Tales of the Ancient Rocker: An American in Paris

Why the French want Jim Morrison gone, and other scary Halloween rock stories

By MIKE JAHN, Special to the Daily News
October 28, 2004

As we all know and if we don't, are told frequently by every store in the known universe, Halloween is the time when spirits of the dead rise up from their graves to prowl the countryside, wreaking havoc. We either placate those spirits by handing out treats or hide from them by pretending to be one.

Often we can placate the spirits of the dead by purchasing their CDs.  I have known a lot of rock stars who have truly joined the choir eternal. To get in the Halloween spirit, I listed them.  I ran out of fingers and toes before coming up with a number:  27.

Of the 20 listed below, 10 died of medical problems, heart attacks or cancer, mainly.  Four died of overdoses of either drugs or alcohol, sometimes both.  Another four succumbed to crashes by planes (two), cars (one), and skiing into trees (one).  One was murdered and another committed suicide, possibly to avoid death by any of the aforementioned.

Readers surprised by the number of medical, as opposed to drug deaths, are reminded that smoking and drugs is an effective way to give yourself a heart attack or cancer.

Regarding deaths-per-band, that would be three-fifths of Canned Heat, half of the Who, two-fifths of MC5, one-third of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and a quarter each of the Beatles and Doors.

First, a few words on the one dead rock person who his gravekeepers want to see up, on his feet and homeward bound.

'I was the Lizard King'

The French have recently been trying to get rid of Jim Morrison again. The only man whey worked harder to get out of Paris was Hitler.

Rock legend Morrison of the Doors died in Paris in 1971, more or less of his own hand following the most intense, prolonged attempt at self-immolation in rock history. When I met him in Los Angeles in early 1968 it was well before he had achieved stardom and was called a tortured poetic god often enough to imagine himself as tragic and doomed.

Still, he was dead drunk at 9 in the morning and took my modest handshake as reason to fake falling to the floor and crying out, "Oh, man, you broke my hand!" Three years later the brilliance of the group's early albums "The Doors" and "Strange Days" had morphed into the wretched "The Soft Parade." Morrison's increasingly drunken life led to an arrest for exposing himself onstage in Miami.

He then fled the country and before long suffered a sordid, heroin- and alcohol-fueled demise in a Paris bathtub, reportedly covered with vomited-up pineapple chunks from sweet-and-sour Chinese food.

The declassé demise notwithstanding, he was buried at the city's famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery.  There he reposes for now, alongside such artistic legends as Abelard, Moliere, Chopin, Proust, Balzac and Oscar Wilde.

The French don't like it, largely because Morrison's fans stand in line for hours awaiting their chance to leave presents, smoke grass, drink whiskey and, when the guards' backs are turned, have sex in the shadow of their idol's headstone.

Good thing Morrison wasn't buried next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Says the Lachaise cemetery-manager, Christian Charlet: "We'd like to kick him out, because we don't want him, he causes too many problems."

That may not be easy.  Pere Lachaise draws two million visitors a year, making it Paris' fifth-largest tourist attraction, after Notre Dame, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre and the Pompidou Centre.  Morrison is a large chunk of the reason.

If he is dug up and flown out he will join a number of eminent stiffs whose final resting places weren't all that fina,l among them Bach, Beethoven, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull and Santa Claus.  (St. Nicholas' remains were corpse-napped a millennium ago by the civic leaders of Bari, Italy, who wanted him as a tourist attraction.)

Las Vegas sounds like a good final resting place for the American in Paris who called himself "the lizard king." That city has the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino, complete with fake Eiffel Tower (but not, so far, cemetery). And Vegas is in the desert, where the lizard king's subjects bask in the sand.

Spirits of rock stars passed (sic)

Here are the main rockers of my acquaintance the spirits of whom, this time every year, go a-prowling, perhaps in search of drugs, booze, royalties and better skis.

Sonny Bono: died after crashing into a tree while skiing near Lake Tahoe, Jan. 5, 1998.

Harry Chapin: died July 16, 1981, in a car accident on Long Island, N.Y.

Jim Croce: died in a plane crash Sept. 20, 1973.

John Denver: died in a plane crash Oct. 12, 1997.

John Entwistle: bassist for the Who; died June 28, 2002 of a heart attack also involving cocaine and a prostitute. In Vegas, naturally.

Jerry Garcia: died Aug. 9, 1995 of a heart attack doubtless associated with his lifelong taste for junk food.

Jimi Hendrix: died Sept. 18, 1970, of a drug overdose. He would be humiliated by his surviving family's messy fight over his estate.

Bob Hite: 6-foot, 300-poind singer for Canned Heat, died of a heart attack April 5, 1981.

Janis Joplin: died of an overdose Oct. 4, 1970.

Ronnie Lane: of the Faces and Rod Stewart and Faces; died June 5, 1997, of multiple sclerosis.

John Lennon: murdered on Dec. 8, 1980, outside his apartment building, New York's 19th century landmark the Dakota, which also was the setting for "Rosemary's Baby."

Linda McCartney: one-time photographer and part-time, sort-of backup singer; died April 17, 1998, of breast cancer.

Keith Moon: the Who's wild man drummer; died of a drug overdose on Sept. 7, 1978, surprising no one.

Jim Morrison: died July 3, 1971.

Fred "Sonic" Smith: of MC5, later husband of Patti Smith (no blood relation); died November 5, 1994, of heart disease.

Henry Vestine: guitarist with Canned Heat; died Oct. 20, 1997, of a heart attack.

Rob Tyner: singer for MC5, died Sept. 17, 1991 of heart failure while driving home from the grocery store.

Dave Van Ronk: "the Mayor of Macdougal Street" and early nurturer of many folk singers; died Feb. 10, 2002, of colon cancer.

Alan Wilson: guitarist with Canned Heat. He killed himself in Bob Hite's backyard Sept. 3, 1970.

Frank Zappa: rock's cranky innovator and first-amendment advocate who clashed famously with Tipper Gore over censorship of rock lyrics; died of prostate cancer on Dec. 4, 1993.

Where are the other Doors now?

Ian Astbury, formerly of British punk-metal band the Cult, has replaced Morrison in the band called "The Doors of the 21st Century," or "D21C."

Original drummer John Densmore — the only down-to-earth one of the original group — sued old bandmates Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek to keep them from using the name "The Doors." Densmore has been replaced by Ty Dennis. D21C also has a bass player, Angelo Barbera.

When D21C first appeared in 2002, it was to mixed reviews. Nonetheless, they persevered and are actively touring here and abroad, playing much of the old Doors repertoire. Fans pay as much as $150 a ticket — certainly a trick, not a treat — to hear a British punker sing eight or nine old Doors tunes.

"L.A. Woman Live," a DVD of a 2003 performance, was recently released.

In contrast, Densmore called on his pre-Doors background as a jazz drummer and founded Tribaljazz, a more modest but certainly more rewarding effort. Tribaljazz joins Densmore with noted jazz flautist and sax player Albert Ellis and other veteran musicians in a world music and international acoustic jazz band that has been playing free concerts and benefits in the Los Angeles area.

Mike Jahn is a former rock critic of The New York Times and an Edgar Award-winning author. Visit "Tales of the Ancient Rocker"(www.geocities.com/theancientrocker) for wild tales of the golden age of rock from a reporter who was in the middle of it.