Lizard King, Doors get their due at Rock Hall

The Doors are set to break on through at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

A new exhibition devoted to the legendary classic-rock group is in the works. "Break on Through: The Lasting Legacy of the Doors" will be unveiled in May.

"Each new generation seems to discover the Doors," said Jim Henke, the Rock Hall's chief curator. "Their music continues to resonate."

The museum already has a substantial collection of artifacts donated by the parents of charismatic Doors singer Jim Morrison, including his Cub Scout uniform and various report cards.

Morrison, a poet in leather pants who often sang of death and sex, died of heart failure in 1971; he was 27.

The future Lizard King, as the Doors' frontman came to be known, was a "bright kid who got good grades," said Henke, who is writing a Morrison biography to be published next year.

The Rock Hall plans to obtain additional memorabilia from the rest of the band for the exhibit, which will be on view through early 2008 on the fifth and sixth floors of the museum. The installation coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Doors, whose self-titled debut album came out in 1967.

During their heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Doors scored such hits as "Light My Fire," "Hello, I Love You" and "Riders on the Storm." The group was inducted into the Rock Hall in 1993.

In recent years, the surviving members of the Doors fought in court over the group's legacy. Drummer John Densmore and the Morrison estate won an injunction preventing guitarist Robby Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek from working together under the Doors' name.

Despite their differences, Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek are expected to attend a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 8, in Los Angeles, where a Rock Hall delegation will confer rock 'n' roll landmark status upon the Whisky A Go-Go, the Sunset Strip club where the Doors got their start.

It will be the first such Rock Hall-sanctioned landmark outside Cleveland. The museum has bestowed similar historic status on Don King's Corner Tavern, the WEWS Channel 5 studios where the "Upbeat" television show originated, Leo's Casino and Brooklyn High School, where Elvis Presley performed in 1955.

As part of the festivities in Los Angeles, Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction is scheduled to read some of Morrison's poetry.

Doors fans also can look forward to "Perception," a six-CD, six-DVD Doors boxed set due in stores Tuesday, Nov. 21, as well as "The Doors by the Doors," an autobiography of the band in its own words, to be published next month.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

jsoeder@plaind.com, 216-999-4562