to compartmentalize and make sense of it—until he snapped under the weight of drugs and booze and used a motorcycle accident in 1966 as an excuse to drop out. Some would call Dylan’s breakdown a natural result of a burden too heavy to carry.

The difference between Dylan and Morrison is that the latter died before he had to confront these many roles. In death, these roles are assigned to Morrison by fans, critics, historians, and observers. Both icons might ask—if possible—that we define them by the songs they created or the lyrics they wrote, but the larger culture wants so much more. There is an image that must be created, managed, and maintained. Once someone becomes famous or iconic, they hold two identities—symbol and person.

Yet according to Evan Palazzo of the Hot Sardines, the power of the music is the real testament to the Doors. “Imagine if you were a concert buff in 1968, 1969, 1970, the bands you could see live, it was unparalleled. We don’t have anything like that today,” he explains. “But if they were a new band, the Doors would blow everyone out of the water—it would be seismic.”

“Imagine if you were a concert buff in 1968, 1969, 1970, the bands you could see live, it was unparalleled. We don’t have anything like that today. But if they were a new band, the Doors would blow everyone out of the water—it would be seismic.”

— Evan Palazzo, Band Leader & Pianist, The Hot Sardines

For today’s listeners—no longer enslaved to vinyl, CD, or cassette because of the transformation to streaming music services—the Doors are just part of the Classic Rock genre. For younger listeners, the band is on a playlist or “decontextualized as a fifty-year-old band,” according to literary critic and writer Jesse Kavadlo. “My college students don’t experience music like we did pre-Internet. It’s just playlist stuff. All the music is available instantly, so they relate to it differently.”

It doesn’t even really matter that Jim is dead. For so many people, his spirit is as real as a brick wall, the latest Doors release on Spotify, or a video on YouTube.

***

“I tell you this man, I tell you this…I don’t know what’s gonna happen, man, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.”

—Jim Morrison

A new look at Jim Morrison, the Doors, and the chaotic, turbulent 1960s!