Rock History

2008 – In just a three-day sales window, Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” skates close to the half million mark and will lead The Billboard 200 when Nielsen SoundScan releases its charts tomorrow morning (Sept. 17).

The band’s first studio album since 2003 moved 490,000 copies in its abbreviated frame, scheduled off-cycle on a Friday to accommodate a worldwide release date.

It marks the biggest number the chart has seen since five weeks ago, when the Jonas Brothers’ “A Little Bit Longer” scaled the list with 525,000 copies with a traditional Tuesday release date.

The total for Metallica’s first Warner Bros. album after spending its career with Elektra outdistances the opening sum of its last studio set, “St. Anger,” which sold 418,000 copies in a similarly shorter-than-normal window.

Originally set for a Tuesday release, “Anger” was rush released to an off-cycle Thursday start amid concerns over Internet leaks. The last Metallica album to stage a larger opener than “Magnetic” was 1996′s “Load,” which rolled 680,000 units in its first frame.

2003 – Heavily hyped Australian rockers Jet deny they’ve signed to Elektra for a whopping $3 million.

2003 – Alana Davis leaves her record label Elektra. Her cover of Ani DiFranco’s “32 Flavors” went to No. 17 in the Adult Top 40 chart in 1998.

2003 – Reggae artist Ziggy Marley releases his first solo album, “Dragonfly,” via Private Music. The oldest son of Bob Marley, the artist fronted the Melody Makers through nine studio albums on Capitol, Virgin, and Elektra.

1980 – The Eagles: A 28-year-old truck driver takes the office manager of Elektra/Asylum Records’ New York branch hostage. Joseph Riviera demands that either Jackson Browne or the Eagles give him money in order to start his own business. Neither responds, and he eventually surrenders to New York police.

1963 – Yngwie Malmsteen is born in Stockholm Sweden this day in rock history!

Yngwie Johann Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck on June 30, 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish guitarist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader. Malmsteen became notable in the mid-1980s for his technical fluency and neo-classical metal compositions. Four of his albums, from 1984 to 1988, Rising Force, Marching Out, Trilogy, and Odyssey, ranked in the top 100 for sales

Biography

Early life

Malmsteen was born on June 30, 1963, as the first child of a musically talented family in Stockholm, Sweden. At age seven, he saw a television news report on the death of Jimi Hendrix. To quote his official website, “The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Malmsteen was born”. At the age of 10 he took his mother’s maiden name Malmsten as his surname, slightly changed it to Malmsteen, and Anglicised his given name Yngve to “Yngwie”. Malmsteen was a teenager when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical music influence.

Through his emulation of Paganini concerto pieces on guitar, Malmsteen developed a prodigious technical fluency. Malmsteen’s guitar style include a wide, violin-like vibrato inspired by classical violinists, and use of such minor scales as the Harmonic minor, and minor modes such as Phrygian, and Aeolian. Malmsteen also cites Brian May of Queen, Steve Hackett of Genesis, Uli Jon Roth, Alex Lifeson of Rush, and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple as influences.

1980s

In late 1982 Malmsteen was brought to the U.S. by Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records, who had heard a demo tape of Malmsteen’s playing. He had brief engagements with Steeler, for their self-titled album of 1983, then Alcatrazz, for their 1983 debut No Parole From Rock N’ Roll, and the 1984 live album Live Sentence. Malmsteen released his first solo album Rising Force in 1984, which featured Barrie Barlow of Jethro Tull on drums. His album was really meant to be an instrumental side-project of Alcatrazz, but it contained vocals, and Malmsteen left Alcatrazz soon after the release of Rising Force.

Rising Force won the Guitar Player Magazine’s award for Best Rock Album and was also nominated for a Grammy for ‘Best Rock Instrumental’, achieving #60 on the Billboard album chart. Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force (as his band was thereafter known) next released Marching Out (1985). Jeff Scott Soto filled vocal duties on these initial albums. His third album, Trilogy, featuring the vocals of Mark Boals, was released in 1986. In 1987, another singer, former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner joined his band. That year, Malmsteen was in a serious car accident, smashing his Jaguar XKE into a tree and putting him in a coma for a week. Nerve damage to his right hand was reported. During his time in the hospital, Malmsteen’s mother died from cancer. In the summer of 1988 he released his fourth album, Odyssey. Odyssey would be his biggest hit album, mainly because of its first single “Heaven Tonight”. Shows in Russia during the Odyssey tour were recorded, and released in 1989 as his fifth album Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad. The concert in Leningrad was the largest ever by a western artist in the Soviet Union.

Malmsteen’s “Neo-classical” style of metal became moderately popular during the mid 1980s, with contemporaries such as Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore becoming prominent. MacAlpine came to the neoclassical/shred field by applying his classical piano training to his guitar playing and Moore arrived at a similar style because he shared Malmsteen’s major influences. In late 1988, Malmsteen’s signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was released, making him and Eric Clapton the first artists to be honored by Fender.

1990s

In the early 1990s Malmsteen released the albums Eclipse (1990), The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection (1991), Fire and Ice (1992) and The Seventh Sign (1994). Despite his early success, and continuous success in Europe and Asia, by the early 1990s 1980s heavy metal styles such as neoclassical metal and lengthy, virtuoso shred guitar solos had become unfashionable in the US.

In the 1990s, Malmsteen continued to record and release albums under the Japanese record label Pony Canyon, and maintained a devoted following from some fans in Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent in the USA. In 2000, he once again acquired a contract with a US record label, Spitfire, and released his 1990s catalog into the US market for the first time, including what he regards as his masterpiece, Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague. In 1993, Malmsteen’s mother-in-law, who was opposed to his engagement with her daughter, had him arrested for threatening her with a shotgun and holding her daughter against her will . The charges against Malmsteen were dropped when he denied the incident.

2000s

After the release of War to End All Wars in 2000, singer Mark Boals left the band. Malmsteen went on tour with former Ark vocalist Jorn Lande. Due to various tensions on tour, Jorn left before the recording of Malmsteen’s next album, Attack!!. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. White’s vocals were well received by fans. In 2003, Malmsteen joined Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of the G3 supergroup. Malmsteen made two guest appearances on keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s albums Black Utopia (2003), and Blood of the Snake (2006) where Malmsteen is heard on the same tracks as Al Di Meola and Zakk Wylde. In 2004, Malmsteen made two cameo appearances on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law- possibly alluded to his status as a guitarist.

Malmsteen released Unleash the Fury in 2005. He is married to April and has a son named Antonio after Antonio Vivaldi, and they live in Miami, Florida. A noted Ferrari enthusiast, he owned a black 1985 308 GTS February 2008 saw the replacement of singer Doogie White with former Iced Earth and Judas Priest and current Beyond Fear singer Tim Owens, with whom Malmsteen had once recorded a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s song “Mr. Crowley”, for the 2000 Osbourne tribute album Bat Head Soup: A Tribute to Ozzy. The first Malmsteen album to feature Owens is entitled Perpetual Flame and will be released October 14.

