Dumpster Bust Reviews: Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend by Stephen Davis - Page 2

Davis also does a good job in displaying a Morrison that was many things to many people. He led a secretive, transient life in which various groups of friends, lovers, and confidantes knew little to nothing about one another. Therefore, it’s not surprising that figures such as Patricia Kennealy and Linda Ashcroft emerged with full-length, intimate, and detailed memoirs about their “special” lives and affairs with Jim Morrison. I would have liked to have heard more about the veracity of Ashcroft’s story in particular. Her memoir, Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison is a well written, engaging, and detailed read that is written by either a master yarn spinner or a woman whose influential relationship with The Doors’ front man miraculously missed the notice of every other important figure in his life.

There are a few shortcomings in this otherwise excellent biography. Davis has authoritarian views on the quality of each of The Doors' albums and songs. For instance, Strange Days is called out as the “one true masterpiece” while songs off later albums, such as “Running Blue” and “Wishful Sinful,” are blithely discarded as disposable filler tracks. Not true at all, this Doors fan says.

It also appeared that Davis had some kind of axe to grind with the surviving Doors, and in particular keyboardist Ray Manzarek. It wouldn’t surprise me if Davis was miffed at the original Doors co-founder for not cooperating with this latest biography, as Manzarek is consistently called out as a “rigid ideologue” and callous capitalist. Other biographies don’t leave this impression at all. In fact, my take, after reading Manzarek’s excellent memoir, Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors, is that Manzarek was the sunny ying to Morrison’s dark yang. Together, they provided the spark to The Doors’ propulsive force as a groundbreaking blues-psychedelic-art rock entity.

Overall, Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend can be considered a landmark biography of the poet and rock star’s life, a history of a complex man as well as the history of a turbulent time in America.

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Article Author: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin is the publisher of Online Media Cultist. He's also prone to referring to himself in the third person in author bios in an attempt to make it look like someone Less Important wrote it for him.
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