Dave Mason is out on tour. He had been in Traffic. Left in 1969. That wasn’t exactly a long run. Mason had been an original member of the band. It formed in 1967.
He has subsequently had a solo career. Such as it is.
He wrote songs including “Feelin’ Alright,” “Hole in My Shoe,” “Only You Know and I Know,” and “Sad and Deep as You.” If you didn’t hear Mason singing one of those songs, you probably heard someone doing a cover.
Mason is 76.
The name of Mason’s tour: “Endangered Species.”
He’s probably right.
Sadly.
Traffic was one of those Brit bands of the late 1960s, early ‘70s, that made it to the auditorium, not the arena.
Were it not for FM radio, which would play “extended” cuts—perhaps Traffic’s most well-known song is “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” from the album of the same name, that was released in 1971.
It is 11:41 long. In a period when a 3-minute song on the AM band was the norm, that was exceptional.
The whole album is 40:11, so the noodling on the piano is quite surprising.
“Jim’s drinking habit had grown in parallel with our success, so the members of our band and crew rotated the chore of attempting to keep him as sober as possible on show nights. On December 9, 1967, that chore had fallen on me. . . . He wasn’t drinking more than his usual amount, but his usual amount was more than usual to most people. I had yet to discover a successful strategy to lure Jim over to moderation. Arguing didn’t work. Saying nothing didn’t work. Encouraging him didn’t work.”
That’s Robby Krieger, guitarist for The Doors (as well as a subsequent number of other groupings, although none, obviously, as influential and consequently memorable—as in making a memoir something that might have a wider audience than, say, fans of Robby Krieger’s Jam Kitchen), from his new memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar With The Doors.
And it is fairly evident that trying to discourage Morrison from getting drunk was something that didn’t work.
The night in question was when the band played the New Haven Arena, promoted by the New Haven College.
According to Krieger, just before the show “Jim was making out with his date in a shower stall.” A police officer didn’t recognize the man who was yet to become The Lizard King, apparently thought he was someone who slipped in, and Morrison “allegedly mouthed office and the cop allegedly sprayed him with Mace.”
Krieger goes on to say of the alleged occurrences (which seems somewhat odd, given that this happened 54 years ago and presumably any legal ramifications are no longer existent so either it happened or it didn’t or Krieger is being ironic, which doesn’t work particularly well in this case if that is his intention), “Jim loved mouthing off to cops, and cops loved having an excuse.” The proverbial double-win.
Undoubtedly, someone who was essentially mouthy to cops under ordinary circumstances had his hackles at stratospheric levels after that (if he was the Lizard King, in this context he would have to be a Komodo dragon). . .but he had to go out on stage, during which performance Morrison, not surprisingly, “launched into his now-famous rant about the little blue man in the little blue suit with the little blue cap who had temporarily blinded him backstage.”
The police came on stage, arrested Morrison, and the rest is legend, especially as a writer for Life magazine happened to have been arrested, as well, and there was coverage of the band in the middle-brow weekly magazine that emphasized the outlaw nature of the band.
Morrison died in 1971 at age 27. Think about that: about four years between the arrest in Connecticut and a heart attack in a bathroom in Paris.
News: “Columbia to Stay Above Ground”; “Grateful Dead Ungrateful; Sued”; “Tibet In The West” by Charles Perry; “Now the Action’s At People’s Pad”; “A Move to Curb Cambridge Rock” by Dennis Metrano; “Artists Get a Bright Idea”; “Big Joe Williams: Soul on His Face” by Don Roth; “Our Astronaut”; “Denver Festival: Mace with Music” by Jim Fouratt; “Christ, They Know It Ain’t Easy” by Ben Fong-Torres; “Hendrix Charged: Smack, Hash”; “Festivals” (first mention of Woodstock: “Twelve hours of music each, on August 16th and 17th…in upstate Wallkill, New York”); “Free Music”. And Random Notes on Phil Spector, marijuana laws, Eric Jacobsen, Moby Grape, English militant socialists, Sammy Davis, Jr. (“who is the sort of black man who makes you think it must be some kind of optical illusion”). Jann’s casual racism is something else, isn’t it?
