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26 ¢ Northwest Arkansas Times, Web., Dec. 2, 1981 FAYETTEVILLE, AREA By MARY CAMPBELL AP Newsfeatures Writer The Doors were together a short time. Their first recording came out in 1967 and lead singer Jim Morrison died in 1971. The interest in them and in Morrison may be greater now than it was when they were performing. A greatest hits album sold al most a million copies in 1980. A Morrison biography, ‘‘No One Gets Out Alive,” sold big. Mor rison’s book of poems, “The Lords and the New Creation,” published in 1969, will be repr inted next year. Doors organist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robbie Krieger are working with rock groups in the Los Angeles area. And drummer John Densmore is dancing. Interviewed in New York while Bess Snyder and Company was visiting to give per formances, Densmore wore a Bob Marley T-shirt. “Ray and I and Robbie made two albums after Jim died,’’ he says. “We realized we didn't have a focal point. Then Robbie and I had another group, the Butts Band, which was together about a year. We went to Ja maica to record. I wrote an ar ticle about Marley and my ex periences in Jamaica. I think Wet magazine is going to put it out. “When that group fell apart, I realized what a special group I was in, in the Doors. I shied away from being in another band. “LT studied acting for 24 years. I wanted to break away from my drums. It is my security and I love it. I know how to do it. I’ve done it so many years. I wanted to get up and express myself.” Then, a year and a half ago, a friend took Densmore to a concert by Bess Snyder and her small, avant-garde, modern dance troupe. He and Miss Sny der talked after the concert and came up with the idea that he could drum while she danced. “Then she started to make this drummer a character. I got up from my drums and spoke to her. Then she said, ‘I’ve got this one piece I think you could dance in.’ That’s when I started taking dance classes. She has a house in Santa Monica where there are classes in different kinds of dance. It’s the focal point of the Los Angeles Area Dance Alliance.”’ Densmore is 36, as he quickly says, “about the time when dancers give up.’ But he is studying ballet, on an ele mentary level, always has been thin and wiry, and says he can stretch his leg farther than he could a year ago. The Doors played in Madison Square Garden and Bess Snyder and Company's audience is small but, Densmore says, when he danced with her in ‘‘I Don’t Think It’s Funny, Honey,”’ in San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Monica, he had butterflies in his stomach. “I’m still interested in act ing,’ Densmore says. ‘I’m sidetracked now, so I think ‘ll stay in dance for a few years. My individual growth is doing good. That’s why I’m here. It is painful sometimes to dance and it also feels good. My body is the instrument, not the drums. It’s more vulnerable and fright ening. When you do it and people like it, it is real fulfilling.” Densmore is also able to help the group financially, which pleases him. He was impressed with the very first concert he saw by “‘this group of dancers trying to say something to people, for no profit.” Densmore has a daughter, 5, who lives with him part of the time. ‘‘It’s not a weekend deal,” he says. ‘‘I want her to have my input as well. My wife and I are real good friends, just not living in the same space right now That seems to be the trend. “I’ve been writing a lot in the last year or so,’ Densmore says. “It's cathartic. I think I’m going to try to publish a book about the Doors from the inside, from the drumstool.”’ Of course the question arises, is Jim Morrison dead and buried in Paris? ‘tHe is there,’’ Den smore says. ‘The rumors stem from the fact it was a sealed casket, he died on a weekend and there was no autopsy. His wife Pamela was the last person to see him. She died in 1974. When I saw her after he died and looked into her eyes, I knew it was true he was dead. Of anyone I ever met, he would be the one to fake his death and go to Africa. Several years after Jim died, Ray and I and Robbie listened to some tapes of Jim reading his poems. He wanted to make a poetry album; he was thinking of getting an orchestra. “We did it as a tribute to him, backed up his poetry with our music. I’m real proud of ‘An American Prayer.’ We put in natural sounds of wind and rain. It’s an esoteric album, not your top 40. “Now we'd like to visualize it, using documentary footage and shooting some new stuff. We don’t want John Travolta to play Jim in a fictionalized movie. We lived it; we want to try and put it out how it was.” In the beginning, Densmore says, Morrison was charismatic, as handsome as the statue of David, and wrote incredible lyrics and melodies. The group knew they would become big but didn't realize that even before Morrison died it would become almost mythical .When you're 17 you want to question authority and find out who you are and that’s why kids liked him and still like him. And we worked real hard on the music. But it was painful at the last to see a close friend self destruct. It was like he wanted to make an impression, move people and have them think and then to pack it all in. He knew I disapproved. Was it worth a life? I'd quit the group, trying to make a point, and I'd come back in a day or two. We were creating, recording, playing live and I couldn’t get enough of that. “Nobody has affected my life more than Jim so far. After ‘Light My Fire’ was No. 1, he’d stay in $6 motels. He was inter ested in ideas and universal questions. Some people might be thinking of buying a new car or relaxing or doing the laundry and he'd want to talk about what does it all mean. “It’s neat having a person who asks those questions. We need those people to remind us what's important.”
Newspaper Details
Fayetteville Northwest Arkansas Times
Fayetteville, Arkansas, US
Wed, Dec 02, 1981
Page 24
Full Page
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