Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation
Part XI
November 13, 2008
“By
that, I mean, ‘Get me a lead singer. He’s got sort of an androgynous
blonde
hair, very pretty. We need a guitar player, sort of hatchet-faced,
wears a hat,
plays very fast, very dramatic. He must be very dramatic. Get me a
pound of
bass player, pound of drummer … they’re making little cardboard
cutouts. They
hire a producer, they hire writers … And in the current stuff now, they
don’t
even bother getting people to play. Don’t bother with that guitar
player, bass
player, drummer – nonsense … The people in those bands can’t write,
play, or
sing.”
David
Crosby, describing the synthetic, manufactured nature of today’s rock
bands
“David was obnoxious, loud, demanding,
thoughtless, full of himself – of the four of them [David Crosby,
Steven
Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young], the least talented.”
David
Geffen
First
of all, before getting back into the
Don’t
get me wrong here – I’m flattered by the attention. I really am. The
problem
though is that you have overloaded my now-overworked website, causing
it to
spontaneously disappear on, of all days, the morning of
Luckily,
this problem was quickly brought to my attention by a few alert readers
and I
was able to liberate my site by digging deeply into my pockets to come
up with
the bail money that the jailers were demanding (I think they referred
to it as
“adding resources” to my site, but I wasn’t really fooled by that. And
I
didn’t, by the way, really dig that deeply into my pockets. But that’s
not the
point. No, the point is that my site is – and I’m sure that there are
many of
you who do not know this – primitive by design. It is my belief that
the ‘retro
website’ look will soon be all the rage, and I want to be at the
forefront of
that movement. Everything old will someday become new again, and the
‘net has
been around for long enough now, given our collectively short attention
span,
that a return to basics – to those first tentative baby-steps some of
us took
in creating one of those newfangled things called ‘websites’ – is all
but
guaranteed. My site, needless to say, will become the template that
will be
followed by everyone who wants to run with the in-crowd. I will, of
course, be
regarded as something of a visionary. Unfortunately though, I will
ultimately
be revealed as a fraud when, a few years down the road, legions of fans
suddenly realize that, long after the fad has passed, my site is still
retro.
Self-righteous critics will denounce me as a poser, a charlatan – they
may even
invoke that most demeaning of future slurs and label me a ‘Palin.’ But
before
that happens, the brief time during which I shall have basked in the
limelight
will have made it all worthwhile. Of course, none of that has much to
do with
purchasing additional bandwidth for my site, so I guess it does come
down to
the money issue after all. Because if your behavior continues, I fear
that the
situation could soon spiral completely out of control, forcing me to
come to
you, like every other asswipe on the Internet, with hat in hand. Before
long, I
could be spending all of my time organizing annual fundraising drives,
with the
word ‘annual’ defined here, as it appears to be elsewhere, as ‘every
twelve
days.’ And no one really wants to see that happen. And yes, by the way,
I do
realize that I am likely contributing to the problem by including lots
of large
color photos in the posts, which presumably hog up lots of bandwidth
[that’s
techno-speak that I am throwing in here to make me sound really smart,
when the
reality is that any attempt that I might make to define the word
‘bandwidth’
would sound a lot like the governor of Alaska attempting to explain the
strategic significance of that frozen state: “You may not know this,
but I have
been told by a real scientist – I think he was an archacologist – that
at one
time there was a land bridge between Alaska and Russia that some
cavemen or
dinosaurs or something came across. Supposedly that was way back in
olden
times, like even before John McCain was born. But as everyone who goes
to my
church knows, ‘olden times’ wasn’t really that long ago, since the
Earth is
only about 438 years old. That’s why Todd and I believe that that
bridge is still
up there somewhere, and if the Russians find it before we do, then we
could be
in some serious gosh darn trouble. That’s why I wanted all that earmark
money
for the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ because that was really a secret codename
for ‘the
bridge to
And
yes, I do realize that the preceding passage might have been a bit more
topical
had I actually gotten it posted when it was written, a couple of months
ago.
But let’s not dwell on that; instead, let’s get back to our little
story, shall
we?
At
the very beginning of this journey, I noted that Jim Morrison’s story
was not
“in any way unique.” As it turns out, however, that proclamation is not
exactly
true. It was a true enough statement in the context in which it
appeared –
which is to say that Morrison’s family background did not differ
significantly
from that of his musical peers – but in many other significant ways,
Jim
Morrison was indeed a most unique individual, and quite possibly the
unlikeliest rock star to ever stumble across a stage.
