Jim Cherry's Blog (78)

Hello Classic Rockers Network!

It's been a long time since I stopped by, (sorry for that) but glad to see you're still going strong and continuing the rock and roll. 

To reintroduce myself, I'm Jim Cherry I'm a writer and a Doors fan (why does this all of a sudden seem like an AA thing), I write The Doors Examiner, if you're a Doors fan and want to keep up with what's going on in The…

It looks like John Densmore is going to be doing a cross-country book signing tour for his new book The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial at independent music shops starting April 20, which is also Record Store Day. Densmore will be kicking off the book tour at the music store that started Record Store Day, Bull Moose Records, 456 Payne Road, Scarborough, Maine, at 2PM.

Densmore’s book documents the 2003 trial in which he and Jim Morrison’s estate sued former…

“Me, and my mother and father, and grandmother and grandfather were driving through the desert at dawn…” so starts the story of a haunted sounding Jim Morrison as he told of the mystical experience of the soul of a dead Indian leaping into his soul. But did it happen? Oliver Stone illustrated the scene in his opening of his movie The Doors. Morrison’s parents downplayed the significance, chalking it up to Jim’s vivid imagination, but in a discussion with friends Frank Lisciandro and…

The Doors had just had their biggest summer. Light My Fire had gone from a seven minute album cut, to an edited AM radio friendly length of 2:52, and on to being a part of the Summer of Love’s soundtrack and number one on the Billboard charts.

With Light My Fire hitting number one it pushed The Doors onto the national stage and the national variety shows started calling. First Ed Sullivan, and in December the Jonathan Winters Show. (read full article at…

I saw Michael McClure and Ray Manzarek at Lounge Ax in Chicago in the 80’s and for a moment I was transported by the words and music. It felt like I’d broken through something. In “The Piano Poems”, Manzarek and McClure sit in for a live set in San Francisco and there’s always the possibility to be transported by these two and their words and music.…

Flushing Meadows, NY, August 2nd 1968. The security guards and uniformed police officers brought The Doors to the stage of the Singer Bowl through the gauntlet of the crowd. As they made their way to the stage, fans grabbed and pulled at the band members.

Prior to the band going on stage, Jim Morrison wandered around backstage and on the grounds of the concert followed by the “Feast of Friends” film crew which captured some now iconic scenes of Morrison that were used in the film and…

Frank Lisciandro has added vastly to The Doors fans’ knowledge of The Doors and Jim Morrison. Lisciandro was a film school friend of Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, helped film “Feast of Friends” and “HWY” (Paul Ferrara also was part of The Doors film team), and has helped carry on the legacy of Jim Morrison as poet. He was part of bringing “An American Prayer” to fruition. Lisciandro has even worked with the Courson’s (who hold the copyright to Jim Morrison’s poetry) to bring out the books…

Did Jim Morrison own a motorcycle? There are no pictures of Morrison riding a motorcycle while there are films of Jim riding a bike, on a boat, and driving his Cobra. In the biographies and the published reminisces of Jim’s friends there’s no mention of Morrison buying a motorcycle or arriving anywhere on a motorcycle. But documents say James Douglas Morrison owned a motorcycle.

Don Ince a vintage motorcycle collector and restorer of old motorcycles recently ran across a motorcycle…

I thought “We Want the World: Jim Morrison, The Living Theatre and the FBI” by Daveth Milton was going to be a sensationalized and/or a conspiracy theory that pops up on the fringes of fandom, but it wasn’t. I found “We Want the World” to be an insightful look at what a lot of Doors fans think they know a lot about Jim Morrison’s performance at the Dinner Key Auditorium on March 1, 1969, and how Morrison was influenced by the Living Theatre and tried to bring their tactics to a mass audience…

Jim Morrison has been dead just over forty years, The Doors haven’t existed as a band since 1973, yet The Doors are still a relevant and a vibrant presence today. Their songs still get extensive airplay on classic rock stations and since 2007, The Doors have been thinking of their legacy and their place in the future and have been taking steps to insure that legacy and legend, although some would argue Jim Morrison has insured The Doors appeal into the future. The Doors have released their…

Four years ago yesterday the world lost one of the innovators, if not one of the creators of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Bo Diddly. Diddly influenced everyone from Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, The Animals, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors.