Equipment

Guitars

Malmsteen uses Fender Stratocasters, especially vintage instruments from 1968 through 1972. His Strats tend to feature scalloped fingerboards and DiMarzio HS-3 pickups, and (more recently) the staggered-polepiece HS-3 released as the Dimarzio YJM. He routinely disconnects the middle pickup and tone controls on his guitars. Malmsteen briefly used Schecter Guitars in the 1980s, who built him Stratocaster-style guitars similar to his Fenders. While in Alcatrazz, he also used Aria Pro II.

Live equipment

Malmsteen uses vintage 1972 Marshall amplifiers for his live performances, sometimes performing with a “wall” of up to 27 vintage Marshall 4×12 Cabinets with Celestion G12T-75 (75 watt) speakers. All of the 24 heads on the cabinets are Vintage 1972 Mark II Marshall 50 Watt heads. Floor effect pedals consist of a BOSS CS-3 Compression Sustainer, Roland DC-10 analog echo pedal, vintage Dunlop Cry-Baby Wah Pedal, Moog Taurus Bass Pedals, BOSS OC-2 Octave, DOD 250 Overdrive Pre-Amp pedal, BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor and a Custom Audio Electronics switching system for his effects rack.

Malmsteen’s guitars onstage are 1968-1972 Fender Stratocasters. For his acoustic sets, Malmsteen uses a nylon strung electro-acoustic black or white Ovation Viper. Prior to the Ovations, Malmsteen used Aria, Alvarez & Gibson classical acoustics on stage. Malmsteen regularly performs onstage with a custom light top, heavy bottom string gauge ranging from 0.08 through 0.48 gauge, which are considered by most guitarists to be very thin, especially with the downtuning used. Malmsteen’s picks are Jim Dunlop 1.5 white.

YJM308 Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive

Malmsteen had used the Gray DOD250 overdrive pedal exclusively throughout most of his career because of its warm, smooth and almost violin-like tonal characteristics, plus its dramatic yet clean signal boosting ability.

In order to protect his favorite but now Vintage Gray 250 pedals from the abuse of regular gigging and also to modernize his sound further for the new millennium, he assisted DOD in creating a somewhat treblier, less bass intensive version of their popular 90′s reissue yellow DOD250 pedal, which then became his signature model YJM308 overdrive.

Yngwie’s signature pedal was a big success first time around but got discontinued. It was later re-released due to public demand but has now been discontinued yet again. He now often uses the re-creation, named YJM308 after Malmsteen’s initials and the name of his favorite car, the Ferrari 308.

Band members

Previous members

* Jeff Scott Soto – lead vocals (1984-1985)
* Mark Boals – lead vocals (1986-1996-1999-2001)
* Joe Lynn Turner – lead vocals (1988-1989)
* Goran Edman – lead vocals (1990-1992)
* Mike Vescera – lead vocals (1994-1995)
* Mats Leven – lead vocals (1997-1998)
* Doogie White – lead vocals (2001-2008)
* Anders Johansson – drums (1985-1989)
* Mike Terrana – drums (1994)
* Jens Johansson – keyboards (1984-1989)
* Mats Olausson – keyboards (1990-2001)
* Derek Sherinian – keyboards (2001-2003-2004; 2007-2008)
* Svante Henrysson – bass (1990-1992)
* Barry Sparks – bass (1994-1995)

Current members

* Tim “Ripper” Owens – lead vocals (2008-present)
* Yngwie Malmsteen – guitars (1978-present)
* Michael Troy – keyboards (2007-present)
* Bjorn Englen – bass (2008-present)
* Patrick Johansson – drums, percussion (2001-present)

Discography

Steeler
Date of Release     Title     Label     Chart positions     US sales
1983     Steeler     Shrapnel

Alcatrazz
Date of Release     Title     Label     Chart positions     US sales
1984     No Parole from Rock N’ Roll     Polydor
1984     Live Sentence     Polydor

Solo
Year     Album     Publisher     Chart positions     US sales
1984     Rising Force     Polydor     60
October 1985     Marching Out     Polydor     54
1986     Trilogy     Polydor     44
March, 1988     Odyssey     Polydor     40
October, 1989     Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad     Polydor     128
1990     Eclipse     Polydor     112
November, 1991     The Yngwie Malmsteen Collection     Polydor
1992     Fire and Ice     Elektra     121
February 18, 1994     The Seventh Sign     Pony Canyon
September 21, 1994     Power And Glory     Pony Canyon
October 21, 1994     I Cant Wait     Pony Canyon
June 06, 1995     Magnum Opus     Pony Canyon
November 05, 1996     Inspiration     Pony Canyon
September 03, 1997     Facing the Animal     Pony Canyon
February 04, 1998     Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in Em, Opus 1     Pony Canyon
September 18, 1998     Double LIVE!     Pony Canyon
September 17, 1999     Alchemy     Pony Canyon
March 15, 2000     Anthology 1994-1999     Pony Canyon
May 09, 2000     The Best Of: 1990-1999     Dream Catcher
November 22, 2000     War to End All Wars     Pony Canyon
January 09, 2002     Concerto Suite LIVE With the New Japan Philharmonic     Pony Canyon
September 04, 2002     Attack!!     Pony Canyon
December 30, 2002     The Genesis     Pony Canyon
January 01, 2004     Oujya Ressou – Instrumental Best Album     Pony Canyon
March 10, 2004     G3: Rockin’ in the Free World     Epic
February 23, 2005     Unleash the Fury     Universal Music
October 14, 2008     Perpetual Flame     Rising Force Records

1963 – The Whisky A-Go-Go, the Hollywood club devoted to the cutting edge of rock, opens. The Doors were discovered there by Elektra boss Jac Holzman when opening for Love at the Whisky in 1966.

1954 – Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin is born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Trevor Rabin (born January 13, 1954) is a South African-American musician, best known as a guitarist and songwriter for the British progressive rock band Yes from 1983–1994, and since then, as a film composer.
Biography

Early years

Rabin was born Trevor Charles Rabinowitz and comes from a family of classical musicians in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his father Godfrey was lead violinist for the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Educated at a public school in Johannesburg, he took formal piano training before discovering the guitar at age 12. His parents encouraged his talents toward rock music, although Rabin would maintain his interest in Classical music throughout his career. Rabin also briefly studied orchestration at the University of Johannesburg, and later arranged and conducted for many artists in South Africa.

Rabin’s early influences included Arnold Schoenberg, Tchaikovsky, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. He also dabbled with progressive and heavy rock with his first bands, The Conglomeration and Freedom’s Children. The latter group were older musicians whose songs questioned the South African government, especially its racial policy of apartheid. During this same period, Rabin became a highly sought after session guitarist and bassist, playing with many jazz bands in South Africa. When Rabin fulfilled his obligation to the South African Army at age 19, he served with the entertainment division.

In 1974, Trevor Rabin formed his first major recording group, Rabbitt along with Neil Cloud (drums), Ronnie Robot (bass guitar) and Duncan Faure (keyboards, guitar, vocals). Rabbitt actually began just prior to Rabin’s year of military conscription in 1974, but it really took off in 1975 after their onstage popularity at Johannesburg’s “Take It Easy” club spread by word of mouth. Their first single, released in 1975, was a cover of Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath”. It later appeared on their debut album, Boys Will Be Boys, which otherwise featured original songs penned by Trevor Rabin.

