Jim Morrison American Singer (1943–1971)

Early life

James Douglas Morrison was born on 8 December 1943 in Melbourne, Florida. His father, George Stephen Morrison, was a United States Navy officer who later reached the rank of rear admiral, and the family moved often. Morrison spent parts of his childhood in California, Virginia, Texas and New Mexico, and he had a younger sister, Anne, and a younger brother, Andrew.

He graduated from George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia, in June 1961. He was a voracious reader, with a taste for unusual books, and went on to study at St. Petersburg Junior College in Florida and then at Florida State University. He later transferred to the film program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he took a class on the French theorist Antonin Artaud. He graduated from the School of Theater, Film and Television in 1965 with a degree in cinematography, but skipped the ceremony and went to Venice Beach, and the university mailed his diploma to his mother.

Career

In the summer of 1965 Morrison and a film school classmate, the keyboardist Ray Manzarek, formed the Doors in Venice, California. Guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore joined soon after. The group took its name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception. Morrison wrote most of the lyrics and shaped the vocal melodies, while Krieger also contributed words and music to several of the band's best-known songs, among them "Light My Fire." Morrison did not play an instrument on stage apart from percussion such as maracas and tambourine, and he often recited poetry during live shows.

After signing with Elektra Records, the band reached a national audience in 1967. "Light My Fire" spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 that summer, and in September the Doors appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Their second album, Strange Days, followed the same year. On 9 December 1967 Morrison was arrested on stage in New Haven, Connecticut, on indecency charges that were later dropped. He is described as the first rock performer to be arrested during a show.

Waiting for the Sun came out in 1968, and the band played in Europe for the first time that September, including four shows at the Roundhouse in London. The Soft Parade followed in 1969, and Morrison Hotel in 1970. At a concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami on 1 March 1969, Morrison was accused of indecent exposure and profanity. Warrants were issued days later, many of the Doors' scheduled concerts were canceled, and a jury convicted him in September 1970. He was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine but stayed free pending an appeal. Other members of the band have always maintained that he did not expose himself that night. In December 2010 the state of Florida granted him a full posthumous pardon.

L.A. Woman, recorded from October 1970, was the last Doors album made with him. The band released two more albums afterward.

Morrison also pursued writing and film. In 1969 he self-published two volumes of poetry, The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures, the only writings that appeared during his lifetime. That year he began the film HWY: An American Pastoral, which he financed through his own production company and in which he played a hitchhiker. After his death, collections of his writings were issued, including Wilderness (1988) and The American Night (1990), and the Doors' album An American Prayer (1978) set his recorded poetry to music.

Recognition

In 1993 Morrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together with the other members of the Doors. Rolling Stone, NME and Classic Rock have included him on their lists of the best rock singers.

Personal life

Morrison was in a long relationship with Pamela Courson, who encouraged his writing, and he dedicated The Lords and The New Creatures to her. He had broken off most contact with his family after leaving UCLA.

Morrison died in Paris on 3 July 1971.