James Douglas Morrison was an American singer, poet and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the rock band the Doors.
71 Facts About Jim Morrison
2.
Together with pianist Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison founded the Doors in 1965 in Venice, California.
3.
Jim Morrison recorded a total of six studio albums with the Doors, all of which sold well and received critical acclaim.
4.
Jim Morrison was well known for improvising spoken word poetry passages while the band played live.
5.
Jim Morrison developed an alcohol dependency throughout the band's career, which at times affected his performances on stage.
6.
On July 3,1971, Jim Morrison died unexpectedly in Paris, France at the age of 27, amid several conflicting witness reports.
7.
Since no autopsy was performed, the cause of Jim Morrison's death remains disputed.
8.
In 1993, Jim Morrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the other Doors members.
9.
James Douglas Jim Morrison was born on December 8,1943 in Melbourne, Florida, to Clara Virginia and Lt.
10.
Admiral Jim Morrison commanded US naval forces during the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, which provided the pretext for the US involvement in the Vietnam War in 1965.
11.
In 1947, when he was three to four years old, Jim Morrison allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, during which a truck overturned and some Native Americans were lying injured on the side of the road.
12.
Jim Morrison had described this incident as the most formative event of his life, and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems, and interviews.
13.
Jim Morrison said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don't even know if that's true.
14.
Jim Morrison continued at St John's Methodist School in Albuquerque, and then Longfellow School Sixth Grade Graduation Program from San Diego.
15.
In 1957, Jim Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California, for his freshman and first semester of his sophomore year.
16.
Jim Morrison's family moved back to Virginia in 1959, and he graduated from George Washington High School in Alexandria in June 1961.
17.
Jim Morrison was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in his conversation, poetry and songs.
18.
Jim Morrison was influenced by William S Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Baudelaire, Vladimir Nabokov, Moliere, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Honore de Balzac and Jean Cocteau, along with most of the French existentialist philosophers.
19.
Jim Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, and attended St Petersburg Junior College.
20.
Jim Morrison soon transferred to the film program at University of California, Los Angeles.
21.
Jim Morrison was impressed with Morrison's poetic lyrics, claiming that they were "rock group" material.
22.
All three musicians shared a common interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation practices at the time, attending scheduled classes, but Jim Morrison was not involved in these series of classes.
23.
Jim Morrison was inspired to name the band after the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception.
24.
Jim Morrison did not play an instrument live or in the studio.
25.
In May 1966, Jim Morrison reportedly attended a concert by the Velvet Underground at The Trip in Los Angeles, and Andy Warhol claimed in his book Popism that his "black leather" look had been heavily influenced by the dancer Gerard Malanga who performed at the concert.
26.
However, Krieger and Manzarek claim that Jim Morrison was inspired to wear leather pants by Marlon Brando from his role in The Fugitive Kind.
27.
Jim Morrison knew what he was doing and could do it very well.
28.
The film featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Jim Morrison lip-synched the lyrics.
29.
Jim Morrison then had a producer tell the band that they would never appear on his show again, and their planned six further bookings were cancelled.
30.
In late 1967, during a concert in New Haven, Connecticut, Jim Morrison was arrested on stage in an incident that further added to his mystique and emphasized his rebellious image.
31.
Jim Morrison was the first rock performer to be arrested onstage.
32.
Jim Morrison was frequently appearing in live performances and studio recordings late or stoned.
33.
On September 20,1970, Jim Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity by a six-person jury in Miami after a sixteen-day trial.
34.
At the sentencing, Judge Murray Goodman told Jim Morrison that he was a "person graced with a talent" admired by many of his peers.
35.
Free Press, Jim Morrison expressed both bafflement and clarity about the Miami incident:.
36.
All the other members of the band, along with Doors' road manager Vince Treanor, have insisted that Jim Morrison did not expose himself on stage that night.
37.
Woman with the Doors in Los Angeles, Jim Morrison announced to the band his intention to go to Paris.
38.
Jim Morrison's bandmates generally felt it was a good idea.
39.
