I read the book in 1980 as I headed off for basic training in the Air Force. I knew of some of the Doors songs but wasn't really a "Fan" back then. Huge Fan Now. I really felt a connection since I grew up in Alexandria, VA. Also a Military Brat and was familiar with a number of places Jim apparently visited. I accept that he died in Paris. Someone of his character would have reemerged and would have been discovered. Jim Morrison was one of a kind. Extraordinary insight of human nature, history, Religion and Philosophy.
I read the book in I think 1980 my Freshman year. I was a big doors fan even although my older brothers didn't bring home Any doors albums. I didn't even know who Jim was until the radio commercial about An American Prayer album was just an ad on kmet. Great read and know I'm hearing read aloud to me from the horses mouth.. awesome!
To clarify, that would be a half-Jewish horse, who sniffed horse in the 70s (& 90s, with Fawn Hall) & who embellished a story about Jim's g/f riding him like a horse one night in 1973.
@@giftedplanksify Right. Yes. In his "memoir " Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess, Sugarman gives us an incredibly lurid & minutely-detailed account of a West Hollywood night spent sniffing drugs and having sex with Pam Courson, sometime around 1973 or 74. She apparently confessed to him her participation in Morrison's death couple of years earlier, also by drugs....her drugs.
i remember hearing about the book "coming soon" and, being a major Doors fan in my high school years, anxiously awaited its arrival in book stores then grabbed one of the 1st copies available in my area and devoured it for the 1st time soon after. since that 1st read i must have read it more than 10 times
Jim Morrison 1943-1971 and I have read this book on my free time and the photos were awesome and I have been a doors fan for 30 years since 1994 and my late dad got me into the doors and I will continue to listen to the doors just like my dad and Jim Morrison's life was so different than mine though and he has been gone for 53 years now and I think it's just obvious that Jim is definitely dead or he fake it and there's no reason of a rumor that he is alive or dead and Jim's friends and family members are shocked that he's not alive anyway and I knew his life was very difficult and he was gone before I was thought of yet but the doors music still plays and I miss my dad's stories about Jim Morrison 💔 😢😢
The photos are good ,I always saw this book in cling film in my record shop and thought it would b trash as I read the description, so I bought it years after rays book 2001,The Doors illustrated history best photos every mag and paper wrote ,that was not about his life
If you listen to Robby’s autobiography he basically says that a lot of the book is made up. And that Ray Manzareck helped embellish a lot of the stories..because basically they were trying to build up the Morrison “myth” which they knew would keep the music alive…and it worked.
He wouldn't need to inject it. Alcohol chemically reacts with Heroin to massively increase its potency. The rock n roll circus was one of the main venues in Paris to score Heroin at the time. The last thing they would need , would be the attention the club would receive if a star like Morrison was found dead of an overdose on the premises.. Jim snorted some Smack that he had picked up for Pam. Unfortunately for him it was very pure, that and the amount of booze he had drunk, sealed his fate. Dumping him in a bath of warm water hides the time of death, after he had been carried back to the flat.
@@sierrasky2491 Indeed it does. But the alternate story, where Pamela gives him some of the fluffy pink ("China White") purified Marseilles 'cotton candy' powder & says either "Don't do too much Jim! Don't do too much" or "It's coke" also sounds about right too...
I agree. For a long time I've thought Jim's death was basically an accidental heroin/alcohol overdose. Combining those two drugs is like playing with rocket fuel.
Is that Jack Nicholson, Chinatown tough cop doing the reading? Nice touch. Btw, the blood wedding has since been shown to be pure fiction. In fact most of the book was the product of its writer’s imagination.
@@sierrasky2491 Only the hard facts, originally collected by Jerry Hopkins beginning in 1972, "match" the other books. Hopkins spent 3 yrs conducting extensive research on several continents gathering up factual details of Morrison's life (mostly interviews from 1972-1975 w/all of the key figures who tell their own versions of experiences). At the end (1975), he apparently had a manuscript draft that "was the size of the Manhattan telephone directory" (direct quote). No major publishing house was interested, given that the times/culture had changed in 3 yrs & the "Big Five" (top 5 major USA book publishing cos.) all felt Morrison's time had come and gone. In '75 or '76, Hopkins gave up on the project & gave over the m.s. to Sugerman, a "key figure" interviewed earlier, who had become an acquaintance. Sugarman (w/Manzarak) sat down & dreamed up dozens of scenarios & encounters that Jim "might/could have had" with various (also fictitious) persons during his 27 yrs, complete w/fully-imagined dialogue. Basically he was (they were) relying on the question, "What would Jim have said/done in x situation?" And unfortunately, in fabricating these stories & vignettes to increase the book's market value & inserting them liberally to spice things up, he also edited out large quantities of Hopkins' original research material, due to anticipated length constraint limits. This resulted in the book as published having a lop-sided "truth value", yet one heck of a hot zinger marketplace"commercial value" (aka...smut value) I would bet that, if Jerry Hopkins' original unchanged manuscript had been published back then as it was, w/no involvement from DS, the "other bios" would never have been written, having been rendered redundant or superfluous.