Rabbitt’s second album, A Croak and a Grunt in the Night, was released in 1977. Trevor Rabin would go on to win a South African Sarie music award (that country’s answer to the Grammy Awards) for his co-production on the album. Momentum gained with a short-term record distribution deal with Capricorn in the United States, but Rabbitt were unable to tour abroad because of continuing international disapproval of South Africa’s apartheid policies. As a result, Trevor Rabin decided to leave South Africa. After recording one album without Trevor Rabin, Rabbitt disbanded that same year.

After moving to London in 1978, Trevor Rabin recorded his first solo album, Beginnings. It was released in England and the US simply as Trevor Rabin, with a slightly different track listing. While some songs were reminiscent of Rabbitt, Rabin’s guitar playing was more prominent as it would continue to be on his successive solo albums. He also established Blue Chip Music and struck an international deal with Chrysalis.

In transition: the UK and Los Angeles

Along with a budding solo career, Rabin began working as a producer and session player. Some of his prominent work included South African vocalist Margaret Singana (“Where Is The Love?”) and fellow South African expatriate, Manfred Mann and his Earth Band. Rabin still found time to record his second album Face to Face, touring the United Kingdom in support of Steve Hillage in early 1980.

Face to Face had the melodic guitar style of his first solo album, but also took a more hard-edged approach on such songs as “The Ripper” and “Now.” Rolling Stone’s first edition of their Record Guide criticized Rabin’s music for its hook-ridden ballads but still gave his first two albums moderate ratings for their overall technical qualities.

Neither of Rabin’s first two solo albums found any commercial success. With the growth of the Punk scene in the late ’70s, power-pop and hard rock music had fallen out of fashion in England. Trevor Rabin began looking for more fertile ground for what would be characterised in the U.S. as album-oriented rock (AOR).

In 1981, he released the album Wolf, co-produced with Ray Davies of The Kinks. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band members Chris Thompson and Manfred Mann made vocal and musical contributions to the album. Wolf marks Rabin’s first collaboration with former Cream bassist Jack Bruce and session drummer Simon Phillips. Following the release of the album, Rabin severed ties with Chrysalis Records as he felt they did little to promote the album.

In 1981, Rabin moved to Los Angeles and signed with David Geffen’s label. Rabin briefly recorded new material with a rhythm section consisting of future Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and bassist Mark Andes, who would later join Heart. Some of these demo recordings developed into the Yes songs “Hold On” and “Make It Easy”.

Although Geffen Records dropped his contract in 1982, Trevor Rabin kept composing material for his projected fourth solo album in Los Angeles. As a keyboardist, he also considered touring as a session player for Foreigner. During this time, Rabin auditioned with the prog-rock supergroup Asia, featuring former Yes members Steve Howe and Geoff Downes. He also was in his agent’s film Finding Kraftland.

Yes
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

Rabin’s career was in a downturn after Wolf, as American recording companies were not interested in his style of music. While in Los Angeles, he met bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White, longtime members of Yes, who had experienced their own difficulties following the apparent demise of that band in 1981. Liking one another’s ideas, Rabin, Squire and White began collaborating under the name Cinema in early 1982. Later on they enlisted original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye to complement their live performances.

Produced by former Yes member Trevor Horn, what was to become the 90125 album came together over eight months in 1982. During his time in Los Angeles, Rabin had written several songs that formed the project’s nucleus. “Owner of a Lonely Heart” evolved into a catchy riff-oriented song that Horn seized upon as a potential single. Atco Records liked the group’s demo, but raised the question of whether they needed a separate vocalist. Horn was invited to join Cinema for this reason, but the producer refused Squire’s offer, possibly recalling the extreme negative fan reaction toward his replacement of Jon Anderson in 1980. (Rabin would endure similar comparisons to Steve Howe throughout his tenure with Yes, though not to nearly as great a degree as Horn.)

With the question of a vocalist still up in the air, Squire encountered Anderson at a Los Angeles party and Anderson expressed interest in hearing what Cinema were working on. Squire acquiesced, and Anderson was so impressed by the songs he heard, especially “Leave It”, that he joined the group, adding vocal tracks to the mostly already-written songs, very late in the recording of 90125. Because the band now featured four former members of Yes, including Anderson, who was especially strongly identified with Yes in the public eye, the band (over Rabin’s objections) chose to revive the Yes name rather than call itself Cinema, a name which in any case was already in use.  The new Yes would meet with critical and commercial success, though not without some harsh criticism from fans of earlier incarnations of the band.

Both “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and “Leave It” became major hits, with “Owner” being the band’s only #1 single in most major markets including the US; along with heavy airplay of several other tracks, this helped propel 90125 to six million sales between 1983 and 1985, making it the most commercially successful of all Yes albums. Yes also received a Grammy award in 1984 for the instrumental “Cinema”. The band toured behind the album, in a series of well-received concerts across Europe and the Americas. In England and North America many younger fans were introduced to the earlier Yes catalogue because of the success of the 90125 album and its popular singles.

Trevor Rabin almost did not make the 90125 tour, because of a swimming accident in Florida just before the 1984 tour kicked off. According to interviews from the period, Rabin was injured severely when a large woman hit his midsection while jumping into a hotel swimming pool. He endured an emergency splenectomy and returned to Yes in time to begin the tour.

9012Live debuted as a live album and video package, taken from the group’s 1984 shows in Edmonton, Canada and Dortmund, Germany. On the former recording, Trevor Rabin contributed his acoustic guitar solo, “Solly’s Beard”.

In early 1986, Yes began recording its next album with Trevor Horn, but the production became bogged down due largely to personal differences among Anderson, Squire and Horn. Eventually, Rabin assumed control of the project, with Horn being fired as producer well before recording was complete. Rough tape demos have emerged with Trevor Rabin singing lead vocals on “Final Eyes” and “Rhythm of Love.”

Big Generator emerged in late 1987, with singles “Love Will Find a Way” and “Rhythm of Love.” Both were modest chart hits compared to the singles from 90125, though the album sold very well. The song “Shoot High, Aim Low” featured a dual lead vocal between Rabin and Jon Anderson. The 1988 Big Generator tour of the U.S. missed several dates after Rabin collapsed from influenza.

After the tour, Anderson left Yes for the second time, though his departure would prove short-lived. Trevor Rabin expressed a guarded neutrality over the split between Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, who briefly led rival groups consisting of Yes members. Squire held the Yes name, which now encompassed himself, Rabin, White and nominally Kaye, though the latter’s involvement was minimal; Anderson formed Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe — a line-up he felt better represented Yes. A lawsuit between Arista and Atlantic Records ensued.

While Yes members, old and new, quarrelled over rights to the Yes trademark, Rabin completed his fourth and final-to-date solo album, Can’t Look Away, released in 1989. The album’s lead single, “Something to Hold On To”, earned a Grammy for Best Music Video and topped the AOR charts for two weeks. But despite some positive reviews, and extensive marketing from Elektra Records neither “Something to Hold on To,” nor Rabin’s anti-apartheid ballad “Sorrow (Your Heart)” managed to crack the American Top-40 charts. Trevor Rabin toured between 1989 and 1990 with drummer Lou Molino III (one of Rabin’s best friends and a featured player on his soundtracks), fretless bassist Jim Simmons and keyboardist-composer Mark Mancina.