Morrison
essentially arrived on the scene as a fully-developed rock star,
complete with
a backing band, a stage persona and an impressive collection of songs –
enough,
in fact, to fill the Doors’ first few albums. How exactly Jim Morrison
reinvented
himself in such a radical manner remains something of a mystery, since
before
his sudden incarnation as singer/songwriter, James Douglas Morrison had
never
shown the slightest interest in music. None whatsoever. He certainly
never
studied music and could neither read nor write it. By his own account,
he never
had much of an interest in even listening to music. He told one
interviewer
that he “never went to concerts – one or two at most.” And before
joining the
Doors, he “never did any singing. I never even conceived of it.” Asked
near the
end of his life if he had ever had any desire to learn to play a
musical
instrument, Jim responded, “Not really.”
So
here we had a guy who had never sang (apparently not even in the shower
or in
his car, which seems rather odd to me), who had “never even conceived”
of the
notion that he could open his mouth and makes sounds come out, and who
couldn’t
play an instrument and had no interest in learning such a skill, and
who had
never much listened to music or been anywhere near a band, even just to
watch
one perform, and yet this guy somehow emerged, virtually overnight, as
a
fully-formed rock star who would quickly become an icon of his
generation. And
even more bizarrely, legend holds that he brought with him enough
original
songs to fill the first few Doors’ albums. Morrison did not, you see,
do as any
other singer/songwriter does and pen the songs over the course of the
band’s
career; instead, he allegedly wrote them all at once, before the band
was even
formed. As Jim once acknowledged in an interview, he was “not a very
prolific
songwriter. Most of the songs I’ve written I wrote in the very
beginning, about
three years ago. I just had a period when I wrote a lot of songs.”
In
fact, all of the good songs that Morrison is credited with
writing were
written during that period – the period during which, according to rock
legend,
Jim spent most of his time hanging out on the rooftop of a
In
any event, the question that naturally arises (though it does not
appear to
have ever been asked of him) is: how exactly did Jim “The Lizard King”
Morrison
write that impressive batch of songs? I’m certainly no musician myself,
but it
is my understanding that just about every singer/songwriter across the
land
composes his or her songs in essentially the same manner: on an
instrument –
usually either a piano or a guitar. Some songwriters, I hear, can
compose on
paper, but that requires a skill set that Jim did not possess. The
problem, of
course, is that he also could not play a musical instrument of any
kind. How
then did he write the songs?
He
would have had to have composed them, I’m guessing, in his head. So we
are to
believe then that a few dozen complete songs, never heard by anyone and
never
played by any musician, existed only in Jim Morrison’s acid-addled
brain.
Anything is possible, I suppose, but even if we accept that premise, we
are
still left with some nagging questions, including the question of how
those
songs got out of Jim Morrison’s head. As a general rule of
thumb, if a
songwriter doesn’t know how to read and write music, he can play the
song for
someone who does and thereby create the sheet music (which was the
case, for
example, with all of the songs that Brian Wilson penned for the Beach
Boys).
But Jim quite obviously could not play his own songs. So did he, I
don’t know,
maybe hum them?
And
these are, it should be clarified, songs that we are talking
about here,
as opposed to just lyrics, which would more accurately be categorized
as poems.
Because Jim, as we all know, was quite a prolific poet, whereas he was
a
songwriter only for one brief period in his life. But why was that? Why
did
Morrison, with no previous interest in music, suddenly and inexplicably
become
a prolific songwriter, only to just as suddenly lose interest after
mentally
penning an impressive catalogue of what would become regarded as rock
staples?
And how and why did Jim achieve the accompanying physical
transformation that
changed him from a clean-cut, collegiate, and rather conservative
looking young
man into the brooding sex symbol who would take the country by storm?
And why,
after a few years of adopting that persona, did Jim transform once
again, in
the last year or so of his life, into an overweight, heavily-bearded,
reclusive
poet who seemed to have lost his interest in music just as suddenly and
inexplicably as he had obtained it?
It
wasn’t just Morrison who was, in retrospect, a bit of an oddity; the
entire
band differed from other
Anyway,
the point is that none of the four members of the Doors had band
credentials.
