The JM Disappearance Party/Phantom Album 1974

[darkstar3]

I came across a few photos today from 1974 and matched them against the Phantom Album released the same year. July 3 1974 Ray Manzarek hosted the "Jim Morrison Disappearance Party" at the Whisky. A lot of photos were taken at this event and a few show a guy dressed in black leather that shares a resemblance to the guy who appeared on the front and back covers of the Phantom's Divine Comedy.

Ray Manzarek always denied his involvement in the Phantom album until 1991 when he spoke to an English Magazine.

What follows is three photos taken in 1974 at the Whisky, the Phantom album covers and discussions found at several websites that go back in history that tell the origins of the Phantom LP.













Phantom's Divine Comedy Album (1974)


"Phantom's Divine Comedy Part 1" track listing:
(side 1)

1.) Tales from a Wizard (Phantom) -
2.) Devil's Child (Phantom) -
3.) Calm Before the Storm (Phantom) -
4.) Spiders Will Dance (On Your Face While You Sleep) (Phantom) -


(side 2)

1.) Black Magic/White Magic (Phantom) -
2.) Merlin (Phantom) -
3.) Stand Beside My Fire (Phantom) -
4.) Welcome To Hell (Phantom) -



As a side note, the English music magazine carried an article on the late Jim Morrison. The article included an interview with Ray Manzarek where he actually talked about his brief run-in with Phantom's Divine Comedy. "[The Phantom was] a guy named Ted something-or-else, from Detroit, and he sounded like Jim. He was a weird guy who dressed in black and would only wear silver jewelry". Manzarek even played a couple of songs with Phantom and company at a July 1974 Jim Morrison memorial concert hosted at L.A.'s Whiskey.



We've never seen the interview, but apparently in a 1992 press release it was revealed that Morrison friend Iggy Pop handled the vocals on the LP. Is it true? Beats us ...


www.geocities.com/badcatrecords/PHANTOM.htm


Past Discussion in regards to the Phantom Album:

USA TODAY CHAT SESSION W/RAY MANZAREK Feb 22 2001 updated in 2005:

tyrone, pennsylvania: ray, did you play keyboards and piano on the phantom's divine comedy album?

Ray Manzarek: No, I did not. And the Phantom is not Jim Morrison. His name is Ted something-or-other. But he certainly sounds like Morrison, doesn't he?



THE FREEDOM MAN:

An LP record called Phantom's Divine Comedy was released also in 1974. This was rumored to be Jim Morrison singing with an anonymous band with the names of "drummer X, bassist Y, and keyboardist Z". The music reportedly resembled Jim Morrison's sound quite well. All this again added and sparked the rumor mills, and stirred public fascination.

The vocals,guitar,songwriting and some of the keys was the Late Arthur Pendragon ,Michigan native. There are a few
photo's of Arthur and Ray Manzarek and Iggy Pop. The rest of the
players. Jim Roland...Drums Harold Breedlees ...Bass and Russ Klat.....Keys.
Recorded at Pampa studio's Warren Mi..

Thanks to Gary Gawinek for the info!
www.thefreedomman.com/related/phantom.html

The 'Death' of Jim Morrison
"Rumors, Myths and Urban Legends................."

An LP record called Phantom's Divine Comedy was released also in 1974. This was rumored to be Jim Morrison singing with an anonymous band with the names of "drummer X, bassist Y, and keyboardist Z". The music reportedly resembled Jim Morrison's sound quite well. All this again added and sparked the rumor mills, and stirred public fascination.

However, in a 1992 press released from the Zeppelin group, it is revealed that Morrison pal Iggy Pop was actually doing all the singing and helping the "hoax" along. This added more fuel as to how many people were actually involved in maintaining his "death hoax". Up until the 1992 press release, the record company that had released Phantom had refused to divulge the names on the LP, or the singer's name -- which was indeed Iggy Pop.

Regarding all these rumors, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek stated: "If there was one guy that would have been capable of staging his own death -- getting a phony death certificate and paying off some French doctor... And putting a hundred and fifty pound sack of sand into a coffin and splitting to some point on this planet -- Africa, who knows where -- it is Jim Morrison who would have been able to pull it off."
reptile.users2.50megs.com/other/o110699a.html

There were photographs of the Manzarek/Iggy/Phantom
Doors tribute concert at the Whisky published in Creem
Magazine in 1974.