Trevor Rabin’s nationwide Can’t Look Away tour attracted a modest number of Yes fans, and has since been documented with 2003′s Live in L.A., featuring interpretations of ’80s Yes material, as well as highlights from his Wolf album. Rabin’s solo band also performed an instrumental version of a 90125 outtake, “You Know Something I Don’t Know.” On this tour, Rabin also unveiled part of “Lift Me Up,” which would become the lead single for Union. It has also been speculated that Trevor Rabin’s solo band may have recorded demos for “Miracle of Life,” which also surfaced on Union. However, any plans for Rabin’s fifth solo album were interrupted once more by the machinery of Yes.

Unexpectedly, Yes would reform in 1991 with a short-lived, eight-man lineup for the Union tour. Unlike the dramatic reunion of 90125, the story behind Union comes across as strictly a corporate decision. In late 1990, Chris Squire’s Yes line-up (still including Rabin) had been jettisoned by Atlantic Records after creative differences. During a recent interview with Mike Tiano in 2003, Trevor Rabin expressed considerable disdain for Atlantic Records executive Derek Shulman (one-time frontman of progressive rock band Gentle Giant) who damned Rabin with faint praise as “the one who writes the hits.”

Unfortunately, Rabin would find himself in precisely that position when he received a call from Jon Anderson in 1991. After a gold album and lucrative tour, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe’s second album for Arista had encountered a creative block. Anderson asked Rabin for creative input, but after Can’t Look Away, Rabin did not have much new material on-hand. Even so, he submitted a demo of three songs, thinking the record company would select one. Instead, all three were accepted: “Lift Me Up”, “Saving My Heart” and “Miracle of Life”.

Arista subsequently made what Rabin later described as a “42nd floor boardroom decision,” and brought both Yes line-ups together — although at no point did the recording of Union feature all eight members of the touring group, and its sessions were augmented by a small army of session musicians. Rabin only appeared on one-third of the album, although two of his songs were released as singles — “Lift Me Up” and “Saving My Heart” — which were also performed live on the tour, on alternating dates. Trevor Rabin expressed dislike of the Union project, but still took part in the supporting tour, where he developed a lasting friendship with Rick Wakeman, often accompanying his keyboard performances onstage.

To no-one’s great surprise, the eight-person lineup didn’t survive the end of the tour. Howe and Bruford were the first to leave, the former at least partly due to unwillingness to share the spotlight with Rabin; and while Wakeman was very interested in working with the band and especially Rabin, he couldn’t commit to dates. This effectively left Yes with the same lineup that had recorded “90125″ and “Big Generator”. 1992 and 1993 featured a series of negotiations between the short-lived Victory Music (not to be confused with a Chicago-based indie alt-rock outfit called Victory Records) and this so-called Yes West line-up. Phil Carson, responsible for Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s comeback in 1992, invited the Yes 90125 lineup to record a third album. Rabin had also hoped the next Yes project would have involved Wakeman, but owing to managerial problems, the plan fell through in 1993. (Rabin later contributed lead vocals and guitar solos to “Never is a Long, Long Time,” from Rick Wakeman’s Return to the Centre of the Earth in 1999.)

As Victory Records’ budget could not include an outside producer, Trevor Rabin undertook the mission. During sessions, he used a then-innovative digital hard-disk recording method now in common use in many studios. Although some Yes fans, and even Rabin himself, have criticized the limitations of digital sound, Talk made music recording history with its technical achievements.

Talk featured the final collaboration between Rabin and Jon Anderson, who had hitherto completed the last few albums after the principal writing. Despite a couple of filler tracks, the album represents a fusion between old and new Yes. Fans across the board have listed “Endless Dream” as one of group’s best songs. During 1994 the group performed nearly all the album, plus their earlier hits, to a quickly vanishing fanbase. While some venues were full, others were less than half capacity — fuelling ill-founded rumours that Yes fans had boycotted the shows. Yet, many fans who attended felt that the Rabin lineup’s performance, especially on classic Yes material, had never been better.

Numerous bootleg recordings exist, because the Talk concerts were simultaneously broadcast on FM radio frequency — allowing Yes fans to make high-quality tapes. Trevor Rabin went on record as being supportive of this particular form of music-sharing.

While some fans — and Steve Howe — did employ the press and Internet to blame Trevor Rabin’s influence, certain tour dates were simply given low promotion by radio stations. After an initial rush of fans took the album to #33, Talk failed to sell as expected, because the previously monolithic AOR radio format had become moribund in the wake of mid-90′s telecommunication deregulation. Despite live exposure on the David Letterman Show, both “The Calling” and “Walls” failed to catch as singles during the height of the popularity of alternative music. Moreover, Victory Records did not allot budgets for video promotion. Ultimately, the Talk tour ended on October 11, 1994 amid recriminations. By the end of the following year, Rabin had left Yes and, except for a small number of special events such as a tribute to Horn, has not played with the band since.

In 2008, Trevor was contacted by Yes members and their new management inviting him to tour with the band in the later part of the year. “I appreciate the invite and miss the excitement of playing live. Unfortunately, my schedule just does not allow for it this year,” Trevor acknowledged.

Post-Yes

Following the 1994 tour, Trevor Rabin resigned from Yes to become a soundtrack composer.

Trevor Rabin has been a naturalized U.S. citizen since 1991. In 1996, he visited his native South Africa and performed Yes and Rabbitt songs during the Prince’s Trust Concert. Trevor Rabin released demo versions of pre-90125 Yes compositions and solo work, entitled 90124, as well as Live in LA, recorded at the Roxy in Los Angeles in late 1989. Most recently, aside from his film work, Trevor Rabin performed in aid of the Prince’s Trust with Yes at the Wembley Arena in London, where he served as lead guitarist and lead singer.

Trevor Rabin has scored over two dozen films which include: Bad Company, Con Air, Homegrown, Armageddon, Jack Frost, Deep Blue Sea, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Remember the Titans, The 6th Day, The Banger Sisters, Kangaroo Jack, Bad Boys 2, The Great Raid, Exorcist: The Beginning, National Treasure, Coach Carter and most recently Glory Road, Snakes on a Plane, The Glimmer Man, Flyboys, Gridiron Gang, Hot Rod, The Guardian, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Get Smart.

Along with several Grammy nominations and one Grammy win, Trevor Rabin also has received eight BMI film score awards, and has received a lifetime achievement award from the Temecula Film Festival. His composition ‘Titans Spirit’ from Remember the Titans was played following United States President-Elect Barack Obama’s speech upon winning the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, and served as the backdrop for the ensuing celebration. He has been married for two decades to Shelley Rabin. They have one son, Ryan Rabin, who recently began his own career as a rock drummer in the band The Outline, signed to Fearless Records in Los Angeles.

Solo discography

Solo albums

* Trevor Rabin (1978) also known as Beginnings (2003)
* Face to Face (1979)
* Wolf (1981)
* Can’t Look Away (1989)
* Live in LA (2003)
* 90124 (2003)

Film scores

Only including CDs available where all tracks are credited to Rabin

All the scores listed are available on full orchestra sheet music except National Treasure, Recorded by Hollywood Symphony Orchestra on Walt Disney Records, whose music was never released.

