Music Banter - The Official The Doors/Jim Morrison Thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petula07 (Post 926226)

Hi, has somebody seen movie or DVD When You're Strange? Your opinion about it?

I saw it and I was a bit disappointed because there's wasn't a lot of new information about the saga of Jim Morrison and the Doors in the documentary.

I did learn a little bit more about Robbie Krieger's highly unorthodox guitar style. I never realized he played most of his guitar parts in open tunings using a right hand finger picking style. I also didn't realize he used a bottleneck on many of most memorable guitar leads. Apparently Robbie was almost as good a songwriter as Morrison, but it really didn't matter because all the Doors shared the songwriting credits and royalties regardless of the principal composer. It was very generous of Morrison to share credit with the band for every song he wrote.

The late Ray Manzarek was also a highly unconventional keyboard player. Since the Doors didn't have a bass player, Manzarek used a
Fender Rhodes Piano Bass to play the bass parts with his left hand while using his right hand to play the organ/piano parts on Gibson Kalamazoo G101 organ, which was his main touring keyboard rig from 1967 to 1970.

No film or documentary maker has ever investigated the murky circumstances of Jim Morrison's death. Jim's mysterious death has become the 500 lb gorilla in the kitchen that no one wants to talk about.

I've never been completely comfortable with the "official story" on the cause of Morrison's death. There is a credible story that Morrison died of a heroin overdose at the Rock 'n' Roll Circus, a nightclub on the French capital's fabled Left Bank. According to Sam Bernett, 62, a French-born former New York Times journalist, the death was then covered up by two drug dealers who transferred Morrison's body from the club to the singer's apartment and dumped it in the bath. The complete story is at this link: Jim Morrison's Death

At the time, Jim's girlfriend Pamela Courson was addicted to heroin and Jim frequently visited the Rock 'n' Roll Circus to obtain heroin for her. Morrison snorted heroin but never mainlined it as Pamela did. On the early morning hours on the morning of his death Morrison visited the club to pick up drugs for Pamela. He stayed around an drank vodka and beer with Marianne Faithfull, who was living with Jim & Pamela following her breakup with Mick Jagger.

According to Bernett, Jim wandered off to the club's restroom and sampled a lethal amount of heroin in a stall and was found by the same two drug dealers who sold the heroin to Morrison. It's possible that the dealers provided Morrison with a needle to shot up the drugs. If Jim was a relatively inexperience user of heroin even a small quantity of smack had the potential to be lethal, especially if mainlined and used in combination with alcohol.

According to Bernett, the dealers moved Morrison's body through a rear exit of the club, and taken to his apartment where his body was left in the bathtub. It's not clear if the drug dealers had conspired with the club owners or Ms. Faithfull to move his body. Marianne Faithfull abruptly flew back to England on the same morning, even before there was an official announcement of his death. Under those circumstance, the two drug dealers could be charged with 2nd degree murder under French law and Pamela Courson could be charged as an accessory before the fact. If Marianne Faithfull introduced Jim to the dealers or provided him with the lethal needle he used to shot it, she could have been charged as an accessory, as well. Jim's death made things really messy for a lot of people in his orbit on the morning of his death.

Max Vassille, a compliant French doctor, was happy to write off Morrison's demise as "death from natural causes", pointing out that the singer had been suffering from a serious stomach ulcer and asthma attacks after moving from America earlier in the year. He ruled that no autopsy was required, as there was "no evidence of foul play".

Without any autopsy or postmortem drug test, French officials ruled that Morrison died of natural causes. Pamela Courson immediately had Jim Morrison's body cremated and buried. It just seems a bit "off" that a previously healthy 27 year old young man would die of "natural causes." Later the doctor's report said that Morrison died of cardiac arrest, which is the most common form of death from a heroin overdose. For the record Dr. Max Vassille was a private practice physician with no experience as a coroner.

Pamela Courson had sufficient motive to cover up Jim's death. Under French law, as Morrison's common law wife (she even changed her name to "Morrison") she inherited Jim Morrison's entire estate including all future royalties from his music. However, if she was implicated in the death of Jim Morrison she would lose all inheritance rights. If she sent Jim off to purchase the heroin that killed him, she stood to lose her legal claim to the Morrison estate.

There's a lot of good reasons for the other principal parties to cover up the cause of Jim's death. The nightclub owner stood to lose his cabaret license for allowing drug dealers in the Rock 'n' Roll Circus. The club was one of the most notorious drug distribution spots and Paris and was under the close watch of the French police at the time of Morrison's death.

Journalist Sam Bernett was in the club at the time Morrison died and was warned by the club's owners never to tell anybody about what he had seen, when he began poking around at the circumstances surrounding Jim's death.

Both Pamela Courson and Marianne Faithful were junkies at the time and stood to be implicated for contributing to Jim Morrison's death. Pamela sent him to procure the lethal heroin and Marianne may have had a role in encouraging Jim to sample the drug while he was in the club. Marianne hasn't spoken about Jim Morrison's death for 40 years and it's likely that she will go to the grave without speaking about it. Pamela Courson died in 1974 of a heroin overdose in Las Angeles.