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Jim Morrison
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Jim Morrison was born on 8 December 1943 in Melbourne, Florida, the son of a naval officer. The family moved often. As a young child he saw, in the New Mexico desert, a road accident with injured Native Americans by the roadside, a memory he later kept bringing back in his songs and poems. His family remembers the incident differently from how he told it.
Music and breakthrough
In 1965 he founded The Doors in Venice, California, with keyboard player Ray Manzarek. Morrison sang and wrote most of the lyrics. After two unremarkable years the band broke through with Light My Fire, from the debut album The Doors (1967), which reached number 1 in America. With Morrison the group made six studio albums, up to and including L.A. Woman. On stage he often recited poems while the band played. His performances were unpredictable and provocative: in 1967 he was arrested on stage in New Haven, and a concert in Miami in 1969 led to court cases.
Influence
Morrison combined poetic, dark lyrics with a deep, dark voice. He became a symbol of the counterculture and the generation gap of the 1960s. His drinking sometimes affected his performances. On 3 July 1971 he died unexpectedly in an apartment in Paris, aged 27. Because no autopsy was carried out, the cause of death was never established. In 1993 he was inducted with The Doors into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 4: When Rock Was Still PopNL Reader
- Mixtape 9: The InstrumentNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- The Doors Album
The Whisky a Go Go fired the band on 21 August, after singer Jim Morrison had improvised a passage from Oedipus Rex during The End.