Even a band as contrived as the Byrds, as we shall soon see, had
members with
band credentials. So too did Buffalo Springfield, with Neil Young and
Bruce
Palmer, for example, having played in the Mynah Birds, backing a young
vocalist
by the name of Rick “Superfreak” James (Goldie McJohn of Steppenwolf,
oddly
enough, had been a Mynah Bird as well). The Mamas and the Papas were
put
together from elements of the Journeymen and the Mugwumps. And so on
with the
rest of the
The
Doors could cite no such band lineage. They were just four guys who
happened to
come together to play the songs written by the singer who had never
sung but
who had a sudden calling and a magical gift for songwriting. And as you
would
expect with four guys who had never actually played in a band before,
they
pretty much sucked. But don’t take my word for it; let’s let the band’s
producer, Paul Rothchild, weigh in: “The Doors were not great live
performers
musically. They were exciting theatrically and kinetically, but as
musicians
they didn’t make it; there was too much inconsistency, there was too
much bad
music. Robby would be horrendously out of tune with Ray, John would be
missing
cues, there was bad mike usage too, where you couldn’t hear Jim at all.”
As
luck would have it, I have heard some audio of a young and quite
inebriated Jim
Morrison at the microphone, and I would have to say that not being able
to
“hear Jim at all” might have, in many cases, actually improved the
performance.
But sucking as a band, of course, does not really set the Doors apart
from its
contemporaries. Another thing that was unusual about the band,
however,
is that, from the moment the band was conceived, the lineup never
changed. No
one was added, no one was replaced, no one dropped out of the band over
‘artistic differences,’ or to pursue a solo career, or to join another
band, or
for any of the other reasons that bands routinely change shape.
It
would be difficult to identify another
But
not the Doors. Jim Morrison’s band arrived on the scene as a
fully-formed
entity, with a name, a stable line-up, a backlog of soon-to-be hit
songs – and
no previous experience writing, arranging, playing or performing music.
Other
than that though, they were just your run-of-the-mill, organic,
grass-roots
rock-and-roll band – with a curious aversion to political advocacy.
Jim
Morrison was, by virtually all accounts, a voracious reader. Former
teachers
and college professors expressed amazement at the breadth and depth of
his
knowledge on various topics, and at the staggering array of literary
sources
that he could accurately cite. And yet he was known to tell
interviewers that
he “[had]n’t studied politics that much, really.” But that was okay,
according
to drummer John Densmore, since “a lot of people at our concerts at
least,
they’re sort of – it seems like they don’t really come to hear us speak
politics.”
That’s
the way it was in the 1960s, you see; the young folks of that era just
didn’t
concern themselves much with politics, and certainly didn’t want their
anti-war
icons engaging in anything resembling political discourse.
* * * * * * * * * *
During
the Doors’ glory days on the Sunset
Strip, Morrison “struck up an intimate friendship” with Whisky-A-Go-Go
owner
Elmer Valentine, according to a Vanity Fair article (“Live at
the
Whisky”). At the time, Valentine was also, coincidentally of course,
very close
to his own secretary/booking agent, Gail Sloatman, whom Jim had known
since
kindergarten through Naval officers’ circles. Valentine was also – by
pretty
much all accounts, including his own – a ‘made man.’
It
was mentioned previously that Valentine was a former
Valentine
was ultimately indicted for extortion, though he managed to avoid
prosecution
and conviction. Venturing out to LA circa 1960, he soon found himself
running
PJ’s nightclub at the corner of
Valentine
obviously had considerable financial backing to launch his business
enterprise,
and it wasn’t much of a secret on the Strip where that backing came
from. Frank
Zappa once cryptically referred to Valentine’s backers as an “ethnic
organization,” while Chris Hillman of the Byrds simply noted that,
“whoever
financed Elmer, I don’t want to know.”
Valentine
received far more than just financial backing to launch the Whisky; he
got a
generous assist from the media as well. As Vanity Fair noted,
“Within
months of the Whisky’s debut, Life magazine had written it up,
Jack Paar
had broadcast an episode of his post-Tonight weekly program from the
club, and
Steve McQueen and Jayne Mansfield had installed themselves as
regulars.” During
that very same era, it should be noted, Mansfield was also a
high-profile
member of the Church of Satan, with close ties to founder Anton LaVey,
who in turn
had ties, as we have already seen, to the dance troupe led by Vito
Paulekas,
which, as we have also seen, had close ties to Laurel Canyon’s very
first band,
the Byrds.
