Jim Morrison

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Notable

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American singer, songwriter, poet and cult figure, the founding member and lead singer of the legendary rock group "The Doors," a top band of the '60s with mega-hits "Riders on the Storm" and "Light My Fire." Also known as The Lizard King or Mr. Mojo Risin', he is the author of "The Lords and the New Creatures," 1969. Morrison was the oldest of three children born to Navy Captain Steven Morrison and his wife Clara. His younger sister Anne was born in 1946 followed by brother Andy in 1949. The tumultuous events of World War II kept Captain Steve and his family in a peripatetic lifestyle, moving four times before Jim was four years old. When in Albuquerque, NM, he experienced "the most important moment of my life. "Me and my mother and father and my grandmother and grandfather were driving through the desert at dawn. A truckload of Indian workers had hit another car or something - there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death. So we pulled the car up. I must have been about four or five. I had to stay in the car while my father and grandfather went to check it out - all I saw was funny red paint and people lying around, but I knew something was happening, because I could dig the vibrations of the people around me. And all of a sudden I realize that they didn't know what was happening anymore than I did. That was the first time I tasted fear...and I do think, at that moment, the souls or the ghosts of those dead Indians - maybe one or two of 'em, were just running around, freaking out, and just leaped into my soul, and I was like a sponge, ready to just sit there and absorb it...And they're still in there. It's not a ghost story, it's something that really means something to me." Morrison was a minor terror and a problem child, but a voracious reader. Captain Steve's naval career kept him on tour of duty for extended periods of time, leaving his prankster son with no male role model and no discipline. The responsibility of childrearing fell entirely on the somewhat eccentric Clara, who, engrossed with her two younger children, could not control her oldest son and left him to explore his fascination with reptiles, a passion which resulted in Morrison becoming the self-titled "Lizard King" in later years. During adolescence, Morrison was a good student who tested an IQ of 149, yet was continually in trouble due to his fundamental resentment of authority. A bright loner and natural rebel, he took direction from absolutely no one, adults or peers. After he received his diploma from George Washington High School in Alexandria, VA, in the mail because he didn't attend the graduation ceremony, he had no plans other than to read, write and drift. Without Morrison's prior knowledge, Captain Steve enrolled him in a community college in St. Petersburg, FL where Jim could attend classes while he lived nearby with his grandmother. "I couldn't think of anything else to do. I didn't learn much. School was easy. I didn't want to go in the army and I didn't want to work." Academics suited Morrison. After the first year he transferred to Florida State University to get more credits in theater and film. Making a career decision, he applied to the theater department at UCLA and he hitchhiked to California in 1964. Officially disowned by his parents at this point, Morrison became completely estranged from them, claiming they were deceased. Reveling in his freedom from family restriction at UCLA, Morrison began to drink heavily and indulged in a steady consumption of LSD 25, which was still legal in 1964. The following July he met musician Ray Manzarek on the beach in Venice and the two artists decided to form a band. Two months later, with Manzarek on keyboards and Morrison as vocalist, they made their first demo tape. During the next year they added drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robbie Kreiger, calling themselves "The Doors." Their first job was at the club "London Fog" on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, where they were paid $10 a night for five sets, six nights a week. Following this engagement they became the house band further down the street at "Whiskey A Go Go" where they drew huge crowds. They launched the material for their classic first album, released the following January, "The Doors," which included their No. 1 single "Light My Fire." The meteoric success of "The Doors" led to nationwide tours to sold out houses followed by the albums "Strange Days," 1967, "Waiting for the Sun," 1968 and "The Soft Parade" in 1969. On stage, Morrison's act was an exhibition of Dionysian revelry with dangerous overtones of police interference and public riot. With drugs and alcohol fueling his exploits, he was an unstoppable dynamo of raucous energy. Wearing his famous black leather pants, screaming through forgotten lyrics, falling off the stage, jumping off amplifiers and unable to rise, Morrison's lewd and lascivious behavior led to frequent arrests during public performance. One of his shows, in Miami, Florida on 9 November 1969, culminated in his arrest on four charges and a trial which became a social crusade of "the establishment" to end his career. Morrison did not take any of his accusations seriously. "We have fun, the kids have fun, the cops have fun. It's kind of a weird triangle." After the Miami incident, restrictions applied to any Doors concert and they were strictly enforced. Now followed by the FBI, a more pacified and mellowed Morrison was contained in the studio making his fifth album, "Morrison Hotel" in 1970 followed by "L.A. Woman" in 1971. Ultimately disgruntled with fans and fame and seeking to flee the US from a string of paternity suits, the acutely alcoholic Morrison moved to Paris that same year with Whiskey A Go Go girlfriend Pamela Courson to unwind and write poetry. Only weeks after his arrival, he died of heart failure in the bathtub of their Paris apartment on 3 July 1971 after snorting heroin. He is buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris near the graves of Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Stein. The bulk of his poetry was published posthumously and is now receiving critical acclaim. His original poetry was set to music for "An American Prayer" in the last year of his life. Ten years after the band's demise, they surged to popularity again in the early '80s. Link to Wikipedia biography