Doors' dark majesty is about 'real things'
http://www.thereporter.com/entertainment/ci_11991467
by Richard Bammer
Posted: 03/25/2009
I have never been awed by The Doors, who, like The Beatles, seem to
be enjoying as much fame in 2009 as they did in their halcyon 1960s days.
Still, I like listening to parts of their debut record from time to
time, from "Light My Fire" and "Alabama Song" (the Brecht-Weill
"Whiskey Song") to "Break on Through (to the Other Side)" and
"Twentieth Century Fox." Singer Jim Morrison's voice possessed an
appealing throaty resonance, while Ray Manzarek's Bach-inspired
keyboards and Robby Krieger's brittle, stinging guitar anchored the
band's trademark avant-garde, blues-based rock and psychedelia.
As I recall, the most coveted recording in early spring 1967 was The
Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." You were envied if
you waved the LP in class, a sign you were hip and knowledgeable
about a game-changer in the world of pop music, even if John, Paul,
George and Ringo -- and producer George Martin -- had largely cribbed
the musical concepts and production values from The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds."
But The Doors? No one at Munich American High School in Munich,
Germany, where I was a junior at the time, was that far out ahead of
the curve of insight into the latest interesting rock sounds coming
from California, particularly San Francisco or The Doors' home turf,
Los Angeles.
After his initial success, Morrison, the son of a Navy officer,
seemed to find a way to stay in the news for drinking and drug use,
but mostly for arrests for lewd simulation of sexual acts and
indecent exposure.
For a while, The Doors' music seemed beside the point, when
Morrison's latest antics were far more interesting. Several
lackluster albums from late 1967 to early 1970, "Strange Days"
"Waiting for the Sun" and "Morrison Hotel," paled against the band's
early success, a couple of radio hits notwithstanding ("Hello, I Love
You" and "Touch Me"). Then in June 1971, the band released "L.A.
Woman" and they were reborn with that 10-tune disc, a re-evaluation
of their blues roots, containing the chart-topping hits "Love Her
Madly" and "Riders on the Storm" and a cover of bluesman John Lee
Hooker's "Crawling Kingsnake."
Rumors of the band's split were in the air, as Morrison relocated to
Paris in spring with his girlfriend. And on July 3, he was found dead
in his bathtub, a victim of an apparent heart attack brought on by a
toxic mix of drugs and booze. His death led to a cult-like status
that continues to this day, encouraged by a number of things, among
them the late 1970s Francis Ford Coppola film, "Apocalypse Now," that
used the disturbing 11-minute epic "The End" as part of the soundtrack.
But more than anything, it seems to me, the cult of Morrison and The
Doors is kept alive today by young people who say the music not only
contains recognizable melodies and trenchant, if not mysterious,
lyrics but also speaks to them of things other than today's baser pop
and hip-hop cultural values (besides sex, of course, always a
youthful pursuit), of bling, cars and money.
As a twentysomething woman told me at the Manzarek-Krieger concert
Saturday in the Napa Valley Opera House, The Doors' music is about
"real things."
--
Reach Reporter staff writer Richard Bammer at [email protected].
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