I presented Ray with an autographed copy of my first
published book of poetry before he played a show in
Cleveland in March of 1975, when he was on his solo
tour for "The Golden Scarab" album. We spent the
time between the afternoon soundcheck and the
evening concert discussing many things including
why the band with Iggy never got off the ground.
Ray said that, in that phase of his life, Iggy couldn't
cope with the rigors and responsibilities of touring.
(I know this to be accurate because I had personally
witnessed Iggy perpetrate some pretty self-destructive
back stage behaviors myself.)


A couple of years later, when Iggy did finally get it
together to tour, he asked David Bowie (who is nowhere nearly as accomplished on keyboards as Ray) to play keys in his new band, and this hurt Ray very deeply.

About 4 or 5 years ago, Iggy Pop made an announcement stating that HE was the Phantom. I figured this would be common knowledge to anybody interested in the mystery of Phantoms Divine Comedy...

the only thing I can ad is Ray on Dave letterman in 1983 (on to plug Alive She Cried) was asked by Dave...

Dave "Did you ever think of replacing Jim after he died?"

Ray "...we thought of a lot of people, Iggy Pop, and Mick Jagger, but he already had a job..."

He turned it into a joke but maybe the Iggy stuff was a half truth?

He went on to say "Morrison is Morrison no one can replace him...

a Xerox someone sent me years ago of a picture of Ray Manzarek, Iggy, and The Phantom from the concert they did at the Whiskey. I'd like to find out where it was originally published.

Given the fact that the Phantoms Divine Comedy LP was intended to be a mystery, I could easily believe that Iggy was The Phantom on the record, but they might have used someone else as a stand-in at the concert to preserve the secret.


It is common knowledge amongst people who haven't done their
research and believe anything they read. He was not Iggy, and
anyone who hears it can tell it isn't. The band was originally called Walpurgis, and their manager and Capitol Records created the mystery, probably because they realized how much the singer sounded like Morrison. The Iggy rumor was just another hoax, maybe one to spur interest in the rerelease of the album. The singer's real name is Tom Carson.

Source:
groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&q=Iggy+Pop+Ray+manzarek+Phantom

The Singer Was Not Iggy Pop. May 15, 2006
It was Tom Carson...

"Two distinct schools of thought existed about `70s rock outfit, Phantom. The first tended towards the view that Phantom was cynically signed by Capitol to exploit the recent death of Jim Morrison, whose vocal style Phantom singer Tom Carson copied convincingly. The second is that they were a pretty decent group whose vocalist just happened to sound more than a bit like Morrison.

Whichever of these two scenarios was closest to the truth we will never know, but such was Elektra's concern that the record buying public would be confused into thinking that Morrison was still alive that the record company attempted to obtain an injunction banning Capitol from releasing the band's first album, Divine Comedy. Predictably, Elektra's actions simply increased the publicity the band was attracting, and Capitol duly took full advantage.

In hindsight it's difficult to see what all the fuss was about, as Carson's vocals were only reminiscent of Morrison's at the end of his brief career. In the end, the one thing that is clear is that Divine Comedy is actually a pretty decent album. A consistently high musical and compositional standard is maintained throughout, with many critics acclaiming the mystical sound that was the album's hallmark. Two melodramatic tracks, Tales From A Wizard and Welcome To Hell, stand out particularly strongly, but the entire album is interesting, innovative, and extremely enjoyable."

The truth has finally come out! Feb 07, 2006
One of the album's producers, Gary Gawinek, has finally come forward with the truth on this mysterious album. He contacted at least two websites, and one of the websites can be found here with a brief summary of bandmembers and recording info: thefreedomman.com/related/phantom.html

He credits the lead singer as "Arthur Pendragon." This is in fact an alias of Tom Carson, a Michigan resident who passed away a few years ago (Googling him won't bring anything up except articles written by another Tom Carson who is NOT the same guy). Tom was a bit of an eccentric who used various characters on his albums. He was discovered by Gawinek, who took demo tapes to Bob Seger's manager, Ed "Punch" Andrews. Ed hated Tom Carson after having dealt with him in the past, so Gawinek didn't mention who was in the band. Punch took interest in the demos because of the Doors similarities, and that is in fact how he sold the album to Capital Records when they eventually signed a contract.

