the doors made billy idol !!!

Ill disagree with that. Rick Wright did the same type of thing in the 70s, just to name one. Manzarek wasnt that great, he seemed to rely on the same type of melody and sound, and that was like a freekin carnival piano player. The only true musician in the band was Kreiger, and possibly densmore to some extent.

 

I hopped in here after alice_d_millionaire just because it was interesting to me that you put a picture of a young Jerry Garcia in a thread about The Lizard King. Jerry IMHO did more for opening up people's minds than any of The Doors but that isn't even why I wanted to get in on this.

In 1971 I was 16 the same age as some of you. I am imagining your eyes rolling in your heads thinking something like "Here we go, an old coot talking" Which is a valid point & I would likely do the same @ your age. The thing is that having been there at the time listening to what was happening gave me a perspective that maybe you wouldn't have. I also read No One Gets Out of Here Alive which I think is a pretty good biography of Jim Morrison. A pretty good read as far as biographies go too.

One thing I feel that is necessary to say is that, yes, Jim had substance issues but if you disregard his work because of that you also have to throw out the work of some very important people throughout history. Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski (oh, hell most of the beat poets), Charley Parker, John Coltrane, The Grateful Dead, Beatles, CSNY, Allman Brothers (again the majority of that genre) Toulouse Lautrec. All had their daemons, most some sort of drug. Our world wouldn't be what it is without these people. I have heard it said that if they didn't have their substance of choice to go to they wouldn't have been able to handle the places that their mind took them to as they went into their creations, some were truly able to channel what they found in their psychotropic journeys into their work. I'm not saying that this is the only way to create or that all artists need something to create but for some it was the answer, that is what helped them through to do what we love them for. There are of course many cases where we also lost these same people & others because of the substances but maybe it is like a light bulb that the vacuum seal is gone & it burns extremely brightly for a short time with the oxygen.

As for the lineage thing. I suppose that we should thank Friedrich Nietzsche, that Native who Jim saw as a boy dying in the car accident. Both were important building blocks in Jim's life & thinking. The blues, jazz, & early Rock & Rollers that came before The Doors. They learned from them & created their "Doors Sound" from that. In some way, weirdly enough, it could be said that bands like Dave Clark Five & the rest of those "British invasion" bands. If it wasn't for them also being on the scene The Doors, again, would be different or at least people would think of them different. The Rolling Stones & The Beatles may be the biggest influences in some ways. They brought into limelight the "nastier" sound that The Doors (particularly Jim's voice) possessed in their own way. I'll just mention The Beatles psychodelia briefly as it seems so obvious that I don't thing that it needs much explaining.

Jim had a way with words that few possess. True, they flourished under Ray's, Robbie's, & John's music but if you listen to The Spy, People are strange, Crawling King Snake, or The End. I think they all stand on their own without the instruments as was so well demonstrated when Val Kilmer sang The Spy to Meg Ryan. Val isn't anywhere in the same league with Jim vocally but when he did that a copella as they were sitting on the steps it really was the first time that I have thought of Jim's melodies in the way I do now. I always loved his poetry. He, Dylan, Donovan, Art Garfunkel, Roger McGuinn, Don McLean, Dewey Bunnell are all poets first, musicians who have used their talents to combine the two. Stevie Nicks falls into those ranks too IMHO but she is more of a storyteller.

Jim was sex. It dripped from his aura. That is something that Billy Idol shares with him. In my teen years I had no concept that I was bi but Jim made me hot. I wished I could be anywhere near him. I would have licked his leather jeans if he wanted me to. There is some possibility that he was one of the influences that caused me to realize that I am bi. When Billy came onto the scene I finally figured it out so along with his balls out musical style I was able to have an Adonis to watch as I listened to those great tunes.

 

well said snowdancer.....

i didnt mean for this discussion to turn into being about our love/hate relationships with Jim Morrison... i just heard Billy Idol sing and reminded me of Jim. I prefer Jim to Billy any day but.... ahhhhhh well. Jim had to die... I couldn't see him getting old. I dont think it wouldve been possible.....

I love "People are Strange" and "The End" those are some of my favorite songs by The Doors along with "One to Five"..... but in all honesty, I don't love "Light My Fire" all that much. I'm partial to Jim's darker works, I guess you could call 'em.

Anyway.... rock on good people.

All the children are insane.......waiting for the summer rain....

 

Silly me... I always thought Billy Idol came from Generation X

 

man, i just read my post again, and it sounds like i hate morrison. its quite the contrary... anyway, the man is an influence on my writing, so i do have an appreciation for him. just so you know, not that anyone cares... WOKKA WOKKA WOKKA!!!

 

no man,you made a good point. Jim would've been nothing without the Doors to play beautiful music for him to sing over. He needed them. They needed him too. And they SO deserve credit for being smart enough to put Jim in the front. They were waaay hip because they didnt have over-inflated egos and wanted all the attention. They knew Jim was the star , Jim was gonna sell, so they let him take the credit. That's not to say Jim didn't deserve it, Morrison was really something else... but those guys were top-notch musicians. No-one even knows their names....


ahhh..... but I love Jim Morrison and I love The Doors.

Even if he was a drunken lunitic... so what?

hee hee hee ... rock on hip people.

 

JIM WAS A POET!!!HE WAS A POET LONG BEFORE HE BECAME DEPENDENT ON BOOZE!!!

 

i think i just vomited all over my keyboard....yes, yes i did. but i'm not going to mean to you about this, just like to point out there were much more brilliant thinkers to come out of this era, and morrison was more or less just riding on their coat tails. he didn't change the world at all, and it's a shame that those who did lose the credit to a pop idol.

i like morrison and the doors, but i like them for what they are, and wish they weren't blown so out of proportion.

 

Ill agree that Manzerek isnt that good. All keyboard players are supposed to be able to play different things in their left and right hands! Ray Manzerek relied on a very few basic ideas.

Hell, even I play keyboard bass and organ at the same time in my own group.

 

yes, manzarek was a mediocre keyboardist, and their music, while jazz oriented, could never be called jazz because none of them were technically capable jazz musicians.

 

the guys in the soft machine were much more technical.

but its not technique that makes good rock and roll anyway

 

well, the point was that they aren't jazz musicians. because they can't swing.

 

I'd like to ask madcrappie, where the hell did Rick Wright play bass lines? It was all Roger Waters in that department. True Rick Wright used a cheesy Farfisa Organ in the late 60's to early 70's, but he never ever used a Fender Rhodes Piano Bass for basslines. They had Roger for that.

And yes Manzerek is a kick ass keyboard player, because he basically was a primary musical driving force of the band. He played intricate basslines (better than some bass guitarists I may add) with his left hand, and keyboard leads, rhythms, and comps with his right.

I think the only 3 people that come close to that is either John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin (although he used bass pedals with his feet to make most of the basslines on songs where he plays keyboards), Geddy Lee of Rush (playing bass guitar with his left hand and keyboards with just his right, plus other things with bass pedals like that wierd synth lazer noise Tom Sawyer or the synth lead of Freewill), or Mike Rutherford of Genesis (playing a doubleneck bass/12-string and a set of bass pedals).

 

he didnt play intricate bass lines. he pretty much plays the same bass line in every song. he just arpegiates the chords mostly.

ive seen lots of doors videos...

 

Well yeah, but it's still better than a lot of bass players.