* Con Air (1997) (With Mark Mancina)
* Armageddon (1998) (With Harry Gregson-Williams)
* Enemy of the State (1999) (With Harry Gregson-Williams)
* Deep Blue Sea (1999)
* Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
* The 6th Day (2000)
* Remember the Titans (2000)
* American Outlaws (2001)
* The One (2001)
* Rock Star (2001)
* National Treasure (2004)
* Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
* The Great Raid (2005)
* Coach Carter (2005) (With Ashanti)
* Flyboys (2006)
* The Guardian (2006)
* Snakes on a Plane (2006)
* Hot Rod (2007)
* National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)
* Get Smart (2008)
* G-Force (2009)
* Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

1946 – Freddie Mercury of Queen is born in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; September 5, 1946 – November 24, 1991) was a Zanzibar-born British musician, best known as the lead singer and co-founder of the rock band Queen (inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001). He was noted for his vocal abilities, his charisma, and his live performances. As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “We Are the Champions” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. He is often referred to as the best vocalist of all time, and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. In addition to his work with Queen, he also led a solo career with minor success, and was occasionally a producer and guest musician (piano or vocals) for other artists. Mercury, who was of Indian Parsi descent and who grew up in India, has been referred to as “Britain’s first Asian rock star.” However, he has also been criticised for having kept his ethnicity, as well as his sexual orientation and HIV status, a secret from the public.

Biography

Mercury was born in Stone Town on Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara,

Mercury attended St. Peter’s School, a boarding school for boys in Panchgani near Bombay (now Mumbai), India. At St. Peter’s, he was a bright student who excelled at several sports. He was especially adept at boxing, with a strong ‘left hook’. At school, he formed a popular school band, called The Hectics, for which he played the piano. A friend from the time recalls that he “had an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano.” It was also at St. Peter’s where he began to call himself “Freddie”. Mercury remained in India for most of his childhood, living with his grandmother and aunt. He completed his education in India at St. Mary’s (ISC) High School in Mazagon before returning to Zanzibar.

At the age of 17, Mercury and his family fled from Zanzibar as result of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. The family moved into a small house in Feltham, London. Mercury enrolled at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College) in West London where he studied art. He ultimately earned a Diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College, later using these skills in order to design the Queen crest. Mercury remained a British citizen for the rest of his life.

Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and sold second-hand clothes in the Kensington Market in London. He also held a job at Heathrow airport. Friends from the time remember him as a quiet and shy young man who showed a great deal of interest in music.

In April 1970, Mercury joined with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor who had previously been in a band called Smile, and despite reservations from the other members, Mercury chose the name “Queen” for the new band. He later said about the band’s name, “I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.” At around this time, he also legally changed his name.

Influences

As a child, Mercury listened to a considerable amount of Indian music, and one of his early influences was the Bollywood playback singer Lata Mangeshkar, whom he had the opportunity to see live in India.

Career

Singer

Regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock music, Freddie Mercury possessed a very distinctive voice, including a recorded range of four octaves (E2 to E6). Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs as a tenor. Biographer David Bret described his voice as “escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches.”

US rock singer Billy Squier, with whom Mercury wrote two songs for in the mid-1980s (‘Lady with the Tenor Sax’ and ‘Love is the Hero’) said in an interview (Source: Life is Real) that Mercury indeed ‘sang sharp’.

Songwriter

Mercury wrote ten out of the seventeen songs on Queen’s Greatest Hits album: “Seven Seas of Rhye”, “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody to Love”, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions”, “Bicycle Race”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Play the Game”.

The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of different genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, heavy metal and disco. As he explained in a 1986 interview, “I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what’s happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things.”

Live performer
Freddie Mercury with a Brazilian flag during the Rock in Rio concert, 1985.

Mercury is noted for his live performances, which were often delivered to stadium audiences around the world. His “bottomless microphone stand” gig was one of his many notable acts on stage. He displayed a highly theatrical style that often evoked a great deal of participation from the crowd. A writer for The Spectator described him as “a performer out to tease, shock and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself.”

One of Mercury’s most notable performances with Queen took place at Live Aid in 1985, during which the entire stadium audience of 72,000 people clapped, sang, and swayed in unison. Queen’s performance at the event has since been voted by a group of music executives as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music. The results were aired on a television program called “The World’s Greatest Gigs”.

Over the course of his career, Mercury performed an estimated 700 concerts in countries around the world with Queen. A notable aspect of Queen concerts was the large scale involved.

Instrumentalist
Freddie Mercury playing guitar during a live concert with Queen in Frankfurt, 1984.
Freddie Mercury playing guitar during a live concert with Queen in Frankfurt, 1984.

Mercury played the piano in many of Queen’s most popular songs. Examples of piano-based Queen songs include “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”. He used concert grand pianos and, occasionally, other keyboard instruments such as harpsichord. From 1979 onwards, he also made extensive use of synthesisers in the studio. Queen guitarist Brian May claims that Mercury was unimpressed with his own abilities at the piano and used the instrument less over time. Although he wrote many lines for guitar, Mercury possessed only rudimentary skills on the instrument. Nevertheless, he wrote the song “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on the guitar (it has been said that he wrote it while taking a bubble bath in his room at the Munich Hilton hotel), and often played it during live performances of the song.

Solo career

In addition to his work with Queen, Mercury put out one solo album, a duet with Montserrat Caballe and several singles. Although his solo work was not as commercially successful as most Queen albums, the two off-Queen albums and several of the singles debuted in the top 10 of the UK Album Charts. His first solo effort involved the contribution of a song called Love Kills to a 1984 album dedicated to the 1926 Fritz Lang film Metropolis. The song, which was produced by Giorgio Moroder, debuted at the #10 position in the UK charts.

Mercury had two full albums outside the band, Mr. Bad Guy and Barcelona, released in 1985 and 1988, respectively. The former was a pop-oriented album that emphasised disco and dance music. “Barcelona” was recorded with the opera singer Montserrat Caballé, whom he had long admired. Although it debuted in the top ten of the UK Album Charts, In particular, the album was heavily synthesizer-driven in a way that was not characteristic of previous Queen albums.

Barcelona, recorded with Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, combined elements of popular music and opera. Many critics were uncertain what to make of the album, with one critic referring to it as “the most bizarre CD of the year.” where the song received massive air play as the official hymn of the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona one year after Mercury’s death. Ms. Caballé sung it live at the opening of the Olympics with Mercury’s part played in a screen.

In addition to the two solo albums, Mercury released several additional singles, including his own version of the hit The Great Pretender by The Platters, which debuted at the #5 spot in the UK in 1987.

Personal life

In the early 1970s Mercury had a long-term relationship with a girlfriend named Mary Austin (whom he had met through guitarist Brian May). He lived with Austin for many years. However, by the mid-1970s, the singer began an affair with a male record executive at Elektra Records; this ultimately resulted in the end of his relationship with Austin.