Anyway, back to Tom Carson. Like much of the material on the album, the alias of Arthur Pendragon is really obvious if you understand it. Legend dictates that "Pendragon" was the last name of King Arthur of Camelot. The album is all about wizards and mysticism and even has a song called "Merlin," so the alias is pretty self-explanatory. Tom's lyrics are pretty laughable but in an endearing sort of way. His imagery is very obvious ("Spiders Will Dance On Your Face While You Sleep") but so was Jim Morrison's.

The band lineup - or, at least, the majority of the lineup - reformed for another album in 1978 under a _new_ moniker, "Happy Dragon Band." (This was NOT released on Capitol because of poor sales of Phantom's DC, and the independent label that put it out isn't in business anymore from what I gather.)

Interestingly, for this new incarnation as Happy Dragon Band, Tom decided to once again choose a new alias - this time picking the name Tommy "The Happy Dragon" Court. Get it? Court? Like, a king's court? To say he was still clinging to mysticism and immature fake IDs is putting it lightly. Info on this album can be found here: mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-dragon-band-stlp1978usa.html

Please note that the author of that blog entry lists Tom Carson as being a different person than Tommy Court. This is a mistake. Just as on Phantom's album the whole Arthur Pendragon thing was an alias of an alias (since the liner notes of the album listed merely "Phantom" as the singer/lyricist, NOT Pendragon), it's worth assuming that the same was done on the follow-up album, and once again Tom decided to use two false names to cover his tracks. People who dug deep and discovered one name still weren't finding the *real* one.

Ray Manzarek (The Doors) claims to have once performed with "Phantom" at a 1970s Morrison benefit. He told a British magazine in 1991 that Phantom (he refers to him as this, not Tom or Arthur) showed up in all black and wore silver jewelry. Apparently photos exist from this benefit featuring Tom(my) and Ray posing with Iggy Pop, who was a friend of Jim's - and, for a long time, was rumored to have in fact been the singer on Phantom's Divine Comedy.

You'll find a comment by "X" (the drummer of the band) listed on the UK Import listing of this album on Amazon (type the name of the album into Google and it's the second page that comes up). He tries to perpetuate the myth of the album, refuses to give out his real name - and in fact even states he is considering writing a book about the mystery behind it all.

I stumbled across another comment of his written almost two years later on a random blog entry about this album on another website. He gave the same "I'll write a book one day" tease, and simply signed off as "X." Apparently this guy is trying to cling to whatever shred of artistic credibility he once had. I guess once you get older and people don't know your name, you hope to reignite interest in your past 15 minutes of fame. I hate to ruin his little mystery games, but this fellow known as "X" is in fact a man named Russell Klatt. He still lives in Michigan and runs a business now.

Apparently Mr. Klatt had charges brought against him in 2007: dockets.justia.com/docket/court-miedce/case_no-2:2007x50813/case_id-224316/

So, I hope that explains this all once and for all. I've pieced together various information from various websites, all of it directly from people who worked on the album (mainly Gawinek). I think "X's" attempts at furthering the myth here and on other websites is kind of cute, but really, it's been almost forty years and I think it's about time to get the truth out.


mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/01/happy-dragon-band-stlp1978usa.html

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Manzarek had two solo albums to promote in 1974 so a Jim Morrison Disappearance Party was a perfect vehicle to gain attention.

It would never have occured to such an arrogant greedy man how distasteful, even for the 70s, something like this was.

Manzarek repeated these claims about Jim could have pulled it off, was in Africa and the coffin was empty for several years. Then he spent the next few decades either agreeing Jim was dead or Jim was alive depending on the product he had to sell.

When he wrote his abysmal novel Poet In EXile he trawled out the Jim was alive theory including one of his conversations with Jim where the singer said he wanted to dissapear to the Seychelles which is where Manzarek featured his novel.
Manzarek is the supreme opportunist who can change his entire perspective in a sentence if he sees advantage to it.
His gobbledeegook is legend in the rock media and he has made Jim Morrison a laughing stock to the rock world.

A lot of rock fans believe that half the garbage Manzarek comes out with was directly attributed to Jim Morrison. And so he is the one who believed he was a Greek demi God or a Shaman who wanted to be President when this is just Manzarek and his opportunistic sewer of a mind.

