marianne and the death of jim morrison

Marianne in 1971. (2014 (c) Created with the assistance of Adel Kuptsoff . Company KGIS. All rights protected).

It's more a sign of the times than anything else, that when a newspaper finds a story it's often come from another source rather than their own investigation or questions.
Such was this mornings report in a column at the bottom of an inside page in The Daily Telegraph, plus a couple of news blogs in previous days, about an interview in this months MOJO magazine sensationally declaring -
"Marianne Faithfull knew who had killed Jim Morrison".
Astounding news you might think. And a few years ago, probably highly libelous. But as Marianne explained in her interview all the participants in such affair are long gone. She now being the only one left close to those shadowy events in 1971.

It seems the whole revelation had come to light when a previous and somewhat leading question had been put to her by a French journalist, "Why did you kill Jim Morrison?".
A bizarre enough question in itself given there's hardly been a ground swell of opinion that Marianne had ever doomed the Lizard King to his death in the first place. But Marianne had decided on this occasion, which even more surprisingly assumes she's been asked this question before (!), that instead of flying at this scum raking journo she would take the whole question very seriously and tell the hack exactly what she thought had happened.

Which basically amounts to her boyfriend at the time, and it really doesn't matter who that was except like herself he had been into the dreaded 'horse' at the time, and most likely taken some around to Jim's flat who'd then overdosed on the stronger than expected package.
Well yes.. that's not an unlikely scenario with many drug overdoses. You could think of similar cases with the same outcome caused by someone either laying off for some time and then going back to their old dose or just the dope was too pure. Back in the fall out of a drug addled late 60's the dream looked more than over for a few having gone down that particular route.
And given that at the time the francaise Police found no suspicious circumstances of Jim's death there was no autopsy as a result, as is the way in the investigation of such deaths then, if not still now. But you have to think the story is as possible a set of circumstances as any.

So there it was after all these years. The story as Marianne saw it anyway. She also said she'd had a fare amount of foreboding about this particular evening and took a couple of sleepers (turinol) to put herself completely out of the picture.
So in the end it can only be supposition and Marianne's suspicion, although you can be sure there's not enough real evidence to stop a load of conspiracy loons continuing to think Jim Morrison never did meet his maker that night or any other time.

But there is also another question and one that never seems to come up -
Why was Jim Morrisin's body never taken home to the States ?
The grave plot itself is certainly in Paris and still visited by many fans. It's there for all to see in pictures and film.
But how come Jim's body was buried there ? so far from his homeland. Most families go to any expense to bring their loved ones home. Had Jim been abandoned by his family ? Or had he disowned them to the extent he could never be forgiven for this family betrayal ?

There was an early period of his life when he denied knowing who his parents were but to deny that bit of Jim fiction there's a rather famous picture of him standing with his father, Admiral Stephen George Morrison no less, on the bridge of his battleship (picture right).
Which makes the whole business of Jim not being repatriated back to the family even more odd.
This was a very middle class family and that would be most unlike a high ranking member of the forces to appear so unjust. Plus, if the middle classes are about anything it's most certainly about "appearances".
To add further poignancy to the event at the time..

"Admiral Morrison was the keynote speaker at the decommissioning ceremony for Bon Homme Richard, his first ship as an Admiral, on July 3, 1971 in Washington D.C., the same day his son, rock musician Jim Morrison, died in Paris, France at age 27."
WIKI ARTICLE

George Stephen Morrison, Jim's father lived until 2008, and said nothing about anything.