Born December 30, 1928, as Ellas Otha Bates, he later recorded and wrote songs as Ellas McDaniel. Like many of the famous bluesmen he was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago as a child where as a member of the Ebenezer Baptist Church he learned to play the…

Since Tupac Shakur’s holographic resurrection at the Coachella Festival two weeks ago it seems a lot of estates of dead rock stars and/or their families are expressing interest in resurrecting dead rock stars, it looks like the revolution is upon us.

The very life-like hologram of Shakur is causing not ripples through the concert touring industry but waves and who knows if those waves will turn into tidal waves. Rolling Stone Magazine ran a poll asking readers who they would like to…

Welcome to the future!

John Densmore has said he wouldn’t play with former bandmates, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger, as The Doors unless Jim Morrison was singing with the band again. Aside from a few jokes in bad taste, that was an impossibility until Sunday night when Tupac-Shakur “appeared” at the Coachella Festival. So with the technology able to create a realistic image, can long dead rock stars appear “live” in concert again? Will The Doors cancel Jim Morrison’s cancellation to…

The Doors documentary "When You're Strange" was released theatrical today, April 9, 2010. Instead of using contemporary talking head interviews "When You're Strange" relied on the archival footage of The Doors 1968 documentary "Feast of Friends" (which never had been released theatrically, and The Doors edited portions of it for videos in the 80's), and Jim Morrison's film "HWY," the narrative of the film was provided by Johnny Depp's voice over.…

If anyone qualifies as being “the fifth Door,” it’s Paul Rothchild. As a producer for Elektra Records he was there from the beginning of The Doors professional career until almost the end.

Paul Rothchild also came to Elektra Records at a critical period in its history. Rothchild started as a record salesman, had connections in the New York folk scene, and evolved into producing by the time Elektra was expanding. When the music scene emigrated to the west coast and the burgeoning rock…

The Doors are trying again to appeal to a new generation with a video of “L.A. Woman” that is meant to appeal to the younger skateboarding audience. This seeking a legacy audience fits in with recent collaborations with Skrillex and TechN9ne.

The “L.A.Woman” video features…

January 20, 2012 The Doors screened their new documentary "The Doors Mr. Mojo Risin': The Making of L.A. Woman." There was a question and answer period after the movie, the panel included L.A. DJ Jim Ladd, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, Jac Holzman and Bruce Botnick. Eagle Rock TV has released video of the Q & A session in 4 parts, all below:…

My interview with poet Michael C Ford who not only knew Jim Morrison at UCLA but Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, all before The Doors hit it big. He has an opinion on everything from modern poetry, to Jim Morrison and his continuing relationship with members of The Doors.

Michael C. Ford is a poet of two centuries, he was born in Chicago in 1939, he and his parents moved to Los Angeles after World War II, and while still in high school he became a protégé to poets Kenneth…

It is an in-between moment for The Doors. Yes, they have attracted the attention of Jac Holzman and Elektra records, their first album has been released but the single “Break on Through” isn’t burning up the charts, the future of The Doors is still in doubt as to whether they will live or die as a band, they still haven’t stepped through the door “Light My Fire” as a single will provide. Despite this The Doors are a congruent and focused group as they play the Matrix theater in San…

March 6th or 7th 1968. It may have seemed a gathering of the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon at Steve Paul’s Scene, in the audience were Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, an almost impossible alignment of the stars, but stars aligning some times portend catastrophe.

The Scene was a club where rock stars could and would show up and jam and they often did. Jimi Hendrix would and could show up at a club and jam with whatever band was at the club or by himself. He had recently started…