By 1980, Mercury began to frequently visit gay bathhouses and clubs where he met many short-term partners.

Although he cultivated a very flamboyant stage personality, several sources refer to Mercury as having been very shy in person.

Death

According to his partner Jim Hutton, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in the spring of 1987. Toward the end of his life, he was routinely stalked by photographers, while the daily tabloid newspaper The Sun featured a series of articles claiming that he was seriously ill.

On November 22, 1991, Mercury called Queen’s manager Jim Beach over to his Kensington home, to discuss a public statement. The next day, November 23, the following announcement was made to the press on behalf of Mercury:

Following the enormous conjecture in the press over the last two weeks, I wish to confirm that I have been tested HIV positive and have AIDS. I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease. My privacy has always been very special to me and I am famous for my lack of interviews. Please understand this policy will continue.

A little over 24 hours after issuing the statement, Mercury died on November 24, 1991 at the age of 45. The official cause of death was bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS. Although he had not attended religious services in years, Mercury’s funeral was conducted by a Zoroastrian priest. Singers Elton John, David Bowie, and the remaining members of Queen attended the funeral. He was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery.

In his will Mercury left the vast majority of his wealth, including his home and recording royalties, to Mary Austin, and the remainder to his parents and sister. He further left £500,000 to his chef Joe Fanelli, £500,000 to his personal assistant Peter Freestone, £100,000 to his driver Terry Giddings, and £500,000 to his partner, Jim Hutton.

Criticism and controversy

HIV status

Mercury has been criticised for the fact that he hid his HIV status from the public for many years, waiting until the day before he died to admit that he had AIDS. It has been suggested that he could have raised a great deal of money and awareness by speaking truthfully and honestly about his situation and his fight against the disease.

Ethnicity

Mercury has also been criticised for having kept his Indian origins a secret from the public. As a journalist from The Times observed, “Freddie himself always played down his Indian origins. In the few interviews he gave, he remained deliberately unclear about them.”

Other controversies

Mercury and Queen were widely criticised in the 1980s for the fact that they broke a United Nations cultural boycott by performing a series of shows at Sun City in 1984, an entertainment complex in Bophuthatswana, a homeland of (then) apartheid South Africa. As a result of these shows, Queen was placed on a United Nations list of blacklisted artists and widely criticised in magazines such as the NME.

A further controversy ensued in August 2006, when an organisation calling itself the Islamic Mobilization and Propagation petitioned the Zanzibar government’s culture ministry, demanding that a large-scale celebration of what would have been Mercury’s sixtieth birthday be cancelled. The organisation issued several complaints about the planned celebrations, including that Mercury was not a true Zanzibari and that he was bisexual, which is not in accordance with their interpretation of sharia. The organisation claimed that “associating Mercury with Zanzibar degrades our island as a place of Islam.” The planned celebration was cancelled.

Legacy

Several popularity polls conducted over the past decade indicate that Mercury’s reputation may in fact have been enhanced since his death. For instance, in 2002 he appeared in the 58th spot in a list of the “100 Greatest Britons”, sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public.

Continued popularity

In the UK, Queen have now spent more collective weeks on the UK Album Charts than any other musical act (including The Beatles),

The extent to which Mercury’s death may have enhanced Queen’s popularity is not clear. In the United States, where Queen’s popularity had lagged in the 1980s, sales of Queen albums went up dramatically in 1992, the year following his death. The movie Wayne’s World, which featured “Bohemian Rhapsody,” also came out in 1992.

Tributes

A statue in Montreux, Switzerland (by sculptor Irena Sedlecka) has been erected as a tribute to Mercury. Beginning in 2003, fans from around the world gather in Switzerland annually to pay tribute to the singer as part of the “Freddie Mercury Montreux Memorial Day” on the first weekend of September. The statue itself stands 3 metres high overlooking Lake Geneva and was unveiled on November 25, 1996 by Freddie’s father and Montserrat Caballé. A Royal Mail stamp was issued in honour of Mercury as part of the Millennium Stamp series. A plaque was also erected at the site of the family home in Feltham where Mercury and his family moved upon arriving in England in 1964. Others carried tributes to “the” singer of all time: Robbie Williams and George Michael. In the anime Cromartie High School, a character also named Freddie is based on Mercury in his appearance and rock star qualities. There are also a number of quilt panels within the AIDS Memorial Quilt made in tribute to Freddie, first publicly appearing in the fall 1992 showing of the Quilt on the Mall in Washington DC. The satirical cartoon series House of Rock featured a house in the afterlife inhabited by Freddie Mercury and other deceased stars such as Kurt Cobain and John Lennon.

Importance in AIDS history

Freddie Mercury’s death represented an important event in the history of AIDS.

Discography

Main article: Freddie Mercury discography
See also: Queen discography

Instruments used by Mercury

Grand pianos:

* Baldwin SD10 Concert Grand
* Bechstein D Concert Grand at the Trident Studios in London.
* Bechstein S Baby Grand
* Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand
* Kawai RX7 Concert Grand
* Steinway D Concert Grand
* Steinway S Baby Grand
* White Baby Grand (unknown brand)
* Yamaha C1 Baby Grand
* Yamaha C7 Concert Grand
* Yamaha CFIIIS Concert Grand
* Yamaha SF Concert Baby Grand (Zissou Edition)

Upright pianos:

* Chappell
* Upright (unknown brand)

Electronic pianos:

* Roland RD1000
* Wurlitzer EP200
* Yamaha CP80

Synthesizers and samplers:

* E-mu Emulator II+
* Fairlight CMIIIS
* Korg M1
* Kurzweil K250
* Oberheim OB8
* Oberheim OBX
* Oberheim OBXA
* Roland Jupiter 8
* Yamaha DX7

Other keyboard:

* Hammond organ
* Harpsichord (unknown brand)

Guitars:

* Ovation 12-string

1943 – Jim Morrison of the Doors is born in Melbourne, Fla., the son of a U.S. Navy admiral.

James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943—July 3, 1971) was an American singer, songwriter, poet, writer and film director. He is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of The Doors and is widely considered to be one of the most charismatic frontmen in rock music history. and the director of a documentary and short film. Morrison was known for his baritone vocals.

Biography

Early years

Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, to future Admiral George Stephen Morrison and Clara Clarke Morrison. Morrison had a sister, Anne Robin, who was born in 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a brother, Andrew Lee Morrison, who was born in 1948 in Los Altos, California. He was of Scottish and Irish ethnic heritage.

In 1947, Morrison, then four years old, allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, where a family of Native Americans were injured and possibly killed. He referred to this incident in a spoken word performance on the song “Dawn’s Highway” from the album An American Prayer, and again in the songs “Peace Frog” and “Ghost Song”.

Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

Morrison believed the incident to be the most formative event in his life and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems and interviews. Interestingly, his family does not recall this incident happening in the way he told it. According to the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison’s family did drive past a car accident on an Indian reservation when he was a child, and he was very upset by it. However, the book The Doors written by the remaining members of The Doors, explains how different Morrison’s account of the incident was from the account of his father. This book quotes his father as saying, “We went by several Indians. It did make an impression on him . He always thought about that crying Indian.” This is contrasted sharply with Morrison’s tale of “Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death”. In the same book, his sister is quoted as saying, “He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don’t even know if that’s true.”

