Page 34 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

THE DOORS

revisited from the original 1968 sessions, now dated yet still moving enough to
hold sway on an album rippling with new hope. Others still were wonderfully
wrought facsimiles of great tunes The Doors might have come up with all on
their own had they the collective willpower left to still accomplish such feats,
but were cut and shut together with great skill by Paul Rothchild, whose raging
perfectionism was nevertheless once again driving them all slowly mad.
There were also lowlights: Land Ho!, another dated-sounding, ‘ironic’ take on
the traditional sea shanty, which fills up four minutes of the listener’s life that
they would never get back; Ship Of Fools, yet another variant on the riff to Break
On Through (To The Others Side), which could, equally, have turned up on either
of the first two Doors albums.
Another gem was The Spy, its title and subject matter ‘borrowed’ by Morrison
from Anaï Nin’s novel A Spy In The House, in which the heroine, Sabina, plays
deliberately dangerous games of desire, intoxicated by the principle of pleasure
for its own sake. Morrison knowingly croons about ‘your deepest, secret fears’ on
what is one of the most truly autobiographical songs on the album
Outside the studio, however, time was now running out for Morrison and
The Doors. When he and Baker failed to turn up for their scheduled court
appearance in Phoenix on November 24, and instead sent Max Fink to register
their joint not-guilty plea, Judge William Copple went ahead and set the trial
date for February 17, 1970, in the US District Court in Phoenix. With the
Miami trial date set for just two months after that, Morrison was looking at
a potential joint jail time of more than 13 years.
Nevertheless, he blithely carried on. When Henry Diltz shot the
photographs that would be used on the cover of Morrison Hotel, he at least had
a for-once clean-shaven Morrison to try to make look pretty.

‘Quality of their shows varied so

much that the band could go from

world-conquering giants to teetering
on the brink of self-destruction.’

They had actually found a real-life Morrison Hotel, in the skid-row section
of downtown LA (at 1246 Hope Street, to be precise) to go with the real-life
Hard Rock Café at 300 East 5th Street, and Diltz photographed the band at
both locations, going guerrilla to get some shots when the owner of the actual
Morrison Hotel refused permission for them to shoot inside, getting the band
to pose hurriedly when the manager’s back was turned.
In fact the real reason why Morrison had taken to shaving again – albeit
temporarily – was because Max Fink had talked him into it, in order that he
look the part of the successful, clean-cut young musician when the trial in a desk and proceed to start smashing up the new office. He was eventually
Phoenix came up in February. That strategy that went disastrously wrong bundled into the back of a limo, the driver being shouted at to “Get him the hell
when clean-shaven Morrison turned up in court with Tom Baker – who had away from here!”
recently grown a full-length beard – and the flight attendant got the two mixed
up, with the result that Morrison was the one found guilty of all charges, rather y the time Morrison Hotel was released, in February 1970 – and to their
than Baker who had been the real perpetrator. It took several weeks for Fink to best reviews since their first album three years before – The Doors had
persuade the court of the mistaken identity, during which Morrison and Baker Bannounced their arrival back on to the American concert stage with
fell out after Baker refused to stand up and admit the truth to the court. four shows over two sold-out nights at the Felt Forum in New York,
It all came to a predictably drunken head during a party at Elektra Records a 4,000-capacity adjunct to Madison Square Garden, chosen because of its
celebrating the opening of a new office in West Hollywood, when Baker resemblance to the more intimate feel of the Aquarius Theatre in LA. These
accused Morrison of being a hypocrite for “financing the very authority you shows would again be taped by Rothchild, still searching for the perfect Doors
claim interest in overthrowing”. Morrison’s response was to shove Baker over performances for their projected live album.

parents from Max’s Kansas City and to get Duane to leave the Allmans,” off mid-set and abusing audiences in intoxication) or the murder allegations of
returns to the family home in Long Island. Clapton reflects. “But he said he had to Seattle. Now, after leaving a tragic “Well first of roadie James ‘Tappy’ Wright, the greatest
He will spend the next two years working be loyal to what he called ‘the family’.” message on his former manager Chas guitarist of the era is gone.
as a typist at his father’s accountancy Chandler’s answering machine (“I need all, Jim did
firm, on a weekly wage of $40. SEPTEMBER 18 help bad, man”), Hendrix is pronounced not pull it SEPTEMBER 20
JIMI HENDRIX KISSES dead on arrival at St. MIAMI CATCHES UP WITH
AUGUST 26 THE SKY Mary Abbot’s out… But it JIM MORRISON
DUANE ALLMAN DUETS WITH Throughout the year, the Hospital in London. In a litigious year for live performance
ERIC CLAPTON guitarist has given hints at Whether you believe was bedlam, – Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane have
With a newly solo Clapton recording at his darkening head-space, the pathologist’s just total already been fined $200 and $1,000
Miami’s Criteria Studios, the doomed god making doomy statements official verdict respectively for on-stage profanity – the JIMI HENDRIX: GETTY
of southern slide guitar drops in to play on from the stage (“I’ve been (inhalation of vomit craziness.” Doors frontman is charged with indecent
’
Laylas weeping twin-lead outro. “I tried dead a long time”), walking due to barbiturate exposure and profanity at the previous

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