CLEVELAND – Doors collectors will have a field day here starting May 25 when a new Doors exhibit will be unveiled at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Rock Hall will run the special exhibit through at least October for Doors fans and those who would like to learn more about the Doors. Included will be everything from UCLA student film guides to a vast array of concert posters, poetry books shared by Morrison and Ray Manzarek, and Jim Morrison’s original poetry.
The Doors were inducted into the Hall in 1993, one year after they were eligible. When the Hall officially opened in 1995 it wasted no time in giving due credit and recognition to the Doors with an extensive Jim Morrison section that includes artifacts such as Jim’s cub scout uniform, his report cards, college diploma and a host of other things donated by Admiral George S. Morrison, Jim’s father, and Clara Morrison, his late mother, as well as others.
The display has stood at its special place in the Hall for the last 14 years and officials have no intention of removing it. However, now there will be a special dedication to the Doors as a band, commemorating their 40th anniversary.
“We were approached by the Doors,” Rock Hall Curatorial Director Howard Kramer said. “I got a phone call from Jeff Jampol, the Doors’ manager, maybe about a year and a half/two years ago. We have a mutual friend. So he called this mutual friend (Margaret Saadi), who is originally from Cleveland, and said, ‘Hey, you know people at the Rock Hall. Who should I talk to there?’ She mentioned my name and we talked.”
It’s sure to bring in Doors fans from all over the world.
“The faithful show up whenever we do something like this,” Kramer said. “It happened when we did the U2 exhibit.”
Kramer observed a difference between the Doors and some other bands in that the personal collection is very limited, partly because of Jim’s great reputation as being one of the biggest anti-materialists of his time, yet the band’s three survivors’ contribution is quite generous and quite impressive.
“The Doors were somewhat of a challenge, because the band members are not very good collectors of themselves,” Kramer said. “I met with each of the three Doors a couple times. I generally like those guys, they’re very intelligent. Ray said that the whole philosophy of the era was to have less and not hold on to things. He’s right. Don’t encumber yourself with material goods. Having been to his house, I’ve seen it’s rather sparse. Robbie’s SG is gone.”
Kramer showed some of the unique artifacts donated by the Doors. One item is a poetry compendium that belonged to both Ray and Jim, which they read out of together at UCLA. It included some pieces from some of the beat writers like Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti that really spoke to them. The original price of the rather thick book was $2.95.
Also in his possession are UCLA Film School student programs that were passed out at student film festivals. One was titled Op, Pop and Kiki Flicks. It said “An evening of student films from out where it is all happening. Hey, 1965.” In the program on the last page is an entry, “Who and where I live, a pre-workshop class exercise by Raymond D. Manczarek (the original spelling of his name) and Dorothy Fujikawa.”
Another program is titled New Film Things, an Evening of Student Films, also from 1965 that listed a series of short films. In it is a film Evergreen, by Raymond D. Manczarek. Kramer then pulled out a reel, which is the print of the original film Evergreen.
Copies of Jim’s original poetry books were also given to Kramer by Ray. Hard bound copies of An American Prayer, The Lords and The New Creatures (the latter two as separate volumes) will also be on display. American Prayer is a tiny brown book, resembling those that Val Kilmer passed out to the band members in the movie, or, better yet, the ones passed out in the movie resembling the copy Kramer has.
“The interesting thing is that they are not autographed,” Kramer said. “Why would Jim give something to one of his closest friends that is autographed? There was a run of 500 of one, 500 of the other and 1,000 of the other. There was an additional 20, as I understand, that Jim kept for himself and gave to his friends that were not signed. The others were autographed. So these are the unsigned ones. The Lords is a beautiful package, hand wound, with the poetry on copies of nice bound paper.”
When he unwound the string on the book and opened it up, Kramer was surprised that Ray included the original copy of Ray and Dorothy’s marriage certificate.
“I didn’t know it was in there; this is the original,” Kramer said. “I have to ask Ray if he meant to do that.” On the marriage certificate, it states, “In the presence of Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson.” They will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary on Dec. 21 of this year.
John Densmore still has some clothes that he still fits into, due to what good shape he is still in. He donated two sport jackets to the museum.
Kramer is most impressed with some of the pre-Doors items, such as a huge poster of Manzarek that has his picture on it and says, “Ray Daniels, Blues Soul Swinger,” and one of Rick and the Ravens, which included all three Manzarek brothers in the picture.
Also among the collection are the amplifiers from the Hollywood Bowl show.
Also, there is a collection of posters, including one from just about every show the Doors did that was brought in by one collector from New York. One poster from 1969 promoted a show in which John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band played in which the Doors were the headliner. The Doors were billed over a Beatle participating in the same show. Also there is a contract between Jim and Frank Lisciandro.
The Doors’ presence in the museum is highly demanded by the public. In fact, the current Jim exhibit is one of the five most cherished parts of the museum, which is quite extensive. The Pony Express poem written by Jim as a child will be moved from the Jim collection to the Doors exhibit.
“There are certain artists who always have to have a presence in the museum, because the public always expect them,” Kramer said. “They are the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin. They always expect that. We have always had a presence of Morrison. For them (the three surviving Doors) to say, ‘We want to do this with you. You have our full cooperation,’ I thought, OK. We set about and tried to make it happen.”
The Doors should work well at the Rock Hall, because of the uniqueness of the band – its resurgence in the 1980s and later its inter-generational appeal, and what Manzarek was once quoted as saying that it was able to create a “timeless kind of music,” since its nature is not dated. Like what the Doors stood for, the motives of the exhibit are not only monetary.
“With the major exhibits we put together, the impetus is not are we going to draw traffic although we do ask that question of ourselves,” Kramer said. “It’s can we make it work? Is there enough here to do an exhibit? There’s a lot of people who give us ideas and we would like to do an exhibit, but there’s just not enough there to do one. Stuff doesn’t exist.”
Another reason it will work is because of the time of his life that Jim died and how short of a time they stayed together as a band.
“There are a number of reasons why they are still popular,” Kramer said. “Jim Morrison will always be 27 and beautiful. You can’t change that. Jimi Hendrix will always be 27 and beautiful. Kurt Cobain will always be 27 and beautiful. Otis Redding is another artist who was 27 when he died. These artists never live long enough to soil their own reputations -- to make music they were embarrassed of or that their audience rejected.
“The Doors had a relatively small output, six albums and one live record while they were performing live. The quality of those records overall is pretty remarkable. There’s a lot of great music and the records hold up. There are still people trying to make records that sound like the Doors or at least capture that kind of energy. They have a contemporary feel even though the records are 35-40 years old. The third part of that is that radio has been good to the Doors, classic album rock radio. They are a core artist and because of that they have been able to build a multi-generational audience. This will draw an audience where there will three or four generations of Doors fans.”
Kramer occasionally leaves his office and walks around the museum and sees no shortage of junior high and high school youth wearing Doors shirts. He believes it is no irony, but because they generally like the music.
Last summer, the Hall had a special exhibit for Bob Dylan, another great poet/lyricist/singer, however the content was put in by another company and the Hall was just the host venue.