With his father in the Navy, Morrison’s family moved often. He spent part of his childhood in San Diego, California. In 1958, Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California. However, he graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in Alexandria, Virginia in June 1961. His father was also stationed at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.

Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida where he attended classes at St. Petersburg Junior College. In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University in Tallahassee where he appeared in a school recruitment film.

In January 1964 Morrison moved to Los Angeles, California. He completed his undergraduate degree in UCLA’s film school, the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts in 1965. He made two films while attending UCLA. First Love, the first of these films, was released to the public when it appeared in a documentary about the film Obscura. During these years, while living in Venice Beach, he became friends with writers at the Los Angeles Free Press. Morrison was an advocate of the underground newspaper until his death in 1971.

The Doors

In 1965, after graduating from UCLA, Morrison led a Bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach. Photographer Joel Brodsky took a series of black-and-white photos of Morrison. Known as “The Young Lion” photo session, the pictures included the shot that was later featured on the Best of the Doors LP cover.

Morrison and fellow UCLA student Ray Manzarek were the first two members of The Doors. Shortly thereafter, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined. Krieger auditioned at Densmore’s recommendation and was then added to the lineup.

It is widely believed that the Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (a reference to the ‘unlocking’ of ‘doors’ of perception through psychedelic drug use), Huxley’s own title was a quote from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which Blake wrote that “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

Although Morrison is known as the lyricist for the group Krieger also made significant lyrical contributions, writing or co-writing some of the group’s biggest hits, including “Light My Fire”, “Love Me Two Times”, “Love Her Madly” and “Touch Me”.

In 1967, Morrison and The Doors produced a promotional film for “Break On Through”, which was to be their first single release. The video featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Morrison lip-synched the lyrics. Morrison and The Doors continued to make music videos, including “The Unknown Soldier”, “Moonlight Drive”, and “People Are Strange”.

In June 1966, Morrison and The Doors were the opening act at the Whisky a Go Go on the last week of the residency of Van Morrison’s band Them.

The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967.

By the release of their second album, Strange Days, The Doors had become one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. Their blend of blues and rock tinged with psychedelia included a number of original songs and distinctive cover versions, such as the memorable rendition of “Alabama Song”, from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s operetta, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The band also performed a number of extended concept works, including the songs “The End”, “When The Music’s Over”, and “Celebration of the Lizard”.

In 1968, The Doors released their third studio LP, Waiting for the Sun. Their fourth LP, The Soft Parade, was released in 1969. It was the first album where the individual band members were given credit on the inner sleeve for the songs they had written.

After this, Morrison started to show up for recording sessions inebriated (he can be heard hiccuping on the song “Five To One”). He was also frequently late for live performances. As a result, the band would play instrumental music or force Manzarek to take on the singing duties.

By 1969, the formerly svelte singer gained weight, grew a beard, and began dressing more casually – abandoning the leather pants and concho belts for slacks, jeans and T-shirts.

During a 1969 concert at The Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure. Consequently, many of The Doors’ scheduled concerts were canceled.

Following The Soft Parade, The Doors released the Morrison Hotel LP. After a lengthy break the group reconvened in October 1970 to record their last LP with Morrison, L.A. Woman. Shortly after the recording sessions for the album began, producer Paul A. Rothchild — who had overseen all their previous recordings — left the project. Engineer Bruce Botnick took over as producer.

Solo: poetry and film

Morrison began writing in adolescence. In college, he studied the related fields of theater, film and cinematography.

He self-published two volumes of his poetry in 1969, The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The Lords consists primarily of brief descriptions of places, people, events and Morrison’s thoughts on cinema. The New Creatures verses are more poetic in structure, feel and appearance. These two books were later combined into a single volume titled The Lords and The New Creatures. These were the only writings published during Morrison’s lifetime.

Morrison befriended Beat Poet Michael McClure who wrote the afterword for Danny Sugerman’s biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive. McClure and Morrison reportedly collaborated on a number of unmade film projects to include a film version of McClure’s infamous play The Beard in which Morrison would have played Billy The Kid.

After his death two volumes of Morrison’s poetry were published. The contents of the books were selected and arranged by Morrison’s friend, photographer Frank Lisciandro, and girlfriend Pamela Courson’s parents, who owned the rights to his poetry. The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison Volume 1 is titled Wilderness, and, upon its release in 1988, became an instant New York Times best seller. Volume 2, The American Night, released in 1990, was also a success.

Morrison recorded his own poetry in a mausoleum in a professional sound studio on two separate occasions. The first was in March 1969 in Los Angeles and the second was on December 8, 1970. The latter recording session was attended by Morrison’s personal friends and included a variety of sketch pieces. Some of the segments from the 1969 session were issued on the bootleg album The Lost Paris Tapes and were later used as part of the Doors’ An American Prayer album, released in 1978. The album reached number 54 on the music charts. The poetry recorded from the December 1970 session remains unreleased to this day and is in the possession of the Courson family.

Morrison’s best-known but seldom seen cinematic endeavor is HWY: An American Pastoral, a project he started in 1969. Morrison financed the venture and formed his own production company in order to maintain complete control of the project. Paul Ferrara, Frank Lisciandro and Babe Hill assisted with the project. Morrison played the main character, a hitchhiker turned killer/car thief. Morrison asked his friend, composer/pianist Fred Myrow, to select the soundtrack for the film.

Personal life

Morrison’s family

Morrison’s early life was a nomadic existence typical of military families. Jerry Hopkins recorded Morrison’s brother Andy explaining that his parents had determined never to use corporal punishment on their children. They instead instilled discipline and levied punishment by the military tradition known as “dressing down”. This consisted of yelling at and berating the children until they were reduced to tears and acknowledged their failings.

Once Morrison graduated from UCLA, he broke off most of his family contact. By the time Morrison’s music ascended to the top of the charts in 1967 he had not been in communication with his family for more than a year and falsely claimed that his parents and siblings were dead (or claiming, as it has been widely misreported, that he was an only child). This misinformation was published as part of the materials distributed with The Doors’ self-titled debut album.

In a letter to the Florida Probation and Parole Commission District Office dated October 2, 1970, Morrison’s father acknowledged the breakdown in family communications as the result of an argument over his assessment of his son’s musical talents. He said he could not blame his son for being reluctant to initiate contact and that he was proud of him nonetheless.

Women in his life

Morrison met his long-term companion, and she encouraged him to develop his poetry. At times, Courson used the surname “Morrison” with his apparent consent or at least lack of concern. After Courson’s death in 1974 the probate court in California decided that she and Morrison had what qualified as a common law marriage (see below, under “Estate Controversy”).

Courson and Morrison’s relationship was a stormy one, however, with frequent loud arguments and periods of separation. Biographer Danny Sugerman surmised that part of their difficulties may have stemmed from a conflict between their respective commitments to an open relationship and the consequences of living in such a relationship.

In 1970 Morrison participated in a Celtic Pagan handfasting ceremony with rock critic and science fiction/fantasy author Patricia Kennealy. Before witnesses, one of them a Presbyterian minister, however, none of the necessary paperwork for a legal marriage was filed with the state. Kenneally discussed her experiences with Morrison in her autobiography Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison and in an interview reported in the book Rock Wives.

