Jim Morrison Lost Paris tape?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

For anyone interested the transcript of the so called Last recording session from Paris just before Jim died as recorded by "JOMO & THE SMOOTHIES" (Jim Morrison and two unknown street musicians)
Still argument reigns over the authenticity of this session....no one doubts its Jim but many feel it is a Los Angeles session.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

THE LOST PARIS SESSION.
Yeah!

Nod your head if you ... you know ... Alright. Alright, now I ... I get 25% of everything that happens, right?

Fantastic ... got your action covered, Jim.

'Cos I brought 'em in here - alright?

Fantastic.

Now these cats are outta sight ... right?
(Guitar tuning)
Sort of fun, sort of ... fucked ...

Do we have more than one minute?

Oh yeah, we have as long as we want, man. Alright, what do you guys wanna sing?

I wanna sing uh ... You guys think of a song, man, that was like a ... I wanna ....

Uh, let him start, you know, he's a ...

I wanna play "Come On Baby, I Want To Dance With My Indigo Sugar", d'you know that?

No wait, let's ... I'll put the ... I'll put the mike in here, we can ... we can all sing. We can all sing.

D'you know ... d'you know ... d'you know "Come On Baby, I Want To Dance With My Indigo Sugar?"

Hey ... if you're ever ... anything you wanna get in here ... get it ... way in here ... No, I don't ...
(Laughter)

D'you know "I Want To Dance With My Indigo Sugar"?

No, I don't know that song, I'm sorry.

(Guitar Tuning)

... get some tuning. What the hell's he's doing? The universe is in tune. It's probably an ordered universe.

Oh, he's a poet, y'know. Poet. He don't know it. He's a Longfeller!

(Singing) It's probably an ordered universe - seen 93 billion million miles from here to walk Taurus ... d'you know that one?

You guys gotta get in tune, then I can get in tune with you.

I can't tune this one, so maybe it'd be better if you worked on that one.

Yeah, he doesn't ... he's not an instrumentalist, really.

I'm more of a ... a suburban ... in ... industrialist.

Give him ... no, give him your tune.

You think we're doing the right thing?

He ... no, he's ... he's got one, one of those chords on him ... Beautiful cigar, man. I see why Fidel is just always...

Yeah, you have to bite the ends off!

... outta sight ... uh ... you don't have to bite the end off that!

You gonna be a suburban ... sub ... suburban industrialist, you have to! (Laughter) I think they're pressing us ... Hello Mother!

Uh no, they're tolerating us until we get our asses in gear, right?

They've got nothing better to do, have they? ... You think so? Should I act straighter?

No, give 'em a little ... give 'em a little ...

Give 'em a little soul?

Let 'em know you're where they're at.

Artistry.

No, no, just a little ... assholetry ... (singing) Weeellll I used to know her ... but she was ten feet tall ...

... and she had blue eyes ...

I don't, get ... hey, let's get in tune, come on.

I dunno.

Hey, forget it, it doesn't matter - he's ... he'll never get in tune, man, he's not a musician ... I'm a singer ... He's ...

Hey, I think he's got one extra string on it. He must be a poet.

Hey, c'mon, give me it ... well, we'll get it half-way there anyway.

I'm tryin' harder ... wait, I'll try real hard this time ... How's that?

That's beautiful, man - you are really outta sight, you, you know ... I would, I would suspect ...

They're looking bored in there.

Uh, yeah ... it's ... uh ... an'I, I don't ... I don't blame 'em.

O.K.? Alright?

Hey listen, I ... um, hey, would you give us a ... an audition? You know, just pretend like we're just some nutty group, came in, and somehow ... they carted me into an audition ... (scratching noise) ... uh ... would you nod yes if you ...?

One of those guys passed out.

Uh I think ... that's ...

When he nodded his head, man, he fell backwards.
(Laughter)
No...
He said yes, O.K.
O.K.

Starting now!

A-one, a-two, a-three ...
(Guitar picking)

I like it ... not bad ... Hey you, you cats really go good together, you really do ...

Who's he?

Hey, remember this goes on for about a half an hour, so you better just ...

Forty-five minutes.
(Laughter)

O.K., now you name the song and we'll play it. Anything ... anything ... how about uh ... "Mr Five Feet Five"? D'you know that one?

I was ... I was hoping you'd ask that (laughs) (scratching noise) ... want a puff? ... "Little Miss Five Feet Five" ... Oh, no, wait a minute, wait, what d'you want to play?

Anything, anything at all, just play.
How about "Three Little Fishes, They Swam To The Sea"?

