Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend

Rating:
Summary: Immensely Readable, But Enigmatic Like Jim
Review: What can one say about Jim Morrison? Surly Drunk, Guy who would engage in behavior when intoxicated or high that not even rowdy college freshman would touch, Brilliant Poet/Lyricist, with a 150 IQ who knew particular books and Writers, as well as about anyone, Drug fiend who couldn't control himself, Mesmerizing Singer with the charisma of a million Men ? All of that and more is displayed in Davis's book.The good-Davis is very good on depicting the many concerts of the Doors, which could apparently go from great to bad, to ultra wierd from night to night. He's very good with Morrison going to College at UCLA & Florida, & also great descriptions of the Doors and Jim playing the Whisky/Sunset Strip in 1966. The first nite there they opened up for Buffalo Springfield for example, not long after this Them wih Van Morrison jammed on G;loria at the Whisky A-Go-Go when people spontaneously danced, and immediately responded, if a song was incredible and tons of songs were incredible in 1966.The book appears to be pretty accurate in General, but here are my problems with it- Davis says" that Jim regularly threw up on people and jumped out of moving cars"-maybe once or twice who knows the sitution,no corroborating evidence is provided, but I doubt these were regular occurences. The evidence isn't worth a damn that Jim was gay. Nothing solid at all is offered in this direction, so I don't believe the Author should be sensational in that regard if hedoesn't have the goods. He says Light My Fire's instrumental passages" are tedious"?, I, would say more like exhilarating. He says The great Hollywood Bowl concert of 7-5-68 is tepid. We must have not seen the same DVD, because it wasn't much longer after that his drinking got completely out of control and within a couple years looked maybe 15 years older and was in poor health and literally unrecognizable in some photos, taken the last year and a half, or so of his life. Here he looks great, sings powerfully, and I think it's a fantastic memory of him. Morrison was a true revolutionary, but though it's not addressed in the book, he obviously wanted to change this conformist, dishonest society we live in and it was just too much pressure to be Superman each night. Well, that's a personal aside. It's getting harder and harder to ascertain what is the truth in so many controversial cases and someone as enigmatic as James Douglas Morrison. The ending of this book rea;lly rings true, though I do believe he was a better person overall than he comes across,...who can really say??? at this point I'd like to think if we had few beers it would be great, but is that just wishful thinking??

Rating:
Summary: Last Tango In Paris...
Review: ...would have to be my favorite section of this exhaustive and telling memoir. Jim Morrison's long, slow slide into depression, hopeless alcoholism and his inevitable death is one of the most heartbreaking stories I've ever read. The details of his final hours, his violent illness in the early morning of July 3, 1971, his final call of.."Pam, are you there?" and his body being found in a tub of bloody water (smiling)and his eventual burial in Pere' Lachaise with only a handful of people present is so poignant it actually makes me wonder what was going through his mind during his last days. While author Davis over-analyzes The Doors live performances and the social, political atmosphere of the times, his narrative style is clear, concise and always engaging, this is a brisk read for a volume nearly 500 pages in length. A Fascinating Book about A Fascinating and Misunderstood Young Man. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Anticipation exceeds realization
Review: Awaited over 6 months for this book to be published and was let down almost immediately. Almost all but 2 pictures have been published before and the story itself has already been covered by previous bios. Still, it's an ok read for the uninitiated, but for those who have read other Morrison bios, there is nothing new covered here--except maybe that the surviving Doors were not the best friends with Morrison that they now make themselves out to be. One glaring error was the author has Morrison arriving in Paris in June '71 when in fact he had been living there since March. Would've loved new info from post-Miami to July '71 and would've loved to have seen rare photos from that time.

Rating:
Summary: Apologizing for 60s Debauchery
Review: Davis spends too much time explaining away the misguided hedonism of the 1960s and making excuses for Jim Morrison. Jim was a drunk, with minimal poetic talent, but a flare for performing Rock and Roll. He embodied a selfish, baby boomer era irresponsibility that mocked the country and military which made his drunken stupor of an existence possible.

Davis' off-handed slams at the US effort in Vietnam and glorification of the communist agitators that made up the anti-war movement makes one question the credibility of the rest of the book.

For example, Davis insists on saying that the "cops rioted" at the Democratic convention in 1968. What exactly does this mean? The protestors gathered and provoked a riot, if they had been at work or school or defending the freedom of the people of Southeast Asia there would have been no riots.

If Morrison, and other anti-war agitators, had not made victory in Southeast Asia impossible the millions who died in the Cambodian killing fields at the hands of Davis' "peasant army" or on refugee boats fleeing to the country that Morrison so despised may have lived.

Davis sounds like he is trying to convince himself, as much as the reader, that there was something of value in the drug addled politics of the Doors and their lead buffoon Jim Morrison.

The Doors were a great rock band and Morrison was a truly gifted rock signer. But, the idea that he was a great poet and that their music had any real social import is fatuous and completely unproven by Davis' hagiography.

