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Jerry Garcia’s opinion on The Doors and Jim Morrison
The number of successful bands that emerged in California in the 1960s is impressive. They were fundamental to the evolution of Rock music and went on to inspire generations of artists. One of those groups was the Grateful Dead, which had Jerry Garcia as one of their leaders. As a musician who was deeply involved in that movement, the late guitarist and singer had the chance to see many other bands live at the time.
One of them was The Doors, formed by Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Jim Morrison. Over the course of his career, Garcia spoke about them, sharing his opinion on their music and on their late frontman, Jim Morrison.
What was Jerry Garcia's opinion on The Doors and Jim Morrison
Although both bands were formed in California in the same year, with some common influences, Jerry Garcia was not a fan of their music. "I never liked The Doors. I found them terribly offensive when we played with them (They performed separately but in the same day of a festival). It was back when Morrison was just a pure Mick Jagger copy. That was his whole shot, that he was a Mick Jagger imitation."
"Not vocally, but his moves, his whole physical appearance, were totally stolen from right around Mick Jagger’s 1965 tour of the States. He used to move around a lot, before he started to earn a reputation as a poet, which I thought was really not deserved. Rimbaud was great at eighteen, nineteen, and Verlaine. Those guys were great. Fuckin’ Jim Morrison wasn’t great, I’m sorry. I could never see what it was about The Doors. They had a very brittle sound live. A three-piece band with no bass—the organ player (Ray Manzarek) used to do it. That and that kinda raga-rock guitar style was strange. It sounded very brittle and sharp-edged to me, not something I enjoyed listening to."
He continued:
"I kind of appreciated some of the stuff that they did later. I appreciated a certain amount of Morrison’s sheer craziness, just because that’s always a nice trait in rock and roll. No, I never knew him, but Richard Loren, who works for us, was his agent. (He) had to babysit him through his most drunken scenes and all the times he got busted and all that crap. He’s got lots of stories to tell about Morrison. I was never attracted to their music at all, so I couldn’t really find anything to like about them. When we played with them, I think I watched the first tune of two. Then I went upstairs and fooled with my guitar."
"There was nothing there that I wanted to know about. He was so patently an imitation of Mick Jagger that it was offensive. To me, when The Doors played in San Francisco they typified Los Angeles coming to San Francisco, which I equated with having the look right, but zero substance. This is way before that hit song “Light My Fire.” Probably at that time in their development it was too early for anybody to make a decent judgment of them. But I’ve always looked for something else in music, and whatever it was they didn’t have it. They didn’t have anything of blues, for example, in their sound or feel," Jerry Garcia said in an interview in 1981, featured on the book "Conversations with the Dead: the Grateful Dead Interview Book".
Jerry Garcia said they got better a few years later
During the same conversation, the musician recalled that the Grateful Dead had the chance to open for them on another occasion in Santa Barbara when they were more famous when "Light My Fire" became a hit. In Garcia's opinion, they had evolved their sound and were more powerful live.
"So Manzarek’s bass lines and stuff like that had a little more throb, but their sound was still thin. It wasn't a successful version of a three-piece band, like The Who or Jimi Hendrix or Cream, or any of the other guitar power-trio-type three-piece bands. It’s an interesting concept—a three-piece band that’s keyboard, guitar, and drums. But it was missing some element that I felt was vital."
Jerry Garcia continued:
"I couldn’t say exactly what it was, but it was not satisfying for me to listen to them. When they were the headliners, it was sort of embarrassing for us to open for them. ‘Cause we sort of blew them off the stand just with sheer power. What we had with double drums and Phil’s bass playing. It got somewhere, and when they played there was an anticlimax kind of feeling to it, even with their hits," Jerry Garcia said.
Besides having been formed in 1965, both bands also released their debut album in the same year, 1967. But The Doors achieved success earlier with their six albums with Jim Morrison released from 1967 until 1971, when he died at the age of 27. Another coincidence is that the former manager of the Grateful Dead was also the agent for The Doors.
Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore tried to carry on without Morrison, releasing two more studio albums but the band came to an end in 1973. They reunited again for a couple of times over the decades and there was also the project The Doors of the 21st Century which had Krieger, Manzarek and The Cult's vocalist Ian Astbury.
Grateful Dead's career lasted longer, until 1995 when Jerry Garcia passed away at the age of 53. Since then there were other incarnations of the band, touring under other names like Dead & Company.
Bob Weir shared a similar opinion to Jerry’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbj1RFaoyLk&list=RDmbj1RFaoyLk&start_radio=1&pp=ygUNbGdpaHQgbXkgZmlyZaAHAQ%3D%3D
Jerry Garcia's bandmate in the Grateful Dead, the guitarist and singer Bob Weir shared a similar opinion. As he told Jas Obrecht, he felt they were also more on the edge of what they were doing musically, something that didn't fit the San Francisco scene.
"Um, The Doors weren’t a great fit in San Francisco. Their outreach was somewhat extra-musical. It was more into showmanship, and they had that sort of methedrine edge around them as well. They were a little on the hard-edged side for San Francisco," Bob Weir said.
In terms of record sales, The Doors were more successful than the Grateful Dead. They have sold an estimated amount of more than 100 million records worldwide. They also are more well-known in other countries, while the Grateful Dead are not.
The Dead never achieved massive record sales, with an estimated total of just over 15 million copies worldwide. They were essentially a live band, and their shows offered a unique experience that earned them a huge cult following. Although they did not sell as many records as other famous bands, the success of their concerts placed them among the highest-grossing acts of all time.The post Jerry Garcia’s opinion on The Doors and Jim Morrison appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.
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