Jim Morrison's dad breaks silence about estranged son

Reuters News Service via Houston Chronicle ^ | Nov. 9, 2006, 9:08AM | no byline

[weegee]

LOS ANGELES -- The father of late Doors singer Jim Morrison has broken his silence to share memories of his estranged son, who once sang about killing him and joked that his family was dead.

George Morrison, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, is one of the contributors to The Doors by the Doors, an authorized memoir released this week. The book's author, rock journalist Ben Fong-Torres, also interviewed the band's three surviving members and Jim's younger brother and sister, among others.

"We look back on him with great delight ... The fact that he's dead is unfortunate but looking back on his life it's a very pleasant thought," George Morrison says in the book.

Jim Morrison, a difficult teen who rebelled against his father's military lifestyle, went on to become one of the most magnetic performers in rock 'n' roll. But he disowned his family, and once made a throwaway comment that they were dead. He also referenced his parents in the Oedipal rant The End, singing that he wanted to kill his father and sleep with his mother.

Andy Morrison recalls that his mother, Clara, who died last year, took him to a Doors concert in Washington, D.C., and asked to see Jim, but he refused to meet with her, and she drove home in tears.

The Morrisons surmise that Jim's hostility was really designed to shield them from too much attention.

"I had the feeling that he felt we'd just as soon not be associated with his career," George Morrison says. "He knew I didn't think rock music was the best goal for him. Maybe he was trying to protect us."

Adds his sister, Anne, "He liked mystique, too. He didn't want to be from somewhere."

Jim Morrison died of a heart attack in Paris in 1971, and his grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery is one of the city's top tourist attractions. His family pays the authorities to take care of the site.

George Morrison said it was "quite an honor ... for the family" to have his son buried near cultural giants like Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Frederic Chopin.

[fnord]

damn, Netflix doesn't seem to have it (unless it goes under a different title)

[weegee]

I agree mostly but I don't think the Whiskey-A-Go-Go ever went punk. I don't know much about the 70s there but by the 80s I think it was hair-metal.

[weegee]

Odd. Looks like you are right.

Gas-s-s (not sure how many S's) is directed by Roger Corman and since it is a double-feature disc, I searched that way.

I did find the Psych-Out/The Trip dvd there. Richard Pryor is in Wild In The Streets and I didn't find it listed that way either.

You should find the disc at Fry's or Best Buy for $10. I think there are better supplements on the Psych-Out/Trip disc (commentaries, documentary interviews...).

The MGM double-features series of AIP films is a good deal.

[weegee]

Reason I ask is because I acquired a CD called, Hideout -- Friday At The Boss Detroit Garage 1964-67 which features nothing *but* the early Detroit rockers.

Great disc. The Pleaser Seekers cuts (also re-issued on 45) are my favorite (and an influential garage punk/grunge band of the mid-1980s covered 'What A Way To Die', their cover later re-issued by SubPop in the 1990s). Suzi Quatro was in the Pleasure Seekers (although I think someone else wrote their songs). I think one of those other cuts is an early Bob Seger song.

[weegee]

People are strange when you're estranger...

[Landru]

"I didn't know his (Morrison) dad was an admiral."

Then in all likelihood you didn't know Grace Slick's -- of Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship fame -- father was a Brigadier General, huh.

Can't make this stuff up.
There's some going on when ya learn the backgrounds behind some of these classic rock artists.

But what exactly what it might be?

...is anyones guess.

[Landru]

"Great disc."

Sure is, and best of all different.
Infinitively more entertaining than *Rap*, anyway.
Which is precisely why I found it to begin with.
Had to revisit music genres I let pass me by when they were "new" & fresh out of sheer desperation. ;^)
Same goes for classic country, for that matter.

"The Pleaser Seekers cuts (also re-issued on 45) are my favorite (and an influential garage punk/grunge band of the mid-1980s covered 'What A Way To Die', their cover later re-issued by SubPop in the 1990s). Suzi Quatro was in the Pleasure Seekers (although I think someone else wrote their songs). I think one of those other cuts is an early Bob Seger song."

Interesting trivia, weeg.

I'll tell ya some of the band names & group member's names make me laugh so hard I get tears in my eyes.
Then hearing their *lyrics*?

Man-oh-man.

...stroke territory. :o)

[Revolting cat!]

"Daddy, daddy, I'm living in ther Northwest!"

[fnord]

I never knew that about Grace Slick either, lol.

Or maybe I did at one time and forgot it (happens a lot lately).

[fnord]

Netflix has a stunning amount of DVDs, but every now and then I can't find what I want, damn it. I keep wanting some BBC shows (Dave Allen etc) but I guess they were never released on DVD.

Regardless, I think Netflix is one of the top 5 businesses on the net.

[Route66]

Actually, Jim did leave everything to Pamela Courson. She was a junkie and died 3 years later so the rights to Morrison's work went to Pamela's father. Jim's parents sued him many times over the years to get their share of the estate. They finally won which did make them wealthy, but Courson is still the executor.

[trisham]

I'm sure it's easier on his family to try to think the best of Jim especially since he treated them very badly while he was alive and then made them very wealthy after dying in a bad way.

*************

Exactly.

[t_skoz]

by albums do you mean vinyl? we need to hang out!