Rating:
Summary: I would give a higher rating if I could
Review: EXTREMELY well researched and this author injects personal humor and interest while maintaining an objective outlook and perspective for the reader. I loved this book and I learned a great deal about Jim Morrison. I can't wait to track down other books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: something new, something good, something different
Review: i found this book to be quite informative. i've read many other biographies of Morrison's, including(unfortunately) 'No One Here Gets Out Alive,' otherwise referred to as 'Nothing Here but Lies.' I certainly find most of his research to be as close as one can get with a 'middle man.'

However as with all such topics, his most outlandish claims should be taken with a large grain of salt, or at least weighed heavily. Jim's real days will never be truly known in every intimate detail; but thus far, this is as good as it gets.

Rating:
Summary: Tougher than Leather
Review: Stephen Davis outdoes himself and his previous classic of rock biography with his new book. Well, in my opinion, Jim Morrison is inherently more interesting than the boys of Led Zeppelin, though both flirted with the dark magic of Kenneth Anger. And also now, because Morrison is dead, Davis doesn't need to concern himself much with libel laws, except to protect thr reputation of the innocent who are alive.

His focus is on the paradox of ontology, of Morrison's being, and why is it that a boy who on the surface led a pretty privileged suburban life wound up living as an adult a life of creativity, unhappiness, and mystery. No other writer has come close as this to explaining Morrison's art in terms of his childhood and his background, and partly Davis' success stems from his finger on the pulse of US and world history during the 1940s and 1950s. We see Morrison very much in tune with contemporary developments in music, poetry, art and cinema, showing that he was not some isolated genius, but part of an interweb of action and reaction that accompanied the Cold War and its discontents. If, as Davis alleges, Morrison was the victim as a teen of sexual abuse by someone within his own family, a military figure at that, it would go a long way towards explaining how "The End," etc, came to be written.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Celebration of the Lizard
Review: Stephen Davis' "Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend" is a very interesting depiction of arguable one of the most interesting rockers ever. I have not been a fan of The Doors for a long time, but I have long enough to know the myths and rumors about Jim and Jim's life. ALong with many other topics, they are all covered in this book in a seemingly accurate style.
The part of Jim's life I was most interested in reading about when I picked up this book was his childhood and adolesence. Davis covers the life of Jimmy, and he was called when he was young, as thorough as any other time of Jim's life.
The overall mood of the book I guess could depend on your feelings about Jim Morrison and The Doors before starting, but being a moderate fan, I find it funny at times due to Jim's constant intellectual rampages and his constant intoxication, while simultaneously finding it frustrating and almsot sad seeing Jim do the things he did to himself. Davis does a good job flowing at a very comfortable rate and pace so the reader seems to just flow from one thing to the next, and usually going into great detail, even too much detail at time, about minor events along the way to the end, Jim's death. Davis does a remarkable job staying neutral, at least to my inexperienced observations, throughout the entire book, and pretty much leaves it up to the reader to make up their mind about Jim.
For a biogrpahy about a rock star, 400 pages seems a bit long, but they go by fast. If anybody has a remote interest in the band or Jim Morrison, this book is probably one of the better of it's sort, and would come highly recomended from me. "Jim Morrsion: Life Death, Legend" is both a good introduction to Jim Morrison for newer fans like me, and with the amount of detail about tours and recording sessions, probably for the lifelong Doors fans as well. Considering everything, Stephen Davis' "Jim Morrison; Life, Death, Legend" is a very good book.

Rating:
Summary: Lizard on the Road
Review: The book is worth reading in spite of the author's desperate need to paint an even darker side of Morrison.
The best parts are the anecdotes of many, many Doors concerts.
This is what keeps the book from being like all the rest and a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read...
Review: This book adds more info to Hopkins' and Sugerman's other Jim bio "No One Here Gets Out Alive" but I am not sure whether to believe them or not. Such "details" would include Jim's bisexuality, some of which are included in the most asinine places like at a concert (Jim stared at a handsome man) and the author's writings seem to be that of a high school student level, but maybe it's better than intellect mumbo jumbo. And I'm not sure if it's THE definitive Jim Morrison biography since it reads like it was taken from Oliver Stone's movie, but Jim's last hours offered a better picture instead of how it was shortly depicted in "No One Here Gets Out Alive" (which also ended suggesting that the Lizard King may have faked his own death).

The extensive concert timelines may be too much, but it offers a bit more into the mind of Jim Morrison and how they went. But in my opinion, this book is a tad better than Hopkins/Sugerman's collaboration. It delves deeper into Jim's past explaining about his child abuse and offers a bit more info about his family members. It seems to perfectly paint a picture of the years the Doors were up and running (recording, performing, etc.) The book not only does that, but adds how the world developed during the Vietnam War era, from music to art to movies. The book also gives background into how the songs came to be as well as Jim's poetry work. So much is here in this book that I can't list them all, but just a few highlights.

I'm still reading more into the life of Jim and the Doors, so I cannot say for sure that this book is THE one, but it certainly helped answer a few questions (but also raised a few), made Oliver Stone's movie a bit more plausible, and also made Jim look more like a poet, a rock star, an artist, and an influencial icon rather than some drunk that people usually visualize him as.