Once Jim Morrison graduated from UCLA, he broke off most contact with his family.
40.
However, Jim Morrison told Hopkins in a 1969 interview for Rolling Stone magazine that he did this because he did not want to involve his family in his musical career.
41.
Jim Morrison's father was not supportive of his career choice in music.
42.
Jim Morrison said he could not blame his son for being reluctant to initiate contact and that he was proud of him.
43.
Jim Morrison spoke fondly of his Irish and Scottish ancestry and was inspired by Celtic mythology in his poetry and songs.
44.
Celtic Family Magazine revealed in its 2016 Spring Issue that his Jim Morrison clan was originally from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, while his Irish side, the Clelland clan who married into the Jim Morrison line, were from County Down in Northern Ireland.
45.
Jim Morrison had several serious relationships and many casual encounters.
46.
Jim Morrison stated in the interview that she was not a fan of the band and never attended a concert by them.
47.
Jim Morrison spent the majority of his adult life in an open and at times very charged and intense relationship with Pamela Courson.
48.
Jim Morrison's parents petitioned the court for inheritance of Morrison's estate.
49.
The probate court in California decided that she and Jim Morrison had once had what qualified as a common-law marriage, despite neither having applied for such status and the common-law marriage not being recognized in California.
50.
Jim Morrison dedicated his published poetry books The Lords and New Creatures and the lost writings Wilderness to Courson.
51.
David Crosby stated many years later that Jim Morrison treated Joplin cruelly at a party at the Calabasas, California, home of John Davidson while Davidson was out of town.
52.
Jim Morrison reportedly hit him over the head with a bottle of whiskey during a fight in front of witnesses, and thereafter referred to Morrison as "that asshole" whenever his name was brought up in conversation.
53.
Jim Morrison was still seeing Courson when he was in Los Angeles, and later moved to Paris for the summer, where Courson had acquired an apartment.
54.
Jim Morrison was devastated that he wasn't getting any public support.
55.
Jim Morrison was drawn to the poetry of William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, and Charles Baudelaire.
56.
Jim Morrison was similarly drawn to the work of French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
57.
Jim Morrison later met and befriended Michael McClure, a well-known Beat poet.
58.
Jim Morrison was particularly attracted to the myths and religions of Native American cultures.
59.
Jim Morrison was particularly excited about this microphone as it was the same model that Sinatra had used for some of his recording sessions.
60.
Jim Morrison cited Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent as other early influences.
61.
Jim Morrison befriended Beat poet Michael McClure, who wrote the afterword for Hopkins' No One Here Gets Out Alive.
62.
McClure and Jim Morrison reportedly collaborated on a number of unmade film projects, including a film version of McClure's infamous play The Beard, in which Jim Morrison would have played Billy the Kid.
63.
Jim Morrison recorded his own poetry in a professional sound studio on two occasions.
64.
Jim Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project.
65.
Jim Morrison was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, one of the city's most visited tourist attractions, where Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, French cabaret singer Edith Piaf, and many other poets and artists are buried.
66.
Jim Morrison was and continues to be one of the most popular and influential singer-songwriters and iconic frontmen in rock history.
67.
In 1993, Jim Morrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Doors; the other band members dedicated their induction to Jim Morrison.
68.
Jim Morrison was ranked number 22 on Classic Rock magazine's "50 Greatest Singers in Rock".
69.
Iggy and the Stooges are said to have formed after lead singer Iggy Pop was inspired by Jim Morrison while attending a Doors concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
70.
Layne Staley, the vocalist of Alice in Chains; Eddie Vedder, the vocalist of Pearl Jam; Scott Weiland, the vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver; Glenn Danzig, singer and founder of Danzig; Ian Astbury, the frontman of the Cult; Siouxsie Sioux, the lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division; Billy Idol, and Patti Smith have said that Jim Morrison was their biggest influence.
71.
However, Kilmer received some praise for his performance, with some members of the Doors reportedly saying that at times they couldn't distinguish whether it was Kilmer or Jim Morrison singing on some of the sequences.