;-)

[t_skoz]

I'm camping out tonight in order to buy tickets for my dad and I to see Seger in Boston! WOOOO!!

Here's the update on the Scott Richardson stuff: I listened to the CD and it's GREAT! But there is one problem... the CD didn't burn right! So what I'm doing is getting together with a trading buddy in Finland who is going to send me a copy of BOTH Scott Richardson albums (both of which are OOP and I feel OK sending you).

Instead of your compilations, why don't we talk about some vinyl? I'll offer up both Scott Richardson disks & 3 Seger bootlegs:

-May 14th 1974 Orphanage Club, San Francisco, CA (KSAN radio broadcast)
-July 8th 1974 @ Ebbet's Field, Denver CO - Get Out Of Denver

I also have a double disk from Boston but I don't have the details handy.

What I'm interested in are other bootlegs that I don't have, or rare / OOP vinyl in good condition. Let me know what ya think!!!

[ansel12]

Thanks for the links, the CDs of of the soundtracks are not available, but I did get to hear snippets of dialog, and Paul Newman singing "Plastic Jesus" at the blackplotation site.

I have both DVDs and maybe I can create my own soundtracks on Cassettes.

[KevinB]

Your project sounds like a lot of fun, Landru. Let me know if you need an editor. ;-) Unfortunately, I don't get out Wisconsin way much but I do appreciate the offer for a visit.

By the way, you may have me beat in terms of your collection (I've got about 25,000 songs), but I've got you beat in terms of car tunes. I installed a computer in the trunk and a touch screen in my dash so I can take my entire collection with me. I could drive for for almost two months without hearing the same song twice.

[KevinB]

Check out the below link to DVD Audio Ripper. As its name suggests, it's a program that allows you to rip the audio files from DVDs. I've used it on several DVDs for which there weren't CD soundtracks available. It's a little cumbersome to use but works quite well once you get the hang of it.

http://www.gold-software.com/download1840.html

[ansel12]

Neat, but I still don't have a DVD player on my computer yet, but I saved the link for when that time comes.

[Landru]

"I'm camping out tonight in order to buy tickets for my dad and I to see Seger in Boston! WOOOO!!"

Wow, what a trip back for both of you that'll be.
Don't you find it a little more than just *interesting* these old timers are selling out anytime they decide to come out of retirement?
Gee, wonder what it means. /sar :o)

"Here's the update on the Scott Richardson stuff: I listened to the CD and it's GREAT!" Mp>And I Robin Trower, simply *fabulous*. {hint-hint}

"But there is one problem...the CD didn't burn right! So what I'm doing is getting together with a trading buddy in Finland who is going to send me a copy of BOTH Scott Richardson albums (both of which are OOP and I feel OK sending you)."

A *defective* CD you bought after market?
Bummer.
Finland, huh.
Didn't think Finland had anything besides fish & F1A drivers. :o)

"Instead of your compilations, why don't we talk about some vinyl? I'll offer up both Scott Richardson disks & 3 Seger bootlegs..."

Thank you for your generous, and creative offer my friend.
However there's something telling me I should just hang onto 'em.
Heard the same "voice" speaking to me on a 1980 Corvette I own (among others, now sold) which sits in my 3rd garage bay, unused, while I enjoy my 2006 Z51. ;^)

"What I'm interested in are other bootlegs that I don't have, or rare / OOP vinyl in good condition. Let me know what ya think!!!"

I sincerely think anything I've got couldn't be considered "rare", let along in "good" condition per se.
Nevertheless I'm just hanging on to 'em since they're stored away for >?< .

Talking about rare -- & from one collector to another -- listen to this.
For years I've enjoyed the Jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.
Really what I wanted was a long version of "Bouquet" which appeared on an album called, Happenings.

A now long lost acquaintance of mine used the piece as his opening for his radio show on WUWM, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's public radio station.
Couldn't get the tune outa my head, a genuine "ear worm".

I went on a *crusade* to locate a copy of this album which had longggggg been out of print.
The only copies I could find were priced at $10,000!!
I was prepared to layout good cash, but not that good.

Because of some legal baloney Hutcherson wasn't -- I thought -- going to be giving his "OK" for a remake of the album and given what the market wanted I simply wrote off the notion of ever having that one & went on with life.

Years later (through a weird turn of fate) I find myself living in Urbana, Illinois (for all practical purposes the end of the earth, or minimally North Korea).
The pits.

While rooting around the CDs at -- of ALL places -- Best Buy what do I find, yea, Happenings.
I kid-you-not.
Apparently Hutcherson approved a very limited run of the CD & I bought it with absolute glee even though the version of "Bouquet" on this release was an abbreviated one.

Now days one can go to Amazon & buy this album as well as an "import" version with the long version of my beloved "Bouquet", just as the original album had.

Obviously BobbyH changed his mind.

...when his money was running out? ;^)

[Landru]

"Thanks for the links, the CDs of of the soundtracks are not available..."

Wow, the Coolhand Luke soundtrack must've sold out.

"...but I did get to hear snippets of dialog, and Paul Newman singing "Plastic Jesus" at the blackplotation site."

Well then, not all's lost.

"I have both DVDs and maybe I can create my own soundtracks on Cassettes."

Sounds like a great idea, and with today's technology?

...very doable. ;^)