No, no, I ... let's ... no ... do, no, do a real song, man ... How 'bout this one? ... Ready? Now listen, I got a favourite ... I wrote this myself ... Ssssh ... c'mon ... (singing) Well I used to know someone fair ... uh ... (clap) ... she had orange ribbons in her hair. She was such a trip, she was hardly there, but I (handclapping) love her, just the same. (guitar solo including "Ghost Riders In The Sky") Well, I got t'know someone fair ... she had ... orange ... ribbons in her hair! She was something fair ... T.V. maniac - he wouldn't care ... I would care ... I'd care ... Such a hard road long to seek it ... such a one good thing to freak it ... such a one now would not care ... wish I was the one that's there ... yeah, come on ... y'gotta - wo! ... yeah! ... Kill 'em!!! ... (spoken) Uh - uh ... I didn't mean 'kill 'em', I just meant ... You gettin' that there?! ... (singing) Yeah ... Oh she used to have some fair so hair, just as if there was no-one out there ... disappears ... Yes, her friend had a baby, she could not resist ... yes, there was no-one who could ... break through a window, yeah, knocked on her door ... friend wouldn't answer, but ... she's still home ... well, her father has passed over, and her sister is a star, and her mother smokes diamonds, and sleeps out in the car ... Yeah, but she remembers Chicago, the musicians and guitars, grass by the lake, and people who laugh'd, make her poor heart ache ... Now we live out on the valley, we work down on the farm, we climb up to the mountains, and ... (sound of maracas) ... everything's fine ... you're still mine ... I'm still yours ... you're still mine ... da-da-da, da-da-da ...
Hey, you wanna hear that? (music stops)

Yeah.

Just for the hell of it, you know.

He's kind of ridiculous.

Really ridiculous, man, I think it's ridiculous.

He didn't tape that.

Mm-mm.

Sure they did.
Oh, they couldn't have taped that, man.

We ordered 'em to.

Fuck.

I'd like to hear it ... just to hear how fucked we were ...
(Tape ends.)

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jim Morrison Lost Paris Tapes

"The real must for everybody who is a fan and lover of Jim Morrison's poetry. This CD contains Jim Morrison's complete first poetry session before Paul Rothchild cut it up into little pieces to see what could be used for the Elektra release An American Prayer ( this Rothchild version was stolen from his desk and used for many bootlegs, including the LP Rock Is Dead (Tangie Town Records), and Orange County Suite (Document Records DR 019), to name the best ones) and also the complete tape Jim recorded in Paris with two unknown street musicians (see The Doors Quarterly #32 for the complete transcript). The content of both tapes was - as rumors go - taken via DAT recorder from the original master Jim had with him in Paris (see The Doors Quarterly #31 for the complete story of The Lost Paris Tapes). I had the chance to listen to the original reel-to-reels before they were sold to a collector in Germany and I compared the length of the reel tape to the one on the CD - no difference.
When I say complete, I mean uncut. And this is the most important thing about this CD - sure: some of the poems have been published on countless bootlegs before, but in worse quality and - cut. On this CD you can hear Jim pouring some liquid (I guess it wasn't mineral water) into a glass, you hear him turning pages, lightening matches, asking how much time was left and so on and on. On Radio Dark Night (Take 1) the engineer (John Haeny) made a mistake (he recorded it using a filter) so this track had to be recorded twice (I'm surprised he didn't rewind the tape). The biggest surprise on this CD is the uncut version of Orange County Suite which Jim did during the poetry session. We all know from previous releases the first part of this swan song to Pamela Courson, but nobody ever heard the complete recording like it was printed in Jim's poetry collection Wilderness. It's fun to check Wilderness and The American Night for the poems featured on this CD. It's no fun to check what parts of the poems had been cut out for An American Prayer, what great material hadn't been used and what poems had been cut together. This CD is an ideal source to see how Jim really worked, how he intended his poetry to be cut on tape, carefully choosing word for word, intonation and volume of his voice. This is the real thing, fans, in excellent quality, and the perfect addition to the recently released official poetry album An American Prayer.
Well, the 14-minute Paris session is a real tough one! Undoubtedly, the band named Jomo And The Smoothies were drunk. Or they were on another substance, nobody knows. And they were bad! As bad as any other amateur band being drunk in a studio. I don't know what kind of instrument one of the guys has, certainly one using strings to produce a sound - but he's not even able to tune it! (Jim seems to be amused ...)
Every song the "guitarist" suggests fails - Jim doesn't know them (I'm the singer ...). So finally, after some funny chats, they stumble into a weird version of Orange County Suite (compare it to the version taped during the poetry session!). Jim forgets the words, shouts out loud the ones he remembers, mixes them up - booze ... So - what's so interesting about those 14 minutes? Well, this is most likely the last thing Jim ever recorded, and it is probably the only thing he recorded while being in Paris. A true document from his last days - remember, the man died 2 weeks later! And - it wasn't a planned thing - it was done on the spot using a pseudonym (Jomo And The Smoothies). And - this CD was made from the original tape (as the liner notes say), so it is in the best quality you could imagine. And - it's new! Finally a new, totally unpublished recording that might survive as a piece of history in Jim Morrison's story, presented on this CD in superb sound quality. The first pressing came with a colour picture CD, the second pressing came with a black and white CD. The soundquality is the same.
As the liner notes from the booklet say - this is Jim Morrison's one and only solo album, and it's right - no other bootleg album is better and more intense than The Lost Paris Tapes. A nice booklet using some of Alain Ronay's photos from a village near Chantilly (taken a few days before Jim died) is included, and this one also features two photos of the original boxes which preserved the two tapes. In general - this CD is an absolute MUST for each fan, and it is highly RECOMMENDED!"