Yeah, but this time Robbie is too much of "oh, this didn't happen in that 'scandalized' way, rather happened like I tell you, writing this book" vibe. He underestimates almost every exaggeration in the stories, with Jim in the center. Exaggerated maybe, yet in accordance with Morrison's daily choices. But, yeah I know, Krieger warns us about the probable existence of these kinds of Jim-experiences. He accepts Jim's sometimes obnoxious mostly irritating but somehow sweet-in-a-way manners, saying he'd reply with words of sorry, all blush his face and the three music afficionados would forgive whatever their rebellious, dark, beautiful poet\singer had done just 10 minutes ago on the stage or in a bar in a car wherever whatever... Some hours ago, I realized that whoever was a friend or an acquaintance to Jim, they all were in love with him. Awestruck, in other words. All jaws dropped with just a glance to his stature+face+movements+hands+boots+white|shirt+leather pants, oh the leather pants! Before I listened to Robby Krieger's book 'Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with the Doors' from 2021, I was - once again - into grunge stories, explicitly about Layne/Kurt/Cornell/Dave/Pfaff. Whatever.. So many years later, I jumped into the water while the so-called "lizard king" is also in. Electrifying and most-effective stories staggering one's psyche and reminding us of this essential truth: prophet or not, this man awakens the minds entering his world, be it just from a tiny corner or taking a huge place in Jim's life - like Pam, his other hook-ups, the drinking, the potent acid trips, his ambition or rather proclivity to take revenge on his father+mother. It's crazy. Crazy. [see: Almost Famous] Once illuminated with his light, go beside him. He'll always be there. American god of new Greeks.
Initially, I had read this book on two different occasions and was fascinated by it. But come to find out years later, the book is loaded with falsities and was also an inspiration for that overblown Oliver Stone movie, which Ray Manzerek totally despised of. I’ll no longer recommend this book to anyone else.
This HAS to be an ABRIDGED reading because there is NO WAY this entire book can be read aloud in just over an hour.....Not really complaining as much as just saying😶
Anybody know why that Howard Smith intwrview from......i think 1970....was so contentious from the begining.....the journaliat practically called him a fat anti semite......i just was amazed at the obvious contempt he had for Jim...anyone know if there was a history beforehand?
This sounds pretty true to form according to the other autobiographies. If it's embellished it's not really embellished that much. It sounds like Jim Morrison died of heart failure. But we will never know. A psychopathic personality. Created by the drug culture of the 60s? Or the outpouring of a creative mind?
unfortunately, with everything we now know, this rendition of morrison's biography is not exactly the best archive. The Remainder of the doors dubbed this book 'nothing here but a bunch of lies. But like Levar Burton taught us, you don't have to take my word for it. sincerely a voracious Doors collector.
@@missingremote4388 He could have done any number of different things instead of "getting high", as you stated. But, & this is crucial, often for JM ingesting a drink/drug for its "high" effect WAS a valuable, worthwhile goal in & of itself. So, a judgement such as yours (Shame on you! Look what you COULD have accomplished in life instead of wasting away your talents & potential!) is anathema in his case, as well as irrelevant & particularly unfair. For the majority of his life, Morrison would never have assumed, as your comment implicitly assumes, that drug use (even if excessive and/or frequent, even if illegal or censured) is wrong.
I read all of the biographies and it matches up pretty close if they embellished it it wasn't by very much. Maybe one or two scenes just to up the drama. Seems pretty accurate.
@@DJBOOTS378 No, he really doesn't. Danny worked for the band for years after the book. I've read plenty of interviews with them. I've never seen one word about them talking negatively of the book
@@MrOctober44 I read the book in 1980 when it first came out. I believed it for about a year. No Internet back in those days. Did some hard research. Things just didn’t add up. Read Robbie Krieger‘s book and Frank Liscindranos. Compare them, and you will see what the truth is.
Id say jim was closer to 185 at his chuppiest ...because he WAS 5'11.....while not giant ,he was slightly taller than average. ...and id say he prolly was about 140 at his thinnest
