A Day In Rock: September 16th, 1981 – Jim Morrison Is Hot
On this day forty-three years ago… Jim Morrison landed on the cover of Rolling Stone. “He’s hot, he’s sexy, he’s dead,” screamed the headline. The accompanying article chronicled the renewed interest in the singer, who died a decade earlier, and his band. “The Doors Greatest Hits” was awarded a platinum album (1,000,000 units shipped) the next day.
From The Doors’ self-titled debut to far past the end, Morrison was mythologized to the extreme. The Lizard King, a modern-day Adonis, an erotic politician or drunken poet. Erratic and irresponsible, both onstage and in real life, Morrison capture the essence of the times.
While almost all the attention focused on Morrison it should be remembered that one reason The Doors remained popular was they made great music. Ray Manzarek (keyboards), Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums) were extraordinarily talented and creative musicians with a flair for blending styles and moods.
Morrison recorded six studio albums with The Doors… all went gold or better. Following the “L.A. Woman” sessions Morrison left for Paris, with his girlfriend/wife Pam Courson, to write poetry. That adventure ended with Morrison’s death on July 3rd,1971 under mysterious circumstances – which only enhanced his myth.
Was he really dead? And if he did die how? Heart attack, which was listed as the official cause, or a drug overdose?
Or did he fake his death to escape the ‘pressures’ of Rock stardom? No one on The Doors team ever saw Jim’s corpse. In fact. he was placed in a sealed casket and buried in Paris before any public announcement of his passing was made.
No one really knows exactly what happened except Pam… and she remained silent on the subject before suffering a drug related death in ’74.
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