RIDER ON THE STORM

First to quit the band, first to write his memoirs, first to sue the others: On paper, Doors drummer John Densmore sounds like a fuse waiting to be lit. The most outspoken member of the group, at 65 he is, however, also the most thoughtful and engaging, fully aware of The Doors’ legacy and his place in it, as Jason Draper found out…

New Orleans, 12 December 1970. Jim Morrison, the one-time “erotic politician” and shamanic performer blessed with the good looks of Apollo, now balding and sporting the paunch of a drinker beyond his 27 years, has already provoked The Doors’ driver for the evening into agreeing with keeping the city’s black population “where they belong” as he points out out the “No Coloureds Allowed” sign at the bar he’s just left. “Yes sireee!” their redneck chauffeur concurs, before shooting out a racist monologue that has the rest of the band cringeing. A loaded Jimbo, grinning to his bandmates, goades the driver on as they approach The Warehouse, that evening’s venue.

Perhaps something spooky was in the air that night in the Crescent City: the home of a sweaty jazz-rock gumbo; Dr John, Professor Longhair, the voodoo spirit of jazz. Barely through The Doors’ set, Morrison drops out of Soul Kitchen, bored, preferring to tell jokes to the crowd:

“What did the blind man say as he passed the fish store?”

Silence.

“Hi, girls!”

No reaction. More rambling jokes into the microphone, false song starts, a fumbled set; Morrison bored with his own art and boring everyone else with his disinterest… Back at the …

by Jason Draper
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