Post by tzinana on Aug 13, 2005 7:03:28 GMT
"LIGHT MY FIRE. My Life With the Doors"
By Tom Graves
Washington Post
August 9, 1998
More than 30 years after the Doors' self-titled first album was released in 1967, controversy continues to rage about the band and its charismatic lead singer,
the inimitable Jim Morrison. Were they the genuine article, music innovators who added worldly influences along with a dark, poetic muse to the language of rock and roll or were they film school poseurs, would-be intellectuals who found a way to make a simple music
form more congenial to young sophisticates? Jim Morrison, of course, isn't Ray Manzarek, the keyboard player for the Doors, has been instrumental in keeping the Doors myth alive in the intervening years. Articulate and open, Manzarek, a graduate of UCLA's film school, sincerely believed the Doors were serious artists deserving of serious consideration, artists whose music could, if given the chance, change the world. Light My Fire is Manzarek's
ambitious attempt to chronicle the band's triumphs and disasters, of which there were many.
Loquacious and loose-knit, the book reads like one of the lesser Buddhist-inspired novels of Jack Kerouac. Manzarek's gleeful remembrances of his early family life in Chicago are, surprisingly, the most evocative parts of the book, particularly a description of Manzarek and two young buddies who manage to gain entrance to a black juke joint to hear blues singer Muddy Waters. This jewel-like passage is one of the most moving and exhilarating portraits of white boys succumbing to the power of black music this reviewer has read, worthy of Kerouac's stunning prose on jazz clubs. ("Listening to them gave me the way into the labyrinth. And the way was in the silence. The space. Here's what you do: You leave space for the guitar player to make hisstatement. . . . When I solo, I am the lord and master. I control the destiny . . . and then I acquiesce. I harmonize. . . I become a cog in
the gear, again.") Readers also will likely get caught up in the heady joy of the early '60s as described by Manzarek, a time of change, experimentation and hope.
Manzarek met Jim Morrison at the UCLA film school, where the author was impressed by Morrison's daring film explorations. When he later discovered that Morrison wrote songs and could sing, the two decided on the spot to form a band. True to '60s form, Manzarek met future Doors guitarist Robby Krieger and future drummer John Densmore in a transcendental meditation class. The four clicked musically, if not always personally.
Almost from the beginning, the Doors' de facto leader, Morrison, exhibited dangerously disturbed behavior. Nearly 20 books have been written about the so-called Lizard King, each of which catalogs Morrison's boozy escapades and the inevitable downward spiral that led to his death. Manzarek gives us the bird's eye view, touchingly conveying the pain of a band trapped in a death watch. The author wisely opens the book with Morrison's mysterious death and painstakingly takes the reader through the details, even if there are
frustratingly few answers.
What Light My Fire lacks is an account of the post-Morrison Doors activities. Manzarek doesn't discuss the band's futile attempts to carry on without Morrison. He also doesn't discuss the comeback of the Doors' music and the industry it spawned (remember the
classic Rolling Stone magazine cover story of the phenomenon that featured a photo of Morrison with the headline "He's Hot, He's Sexy, and He's Dead"?). The author doesn't mention the shelf of books devoted to the Doors or the downright spooky death of Albert
Goldman, the venal rock biographer, who died of a heart attack en route to London to research a bio of Morrison.
To someone who doesn't know a chakra from a hula hoop, Manzarek wastes far too much space in the book on New Age digressions as well as diatribes against filmmaker Oliver Stone, who made a movie of questionable merit about the Doors. The author also seems hung-up on IQs, taking pains to reveal who was smart and who wasn't. Who cares? It's the music that counts.
Although gaggles of gofers and hangers-on have written about the band, this is the first book by one of the Doors. Faults aside, this is an earnest, engaging read, one that may have even naysayers admitting that the Doors were indeed, for a time, a great band.
By Tom Graves
Washington Post
August 9, 1998
More than 30 years after the Doors' self-titled first album was released in 1967, controversy continues to rage about the band and its charismatic lead singer,
the inimitable Jim Morrison. Were they the genuine article, music innovators who added worldly influences along with a dark, poetic muse to the language of rock and roll or were they film school poseurs, would-be intellectuals who found a way to make a simple music
form more congenial to young sophisticates? Jim Morrison, of course, isn't Ray Manzarek, the keyboard player for the Doors, has been instrumental in keeping the Doors myth alive in the intervening years. Articulate and open, Manzarek, a graduate of UCLA's film school, sincerely believed the Doors were serious artists deserving of serious consideration, artists whose music could, if given the chance, change the world. Light My Fire is Manzarek's
ambitious attempt to chronicle the band's triumphs and disasters, of which there were many.
Loquacious and loose-knit, the book reads like one of the lesser Buddhist-inspired novels of Jack Kerouac. Manzarek's gleeful remembrances of his early family life in Chicago are, surprisingly, the most evocative parts of the book, particularly a description of Manzarek and two young buddies who manage to gain entrance to a black juke joint to hear blues singer Muddy Waters. This jewel-like passage is one of the most moving and exhilarating portraits of white boys succumbing to the power of black music this reviewer has read, worthy of Kerouac's stunning prose on jazz clubs. ("Listening to them gave me the way into the labyrinth. And the way was in the silence. The space. Here's what you do: You leave space for the guitar player to make hisstatement. . . . When I solo, I am the lord and master. I control the destiny . . . and then I acquiesce. I harmonize. . . I become a cog in
the gear, again.") Readers also will likely get caught up in the heady joy of the early '60s as described by Manzarek, a time of change, experimentation and hope.
Manzarek met Jim Morrison at the UCLA film school, where the author was impressed by Morrison's daring film explorations. When he later discovered that Morrison wrote songs and could sing, the two decided on the spot to form a band. True to '60s form, Manzarek met future Doors guitarist Robby Krieger and future drummer John Densmore in a transcendental meditation class. The four clicked musically, if not always personally.
Almost from the beginning, the Doors' de facto leader, Morrison, exhibited dangerously disturbed behavior. Nearly 20 books have been written about the so-called Lizard King, each of which catalogs Morrison's boozy escapades and the inevitable downward spiral that led to his death. Manzarek gives us the bird's eye view, touchingly conveying the pain of a band trapped in a death watch. The author wisely opens the book with Morrison's mysterious death and painstakingly takes the reader through the details, even if there are
frustratingly few answers.
What Light My Fire lacks is an account of the post-Morrison Doors activities. Manzarek doesn't discuss the band's futile attempts to carry on without Morrison. He also doesn't discuss the comeback of the Doors' music and the industry it spawned (remember the
classic Rolling Stone magazine cover story of the phenomenon that featured a photo of Morrison with the headline "He's Hot, He's Sexy, and He's Dead"?). The author doesn't mention the shelf of books devoted to the Doors or the downright spooky death of Albert
Goldman, the venal rock biographer, who died of a heart attack en route to London to research a bio of Morrison.
To someone who doesn't know a chakra from a hula hoop, Manzarek wastes far too much space in the book on New Age digressions as well as diatribes against filmmaker Oliver Stone, who made a movie of questionable merit about the Doors. The author also seems hung-up on IQs, taking pains to reveal who was smart and who wasn't. Who cares? It's the music that counts.
Although gaggles of gofers and hangers-on have written about the band, this is the first book by one of the Doors. Faults aside, this is an earnest, engaging read, one that may have even naysayers admitting that the Doors were indeed, for a time, a great band.
