If anyone were to write a Jim Morrison tell-all, band- and soulmate
Manzarek would be the man. But, to his everlasting credit, he
didn't. Using his Doors experiences as the hook, Manzarek reels
readers in with personal, often charming, if occasionally cloying,
reflections on his life before, during, and since the Doors. He
begins with his childhood in a working-class Chicago neighborhood,
where his parents introduced him to the sensuous pleasures of the
blues and meat-eating (a recurring theme - don't ask). Later he
attended UCLA film school, where he met Morrison. From there, the
two lives followed parallel paths to different destinations.
Manzarek, the more responsible (or less volatile), met and married
his sweetheart, Dorothy, his wife to this day. Morrison became the
band's charismatic front man whose fixation with nihilism and
violent imagery, when mated to his heavy drinking and drug use,
created what Manzarek calls "Jimbo," a sociopathic, drunken brute,
"a monster. . . . the creature who eventually took Jim to Paris and
killed him." Rather than luxuriate in the sordid details of
Morrison's self-destruction, however, the author mostly prefers to
revel in the giddy pleasures of life with the band: the genteel
poverty of the early days; camaraderie and bickering among Doors
members while on tour; success as known at the top; and even the
truth about the Doors' ill-starred 1969 concert in Miami (for the
record, Morrison never exposed himself). If Manzarek feels any
rancor over the end of the Doors - he claims that Jim's 1971
sojourn in Paris was a hiatus, not a break-up - it is directed
toward the hangers-on who steered Morrison down his path to
self-smashing. Although Manzarek does reserve choice words for the
director of the Doors movie, Oliver Stone, such as "fascist,"
"psychotic," and "bonehead." Whatever. Even these screeds make this
pop-culture memoir more engaging. (Kirkus Reviews)
The Doors were arguably the most important rock-and-roll band of the sixties, unquestionably a catalyst for American music as we know it. Their music was the product of late-sixties southern California, with its idyllic facades. The Doors looked beyond these facades and wrote music about what they found, thus becoming the ultimate symbol for rebellion and alienation. Ray Manzarek co-founded the Doors with Jim Morrison in 1965. Together with Robby Krieger and John Densmore they created a legend. Their original mix of jazz, classical, Californian surf, Flamenco guitar and Chicago blues made an irreversible impact on the music of the day.And their worldwide popularity continues today with album sales of nearly two million a year. Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison were both UCLA Film School graduates, best friends and rarely apart until Morrison moved to Paris shortly before his death in 1971. What Ray Manzarek knows about Jim Morrison and the Doors, no one else does. His story gives illumination to the dark myths and lays to rest the rumours that have abounded about Jim Morrison and the band. Light My Fire truly gives us an insight into the times, the enigmatic lead singer, and the magic circle that was The Doors.
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