01. JIM MORRISON POETRY SESSION - 36:48
FAR ARDEN: Radio Dark Night (Take 1)/ Radio Dark Night (Take Two)/ A Vast Radiant Beach (Awake)/ Moonshine Night/ Frozen Moment By A Lake/ Bird Of Prey/ Dawn's HWY/ Under Waterfall/ The Hitchhiker/ Winter Photography/ Whiskey, Mystics And Men/ Orange County Suite/ All Hail The American Night/ Far Arden Poem/ Texas Radio & The Big Beat #1 (Letter From Shirley)/
TALES FROM THE AMERICAN NIGHT: The American Night/ The Holy Sha/ Hitler/ Latino Chrome/ To Come Of Age - Black Polished Chrome/ Search On, Man/ Indian, Indian (Sirens And Horns Honking)/ Woman In The Window/ A Vision Of America: From The Book Of Days - A Vision Of America - Motel, Money, Murder, Madness/ Earth, Air, Fire, Water/ Discovery (Angels & Sailors)/ Now Listen To This (Texas Radio & The Big Beat #2)/ Stoned Immaculate/ White Blind Light (Thank You, O Lord)

02. Orange County Suite (from 01.) - 5:26

03. Whiskey, Mystics and Men (from 01.) - 1:48

04. LAST RECORDING SESSION: Guitar Tuning & Chats/ Orange County Suite - 14:32

from Doors4ly

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

As with most things Doors its hard to discern what is myth and reality and many doubt that the 14 minutes of Jomo & The Smooties was in fact recorded in Paris in June 1971. Rather a drunken episode in an LA studio.
Here is what Rainer Modderman says about the session in his "Jim Morrison's Quiet Days In Paris" piece.
Gilles Yepremian who met Morrison for a brief moment in Paris comes down on the side of the Paris recording.


"On one of his walks through the narrow streets of St-Germain des-Près one day he discovered a recording studio, and went there again on June 16th to listen to a reel-to-reel tape of the poetry he had recorded in March 1969 in Los Angeles. On stepping out of the studio in search of liquid refreshment, he stumbled upon two young American street musicians who were playing guitar in front of the Café de Flore. He decided on the spot to buy them a drink. Later in the afternoon he invited them to a spontaneous recording session in the studio he had just come from. Everybody was already drunk. Jim told the engineer it was his own band called Jomo And The Smoothies and paid for an hour of recording.

"I get twenty-five percent of everything that happens, right?" he told the musicians. The others tuned their guitars. This took a fairly long time while the tape was running, and it sounded horrible. Jim grinned "They're tolerating us until we get our asses in gear." he said.

But the three musicians failed to make decent recordings of songs they knew, although one guitarist suggested songs like 'Little Miss Five Feet Five', 'Three Little Fishes' and 'I Wanna Dance With My Indigo Sugar'. Even when it came to his own material, Jim couldn't quite remember all the lyrics of his ode to Pamela, 'Orange County Suite', screaming and yelling the hazy parts. The session ended after only 14 minutes and the engineer cut the tape. Jim and the two others listened to the tape again, but decided not to record more. Jim scribbled "JOMO AND THE SMOOTHIES" onto the box and put it into a plastic bag in which he also put the poetry tape and a few other belongings."
Jim Morrison's Quiet Days In Paris
Doors 4ly by Rainer Moddemann

[stuart]

To the people who think that the paris jomo and the smoothies session was NOT recorded in paris at all then think of this....

WHY would jim BRING a session THAT bad to paris?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

stuart said:

To the people who think that the paris jomo and the smoothies session was NOT recorded in paris at all then think of this....

WHY would jim BRING a session THAT bad to paris?

Why wouldn't he..?
Maybe he thought it was a laff...maybe it was stuck on the end of the other tape...maybe he did not bring it and someone brought it across for him....?
we know next to nothing really of Jim and Pams time in Paris...who they met what they did...a few snippets about thier Afriacan trip and bits of thier meetings with Ronay, Muller etc but there are huge chunks of that visit we know NOTHING of.....
Its easy to say yes what Gilles and Rainer say are the facts but we have no real evidence .....someone looked at the pictures of the reels once and said they were in inches which would be unlikely in Paris...but then someone could have brought American tape over so its not impossible....same with the thing about the accent of the engineer....just because someone had an American accent did not mean they were not working in Paris.
Myself I have not got a clue whats true or not and the tape is of mild interest as a neat bit of Morrison history...I'm just glad the poetry session fell into the hands of a bootlegger...

[ac]

TheWallsScreamedPoetry, thanks for trancription! %)