How
was that for a segue?
As
a fledgling band, the Byrds had any number of problems. The first and
most
obvious was that the band’s members did not own any musical
instruments. That
problem was solved though when Naomi Hirschorn, best known for funding
such
other quasi-governmental projects as the Hirschorn Museum in
Washington, D.C.,
stepped up to the plate to provide the band with instruments,
amplifiers and
the like. But that didn’t solve a bigger problem, which was that the
band’s
members, with the exception of Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, didn’t have a
clue as
to how to actually play the instruments.
Cast
to play the bass player was Chris Hillman, who had never picked up a
bass
guitar in his life. As he candidly admitted years later, he “was a
mandolin
player and didn’t know how to play bass. But they didn’t know how to
play their
instruments either, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.” On drums was
Michael
Clarke, who had never before held a set of drumsticks in his hands, but
who
bore a resemblance to Rolling Stone Brian Jones, which was deemed to be
of more
significance than actual musical ability. As
Gene
Clark, though by far the most gifted songwriter in the band and a
talented
vocalist as well, could play the guitar, but not particularly well, so
he was
relegated to banging the tambourine, which was Jim Morrison’s (and
various
non-musically inclined members of the Partridge Family’s) instrument of
choice
as well. David Crosby, tasked with rhythm guitar duties, wasn’t much
better.
Crosby himself admitted, in his first autobiography (does anyone really
need to
write more than one autobiography, by the way?), that “Roger was the
only one
who could really play.”
The
band had another problem as well: with the exception of Gene Clark, who
was
good but not terribly prolific, the group was a bit lacking in
songwriting
ability. To compensate, they initially played mostly covers. Fully a
third of
the band’s first album consisted of covers of Dylan songs, and nearly
another
third was made up of covers of songs by other folk singer/songwriters.
Carl
Franzoni perhaps summed it up best when he declared that “the Byrds
records
were manufactured.” The first album in particular was an entirely
engineered
affair created by taking a collection of songs by outside songwriters
and
having them performed by a group of nameless studio musicians (for the
record,
the actual musicians were Glen Campbell – yes, that Glen Campbell, who
also
briefly served as a Beach Boy – on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, Larry
Knechtel
on bass, Leon Russell on electric piano, and Jerry Cole on rhythm
guitar),
after which the band’s trademark vocal harmonies, entirely a studio
creation,
were added to the mix.
As
would be expected, the Byrds’ live performances, according to Barney
Hoskyns in
Waiting for the Sun, “weren’t terribly good.” But that didn’t
matter
much; the band got a lot of assistance from the media, with Time
magazine being
among the first to champion the new band. And they also got a lot of
help from
Vito and the Freaks and from the Young Turks, as was previously
discussed.
We
shall return to the Byrds, and to our old friend Vito, in the next
outing. For
now, I leave you with this curious little story about Byrd Chris
Hillman’s
initial arrival in Laurel Canyon, as told by Michael Walker in Laurel
Canyon:
“In the autumn of 1964, a nineteen-year-old bluegrass adept and
virtuoso
mandolin player named Chris Hillman stood at the corner of Laurel
Canyon
Boulevard and Kirkwood Drive contemplating a FOR
In
I
think maybe I will work on that as well.
* * * * * * * * * *
In
unrelated news, I recently stumbled upon a childhood artifact that,
because I
am a giver, and because I made you all wait so long for this
installment, I am
going to share with each and every one of you. So remember this the
next time
that I am running a little late due to the fact that, you know, I have
a life
and all, and you find yourself feeling inclined to pen me an e-mail
pleading in
vain for the next chapter. Without further ado then, take a look at
this series
of images: www.davesweb.cnchost.com/cover.html
For
the curious, here is the line-up of aspiring young artists: www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Wray.html.
To prove that I really am a giver, I am prepared to offer a free
subscription
to this newsletter to the first reader who can correctly identify me in
that
photo … oh, yeah, this is a free newsletter, isn’t it? … I forgot there
for a
minute, probably because the way some people complain about the
timeliness of
these posts, you’d think they were actually paying for this shit … but
anyway,
I guess there won’t actually be a prize given away, other than the
reward of
knowing that you have successfully completed the challenge. Good luck.