“27″ Club Member Jim Morrison, 36 Years Later
On this day in 1971, the legendary Jim Morrison joined the ‘27′ club, dying in Paris of an apparent heart attack at age 27.
I’ll admit, I’m more a casual Doors fan than a diehard. I can recognize and appreciate the brilliance, but some of it feels a bit masturbatory after awhile. In the same way I get tired of guitarists who can are technical geniuses but unimaginative, I get bored with lyricists who almost have as much to say as they think they do. Morrison struck me as one of those guys. He was charismatic and capable of brilliance. He could also drain the energy from a song with his wanton overwriting. I’ve said this about Bowie and I think it applies to Morrison as well: you’re not really experimenting if you don’t fall flat on your face every once in awhile. Morrison swung and missed on occasion, but his mighty swings were in the pursuit of something of bigger; even his misses are fascinating on that level.
If forced to choose, my favorite Doors’ albums are the first and last, their self-titled debut and L.A. Woman. There were good songs in between, but I’m less likely to listen to one of their in-between albums from beginning to end.
Yesterday, I took time to remember the passing of Mark Sandman. Sandman was a unique artist, but an obscure one. Morrison was an artist, a poet, a singer, and a frontman and through that he become something more. He is a legend, an icon. His name is evocative, his image provacative. Morrison has now been dead longer than he lived, but his legacy lives on no matter how hard some of his former bandmates try to kill it.
Filed under: Tags: Musical Musings and Random Ramblings
“but some of it feels a bit masturbatory after awhile.”
with or without finger knives? ;&)