Most of the Morrison rumours were either started by Ray or supported by him as a way of seeking advantage and attention.

Iggy Pop was not Morrison's friend.
Alice Cooper was a pal of Morrison but not Iggy.
Iggy is just a freak like Manzarek. But of course with more integrity.

[darkstar3]

Apr 4, 2011 15:45:57 GMT TheWallsScreamedPoetry said:

Manzarek had two solo albums to promote in 1974 so a Jim Morrison Disappearance Party was a perfect vehicle to gain attention.

It would never have occured to such an arrogant greedy man how distasteful, even for the 70s, something like this was.

Manzarek repeated these claims about Jim could have pulled it off, was in Africa and the coffin was empty for several years. Then he spent the next few decades either agreeing Jim was dead or Jim was alive depending on the product he had to sell.

When he wrote his abysmal novel Poet In EXile he trawled out the Jim was alive theory including one of his conversations with Jim where the singer said he wanted to dissapear to the Seychelles which is where Manzarek featured his novel.
Manzarek is the supreme opportunist who can change his entire perspective in a sentence if he sees advantage to it.
His gobbledeegook is legend in the rock media and he has made Jim Morrison a laughing stock to the rock world.

A lot of rock fans believe that half the garbage Manzarek comes out with was directly attributed to Jim Morrison. And so he is the one who believed he was a Greek demi God or a Shaman who wanted to be President when this is just Manzarek and his opportunistic sewer of a mind.

Most of the Morrison rumours were either started by Ray or supported by him as a way of seeking advantage and attention.

Iggy Pop was not Morrison's friend.
Alice Cooper was a pal of Morrison but not Iggy.
Iggy is just a freak like Manzarek. But of course with more integrity.

No wonder Doors management is continually looking for "new" Doors fans. Everyone else that can be included in the "previous and/or still are" Doors fans' categories are well aware of the rumor mills that have been churning since 1971. Maybe there are new Doors fans to be found that will believe in the myth but even the new ones eventually find out that they have been lied too and move on.

It's been forty years since Morrison died, one would think by now that all parties involved in perpetuating the Morrison "myth" would have grown up by now. Unfortunately, this is not the case as we all know as the myth continues to be conjured up in new forms based on old and worn out tales.

The principal players in continuation of the "myth" should be made aware that they are doing more harm than good to the band's name. There are many forums and websites who site the Jim Morrison myth as the main factor of their discontent.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Exactly! These people are destroying the band credibility.
Everytime there is an article in a magazine here we have the same old tired tales trundled out by people like Ray which result in Morrison being described in the most negative terms.
It's not just Ray to be fair as both John and Robbie have done their bit although nothing on the Ray scale.
The result of all this is ridicule in the media. Morrison cast as a pretentious drunken oaf with delusions of grandeur and the band dismissed as trivial and trite because of the sensation surrounding Jim.
Of course Jim got drunk and went mental at a few gigs but he did not do it at every gig. The constant reduction of Jim Morrison to Jimbo his evil alter ego drags the band down in the estimation of the media.
Jim had a lot of bad things to his character and was not always nice person to be around but nobody ever tries to understand things from his point of view as being dead he cannot express one.
The sensation simply detracts people from wondering why?
We deal with it here in a couple of threads and it's not cut and dried as to why Jim behaved the way he did sometimes.
The pressure must have been immense and was not shouldered byt he drummer, the keyboard player nor the guitarist.
Only the singer carried the expectation and the responsibility of The Doors.
He was expected to step up to the plate and produce the songs or the performance. The rest shirked that responsibility so got off lightly.
Jim Morrison lived for the art of The Doors and we can only guess at what went through his mind when he saw the true colours of the other three in 1968.
His death let them of the hook as nowadays they can make up anything and they surely do.
Jim can't contradict them so is compliant whenever they hand out pronouncements in his name.
Ray constantly uses the phrase 'Jim would have wanted this' or Jim would have loved that'.
But Jim managed to speak for himself and if Doors fans read what he said would know how holoow this Manzarek manipulation is. Sad part is nobody listens to Jim as he is gone. Manzarek speaks for The Doors today and he speaks with forked tongue.