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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
Mad Men: A Cultural History
Mad Men: A Cultural History -- FLASH SALE -- $2.99
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
In the months between “Break On Through” failing to make waves on the hit single chart and the July triumph of “Light My Fire” hitting number one, the Doors were just like every other band — trying to get noticed and establish a fan base. They had returned to the Whisky, the famed Los Angeles club where they had been the house opener in what seemed like just moments ago.
Read morePart of the education of The Doors in the City by the Bay took place at The Human Be-In, a festival featuring music, activists, and spirituality in Golden Gate Park. Twenty thousand or more people had gathered to protest a California law banning LSD that had passed the previous fall. The Doors played elsewhere throughout the weekend but weren’t established enough to play the festival. The experienced the hippie vibe, firsthand, though as part of the throngs of people that descended on San Francisco, ultimately launching the “Summer of Love.”
Read moreJim Morrison’s arrest in December 1967 while on stage at the New Haven Arena is important in understanding the Sixties. The incident represents how myriad people and institutions in a position of power were willing to use their authority to stamp out or thwart those who symbolized something they didn’t understand or even attempt to comprehend. For those wielding a hammer, as is said, everything looks like a nail. The establishment’s reaction to Morrison and the Doors was to look at them as something evil that had to be stopped.
Read moreJim Morrison couldn't stay out of trouble, especially when actor Tom Baker was instigating. They got really drunk and rowdy on a flight to Phoenix to see the Rolling Stones, but instead, got arrested and in serious jeopardy when charged with felony offenses.
Jim Morrison -- Arrested Again
Between March 5, 1969, when acting Miami police chief Paul Denham took warrants out on Jim, and the start of the trial on August 10, 1970, the federal government, the state of California, and the state of Florida tried several legal maneuvers to get the Doors front man to submit. At the same time, Jim’s attorney, Max Fink, fought these efforts, including filing several motions to dismiss the case.
"Too High in Sky" -- Jim Morrison Arrested & Jailed in Phoenix
While the wrangling sped along, Morrison’s personal life continued to unravel. He was arrested twice more in that seventeen-month span, first in November for causing a disturbance on a flight and then later the next August for public drunkenness in West Hollywood (when a sixty-eight-year-old woman found him sleeping on her porch and called police). According to Ray Manzarek, "Between Miami and Phoenix, Jim was facing a maximum of over thirteen years in prison."
"Arrested here" -- Morrison Faces Federal Offense
"Between Miami and Phoenix, Jim was facing a maximum of over thirteen years in prison."
— Ray Manzarek
For more great stories, interesting analysis, and an in-depth look at the Doors and Jim Morrison, check out Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties (Hamilcar Publications)
Roadhouse Blues by Cultural Historian Bob Batchelor
Jim Morrison on stage on Halloween night 1968
By the fall of 1968, the Doors had released three albums — all had reached #1 on the charts — and had two #1 singles: “Light My Fire” and “Hello, I Love You.” Although it might seem to contemporary readers that the band was on top of the world, the Doors were also less than a year removed from the infamous New Haven concert when a backstage run in with police, got Jim Morrison maced, and later arrested on stage after he baited the officers guarding the band by telling the packed crowd about the incident.
While the Doors were one of the most popular bands in the world based on record sales and numbers of fans, Morrison’s New Haven arrest turned them into the establishment’s #1 suspect. Lots of bad vibes about hippies, drugs, and the Sixties were dropped on the band and their front man, who seemed at ease in whipping young people into a frenzy.
"Weird happening," says reporter
Journalist Glenn Rutherford of the Louisville Courier-Journal covered the band’s concert in Kentucky on its 1968 tour. His descriptions of the crowd epitomized the way many people viewed the Doors and the counterculture in that era — “weird,” “strangely dressed” — as well as the oddity that hippies and young people embodied: “apparently look that way all the time.”
Morrison a sex symbol
Like many reporters and writers during the heyday of the Doors, Rutherford juxtaposed the grungy band and its fans to Morrison’s “sex symbol” status. Again, the idea is that these people — hippies, musicians, those from California — are not like us, as if they have invaded Kentucky and polluted its good citizens.
[Rutherford wasn’t alone in seeming to dislike the Doors. They were a polarizing band in the 1960s, which adds spice to our often-nostalgic views of the era today. What seems amazing, though, is how threatening the band and Morrison specifically was to so many people!]
"Neanderthal pounding"
The most eye-opening part of Rutherford’s review came near the end of the piece when he compared the music to “neanderthal pounding.” Of course, even some hardened critics during the band’s run reacted negatively to Morrison’s poetic posturing, his voice, or the pomposity they saw in the band’s “erotic politicians” stance. However, few journalists blasted the music emanating from Ray Manzarek’s keyboards, Robby Krieger’s guitar, or John Densmore’s drum kit.
In contrast, even when Morrison was at his drunken worst, observers noted how tight the Doors were as musicians. The comparison of them to a jazz trio was a high compliment.
Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties by cultural historian Bob Batchelor
In his scribbling about “neanderthal pounding,” what the journalist completely missed is the beauty of the song he quoted: “Soul Kitchen.”
On the surface, “Soul Kitchen” seems like a simple ditty, an ode to a diner the band had haunted. But, a deeper examination of Morrison’s poetics reveals a much deeper, more meaningful exploration of lost love and its consequences.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets
Speak in secret alphabets
I light another cigarette
Learn to forget, learn to forget
Learn to forget, learn to forget— Jim Morrison, “Soul Kitchen”
The narrator laments his love’s secret language and begs for her acceptance. Yet, when she turns him out, he is forced to “wander” and ends up “stumblin’ in the neon groves” of Los Angeles.
Like many of Morrison’s lyrics, “Soul Kitchen” is evergreen and open to multiple interpretations. The great rock critic and aficionado Paul Williams compared “Soul Kitchen” to Bob Dylan’s classic “Blowin’ In the Wind.”
Both songs ask the listener’s mind to expand to places known and unknown via unanswerable questions that are deeper than imagined on the surface, even when they might allude to a specific moment in time.
So much for neanderthal pounding…
Fans of the Doors and rock ‘n roll history lovers have been waiting decades for Robby Krieger — Doors guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire — to write a memoir of his days and nights in America’s iconic rock band. Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar With the Doors came out in October 2021, but the paperback is set to publish October 25, 2022.
Read moreCandid, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Roadhouse Blues by Bob Batchelor 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!”
Read more