A few years back in asking a life long resident of Montmartre, that great bohemian quarter of Paris, "So why didn't Jim Morrisons body return to his home in the States?".. he answered without hesitation "Yes, why wasn't it ?".
His look was a giveaway but his words meant he wasn't going to say anything else.
It's unlikely Marianne has the answer to that question either.

r-evolution revaluates the doors

It's always seemed a bit of a mystery why The Doors never released much footage from their 1970 performance at the Isle Of Wight Festival and as it was just 4 months later on December 12th the band played their last performance with Jim Morrison you would have thought that film stock would've been a precious commodity.
Bootlegs of the soundtrack eventually circulated in later years and these days there's some good quality FLAC files sitting around the web, but the film has taken a whole lot longer to surface.
It's probably more likely the whole thing comes down to who owns what, and until some people start dying off or time starts running out that's how it's gonna stay.
Although that still doesn't explain why parts of the footage have shown up, in particular the songs "The End", "When The Music's Over" and now thanks to this December's DVD release of 'The Doors R-evolution' one more track is shown of the IOW footage with 'Break On Through To The Other Side'.
With this release it does rather confirm a possible and very good reason for the missing IOW film. The lighting is nearly non existent. DIm and murky.
It's rumoured one JM wanted lights out for more than this concert over fears he might be shot at from the audience. If true, what ever it was Jim was into or had been taking it had produced a fairly high level of paranoia.
Although at the time it might even be seen as rather a trend of the times for several out of face years in rock stardom you just might just believe "they are out to get me".. conversely at the same time other lesser lights with substantial egos might also be concluding "if not me, then why not". But after all that lets not rule out Jim might have just liked hearing the music and singing in the dark.
No. the plain truth of the IOW footage is for what ever reason lights were dimmed, it rarely flickers above candlelight. The one spotlight that occasionally falls onto Manzerak or Krieger puts them in stark relief as full technicolour, it then makes you realise how monochrome the rest is. So, here was a last chance to see one of the great rock bands of the 60's and it's in the dark. These really were strange days.

Back then to the new DVD. It does make the story of The Doors a lot easier to evaluate than in previous archive footage. For the first time a compilation of appearances through the bands short life, covering about 3 years of film clips from TV appearances and their own films shows the evolution of the group as much visually as aurally, with added bonus material for the dedicated fan.
"The Deluxe Edition is packaged in a 40 page DVD sized hard back book with a scrapbook style presentation on each track including lyrics, background info, trivia & photos."
The price is reasonable as well, at about £12 (UK). It's a compilation that should have been released years ago. Amazon have it along with others.
Here's the Isle Of Wight footage in all it's dimly lit glory. The music's just fine though.

ray manzerak RIP

Ray Manzerak passed away yesterday. This extract via The Doors Facebook

Manzarek is best known for his work with The Doors who formed in 1965 when Manzarek had a chance encounter on Venice Beach with poet Jim Morrison. The Doors went on to become one of the most controversial rock acts of the 1960s, selling more than 100-million albums worldwide, and receiving 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. alone. “L.A.Woman,” “Break On Through to the Other Side,” “The End,” “Hello, I Love You,” and “Light My Fire” were just some of the band’s iconic and ground-breaking songs. After Morrison’s death in 1971, Manzarek went on to become a best-selling author, and a Grammy-nominated recording artist in his own right. In 2002, he revitalized his touring career with Doors’ guitarist and long-time collaborator, Robby Krieger.
“I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today,” said Krieger. “I’m just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him.”

Ray Manzerak's use of piano and various keyboards brought an instantly identifiable sound to the band. In an era when guitars were the dominant factor in rock his classically influenced invention set the The Doors aside from others. Yet despite the originality it obviously brought to rock music at the time it remained unique to the Doors sound, and although their music has gone on to influence decades of groups since few if any have incorporated the keyboard and piano in such a lead role. That in itself speaks volumes for the musical skill and artistry of Ray Manzerak.
Here is Spanish Caravan live at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968.

the doors

Bruce Botnick producer of The Doors' "L.A.Woman" has been putting together the 40th Anniversary edition of the album and discovered an unreleased track “She Smells So Nice.”
The tracks pretty raw, probably because it was abandoned before finishing, and the vocals are a bit fuzzy but sure enough it's rock and roll 12 bar blues and groove on the side. For any Doors fanatics this is the equivalent of finding gold in the basement. The soundcloud download has since been removed so here's the track from YouTube
Picture taken from the LA Woman sessions.