Light my Fire: My Life with the Doors

Capturing the turbulent world of the psychedelic 1960s, a cofounder of The Doors describes the origins of the legendary rock group and their music, details their nihilistic lifestyle, and offers insight into the life and times of rock icon Jim Morrison. 85,000 first printing.

Legendary Doors keyboardist Manzarek cannot seem to figure out whether his close friend and bandmate Jim Morrison's wild antics were the result of a poetic desire to push the envelope as far as the singer could, or if the famous 1960s rebel (who died in Paris at the age of 27) was just a gifted drunk. This ambivalence gives rise to an interesting, open-minded chronicle of one man's (Morrison's) alcoholism and its impact on his loved ones. Manzarek surely loved MorrisonAthey were friends and collaborators before either man had met the other two musicians who would complete the Doors's lineup, drummer John Densmore (whom Manzarek claimed Morrison never liked) and guitarist Robby Krieger, who penned "Light My Fire," "Touch Me" and "Love Me Two Times" with little or no help from famed lyricist Morrison. Manzarek takes every opportunity to philosophize about the ills of capitalist America, and he incessantly, passionately alludes to Greek mythology, Hinduism and Christianity when relating tales of his rock band's rise and fall. It's all love, peace, happiness and Morrison, except for the caustic passages regarding Oliver Stone and his big-budget biopic, The Doors, which Manzarek despises. "Grow up and see it like it really is, you fascist," the keyboardist writes at one point, which makes one wonder why Manzarek, an award-winning filmmaker and graduate of the UCLA film school, didn't make the movie himself. 16 pages of photos, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If anyone were to write a Jim Morrison tell-all, band- and soulmate Manzarek would be the man. But, to his everlasting credit, he didn't. Using his Doors experiences as the hook, Manzarek reels readers in with personal, often charming, if occasionally cloying, reflections on his life before, during, and since the Doors. He begins with his childhood in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, where his parents introduced him to the sensuous pleasures of the blues and meat-eating (a recurring themedon't ask). Later he attended UCLA film school, where he met Morrison. From there, the two lives followed parallel paths to different destinations. Manzarek, the more responsible (or less volatile), met and married his sweetheart, Dorothy, his wife to this day. Morrison became the band's charismatic front man whose fixation with nihilism and violent imagery, when mated to his heavy drinking and drug use, created what Manzarek calls ``Jimbo,'' a sociopathic, drunken brute, ``a monster. . . . the creature who eventually took Jim to Paris and killed him.'' Rather than luxuriate in the sordid details of Morrison's self-destruction, however, the author mostly prefers to revel in the giddy pleasures of life with the band: the genteel poverty of the early days; camaraderie and bickering among Doors members while on tour; success as known at the top; and even the truth about the Doors' ill-starred 1969 concert in Miami (for the record, Morrison never exposed himself). If Manzarek feels any rancor over the end of the Doorshe claims that Jim's 1971 sojourn in Paris was a hiatus, not a break-upit is directed toward the hangers-on who steered Morrison down his path to self-smashing. Although Manzarek does reserve choice words for the director of the Doors movie, Oliver Stone, such as ``fascist,'' ``psychotic,'' and ``bonehead.'' Whatever. Even these screeds make this pop-culture memoir more engaging. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Manzarek, musical leader of and keyboard player for the Doors, takes us back to the strange days of 1960s L.A. in a striking personal memoir and ode to Jim Morrison. After singer-lyricist Morrison's untimely demise, the band drifted apart, but its music and Morrison's leering public persona get dredged up periodically by new generations of fans. Manzarek and fellow UCLA film graduate, budding poet, and aspiring lizard king Morrison were the band's nucleus, to which Manzarek added guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore, whom Manzarek found in a transcendental meditation group. As the Doors, the four captured the orgiastic mood of the Age of Aquarius, L.A. style, by mixing mystical lyrics and extended musical jamming with the signature sound of Manzarek's carnival-like electric keyboard stylings. They enjoyed a commercial success rooted in the singles charts, which provoked dismissive criticism from the album-oriented rock-critic cognoscenti of the time. Manzarek posits that if Morrison had not fallen in with the wrong crowd (a problem then as now), he would have enjoyed an enduring career either as poet or rocker (like, perhaps, Henry Rollins?). Literate, perceptive, and thoughtful, this is the best book yet about the Doors and their legendary singer, not to mention Manzarek, and may be the best rock bio of the year, on a par with Dave Davies' Kink last year. Mike Tribby