The Soft Parade was the fourth album from The Doors. It was released in 1969. Given that ’69 was the year of such releases as Led Zepplin, Kick Out the Jams, Beck Ola, Ramblin’ Gambling Man, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Tommy, and The Stooges, it is somewhat surprising that The Doors had the opportunity for redemption and were able to release Morrison Hotel the following year and hadn’t been driven off into the sketchy concrete wilderness of L.A.
One of the most peculiar cuts on what is a peculiar album is “Touch Me.” It was the first single from the album. And for some odd reason, it became the highest-charting of the singles from The Soft Parade. “Wishful Sinful” is beyond understanding.
At the time of The Soft Parade, The Lizard King was in full bloat, resembling a boa constrictor in full gorge. One can imagine him rolling around in the studio—figuratively, although literally is not something that takes too much imagination—carrying not a long-neck, as would be appropriate for the next album, but a mixed drink. A martini would not be outside the realm of possibility were it that the drink was contained in a glass less shallow and thereby less likely to spill during an inertial turn of mass.
“Touch Me,” with its horns and sweeping, “I’m gonna love you. . .” passages, is a song that would not be inappropriately covered by contemporaries like Michael Buble. Yes, Morrison and Buble.
It has always seemed to me that “Touch Me” as performed by The Doors could be an audition for a months’-long gig at Las Vegas circa right now, had Morrison not gone the way of all flesh at an all-too-early day.
One survivor of that period—who covered Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” and “All Shook Up” on the aforementioned Beck Ola—, Rod Stewart, has opened an 18-concert series at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
After Stewart overcame his hiding-behind-the-amps shyness, he became quite the performer. And this leads to a question: is there a difference between “a performer” and “an artist”—or perhaps it gives rise to a series of questions, including, is there a continuum of when the artist morphs into a performer, or whether most all of the people that we use “artist” as shorthand for are really performers, and were they not we would not be aware of them. Can anyone listen to the 66-year-old Stewart, who has lived lifestyles of the rich and famous, sing, “Spent some time feelin’ inferior, standing in front of my mirror” and take it at all seriously anymore, or is it simply something that’s about having a laugh?
When Stewart isn’t playing at the venue (all of the shows aren’t sequential; there’s a split), Elton John will be, with a show titled “Million Dollar Piano.” Indeed.
Let’s say the Morrison hadn’t died. That Morrison was playing down the street at The Bellagio. Can we imagine a duet on “What Made Milwaukee Famous” between the two performers? And would it be good?
In a 10 minute long interview for the Village Voice, Jim Morrison waxes on the future of electronics while chomping a stogie. The rest of The Doors get their two cents in (but no more) and occasionally look bored or bemused by Jim’s talk. There’s also earlier footage of Morrison at what appears to be a concert for The Who where fans besiege him and reach to touch his hair. It wraps with a friendly talk with a priest. The earlier clips make you realize why pictures of him still gets girls wound up.
Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Clichéd, sure, but also apparently true. A recent study of 1,050 American and European music artists between 1965 and 2005 shows that rock and rollers are twice as likely to die young as the rest of us working stiffs.
While the idea that rock stars tend to die young is nothing new, this is apparently the first study to scientifically document the trend. According to the report published in Britain’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (PDF), a quarter of all the musicians’ deaths registered during the study period were due to drug or alcohol abuse.
What’s interesting is the data. One hundred stars, of the 1,050 observed, died during the 40 year study. And while 27 is often thought to be the rock star’s average shelf life (See: Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain—all dead at 27), the actual average age at the time of death is 42 for American rockers and 35 for Europeans.
No word on how undead rocks stars like The Rolling Stones threw off the average.