Morrison also regularly had sex with fans and had numerous short flings with women who were celebrities in their own right, including Nico, the singer associated with The Velvet Underground, a one night stand with singer Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, an on-again-off-again relationship with 16 Magazine’s editor in chief Gloria Stavers and an alleged alcohol-fueled encounter with Janis Joplin. Judy Huddleston also recalls her relationship with Morrison in Living and Dying with Jim Morrison. At the time of his death there were reportedly as many as 20 paternity actions pending against him, although no claims were made against his estate by any of the putative paternity claimants, and the only person making a public claim to being Morrison’s son was shown to be a fraud.

Death

Morrison moved to Paris in March 1971, taking up residence in an apartment. Once there, Morrison grew a beard.

It was in Paris that Morrison made his last studio recording with two American street musicians — a session dismissed by Manzarek as “drunken gibberish”. The session included a version of a song-in-progress, “Orange County Suite”, which can be heard on the bootleg Lost Paris Tapes.

Morrison died on July 3, 1971, aged 27. In the official account of his death, he was found in a Paris apartment bathtub by Courson. Pursuant to French law, no autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play. The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison’s cause of death.

In Wonderland Avenue, Danny Sugerman discussed his encounter with Courson after she returned to the U.S. According to Sugerman’s account, Courson stated that Morrison had died of a heroin overdose, inhaling the substance because he thought it was cocaine. Sugerman added that Courson had given numerous contradictory versions of Morrison’s death, at times saying that she had killed her common-law husband, or that his death was her fault. Courson’s story of Morrison’s unintentional ingestion of heroin, followed by accidental overdose, is supported by the confession of Alain Ronay, who has written that Morrison died of a hemorrhage after snorting Courson’s heroin, and that Courson nodded off, leaving Morrison bleeding to death instead of phoning for medical help.

Ronay confessed in an article in Paris-Match that he then helped cover up the circumstances of Morrison’s death. In the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman write that Ronay and Varda say Courson lied to police who responded to the death scene and later in her deposition, telling them Morrison never took drugs.

In the epilogue to No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins says that 20 years after Morrison’s death Ronay and Varda broke silence and gave this account: They arrived at the house shortly after Morrison’s death and Courson said that she and Morrison had taken heroin after a night of drinking in bars. Morrison had been coughing badly, had gone to take a bath, and had thrown up blood. Courson said that he appeared to recover and that she then went to sleep. When she awoke sometime later Morrison was unresponsive and so she called for medical assistance.

Courson herself died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was 27 years old at the time of her death.

However, in the epilogue of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins and Sugerman also claim that Morrison had asthma and was suffering from a respiratory condition involving a chronic cough and throwing up blood on the night of his death. This theory is partially supported in The Doors (written by the remaining members of the band) in which they claim Morrison had been coughing up blood for nearly two months in Paris. However, none of the members of the Doors were in Paris with Morrison in the months before his death.

In the first version of No One Here Gets Out Alive published in 1980, Sugarman and Hopkins gave some credence to the theory that Morrison may not have died at all, calling the fake death theory “not as far-fetched as it might seem”.

In a July 2007 newspaper interview, a self-described close friend of Morrison’s, Sam Bernett, resurrected an old rumor and announced that Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus nightclub, on the Left Bank in Paris. Bernett claims that Morrison came to the club to buy heroin for Courson then did some himself and died in the bathroom. Bernett alleges that Morrison was then moved back to the rue Beautreillis apartment and dumped in the bathtub by the same two drug dealers from whom Morrison had purchased the heroin. Bernett says those who saw Morrison that night were sworn to secrecy, in order to prevent a scandal for the famous club,

Grave site

Morrison is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris, one of the city’s most visited tourist attractions. The grave had no official marker until French officials placed a shield over it which was stolen in 1973. In 1981, Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin placed a bust of Morrison and the new gravestone with Morrison’s name at the grave to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death; In the 1990s a flat stone was placed on the grave, possibly by his birth family, with the Greek inscription: ???? ??? ??????? ??????. Mikulin later made two more Morrison portraits in bronze but is awaiting the license to place a new sculpture on the tomb.

Estate controversy

In his will, made in Los Angeles County on February 12, 1969, Morrison (who described himself as “an unmarried person”) left his entire estate to Courson, also naming her co-executor with his attorney, Max Fink. She thus inherited everything upon Morrison’s death in 1971.

When Courson died in 1974, a battle ensued between Morrison’s and Courson’s parents over who had legal claim to Morrison’s estate. Since Morrison left a will the question was effectively moot. Upon his death his property became Courson’s; and on her death her property passed to her next heirs at law, her parents. Morrison’s parents contested the will under which Courson and now her parents had inherited their son’s property.

To bolster their positions Courson’s parents presented a document they claimed she had acquired in Colorado, apparently an application for a declaration that she and Morrison had contracted a common-law marriage under the laws of that state. The ability to contract a common-law marriage was abolished in California in 1896, but the state’s conflict of laws rules provided for recognition of common-law marriages lawfully contracted in foreign jurisdictions — and Colorado was one of the 11 U.S. jurisdictions that still recognized common-law marriage. As long as a common-law marriage was lawfully contracted under Colorado law it was recognized as a marriage under California law.

Artistic roots

As a naval family the Morrisons relocated frequently. Consequently Morrison’s early education was routinely disrupted as he moved from school to school. Nonetheless he proved to be an intelligent and capable student drawn to the study of literature, poetry, religion, philosophy and psychology, among other fields.

Biographers have consistently pointed to a number of writers and philosophers who influenced Morrison’s thinking and, perhaps, behavior. While still in his teens Morrison discovered the works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He was also drawn to the poetry of William Blake, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. Beat Generation writers such as Jack Kerouac also had a strong influence on Morrison’s outlook and manner of expression; Morrison was eager to experience the life described in Kerouac’s On the Road. He was similarly drawn to the works of the French writer Céline. Céline’s book, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) and Blake’s Auguries of Innocence both echo through one of Morrison’s early songs, “End of the Night”. Morrison later met and befriended Michael McClure, a well known beat poet. McClure had enjoyed Morrison’s lyrics but was even more impressed by his poetry and encouraged him to further develop his craft.

Morrison’s vision of performance was colored by the works of 20th century French playwright Antonin Artaud (author of Theater and its Double) and by Julian Beck’s Living Theater.

Other works relating to religion, mysticism, ancient myth and symbolism were of lasting interest, particularly Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. James Frazer’s The Golden Bough also became a source of inspiration and is reflected in the title and lyrics of the song “Not to Touch the Earth”.

Morrison was particularly attracted to the myths and religions of Native American cultures. While he was still in school, his family moved to New Mexico where he got to see some of the places and artifacts important to the Southwest Indigenous cultures. These interests appear to be the source of many references to creatures and places such as lizards, snakes, deserts and “ancient lakes” that appear in his songs and poetry. His interpretation of the practices of a Native American “shaman” were worked into parts of Morrison’s stage routine, notably in his interpretation of the Ghost Dance, and a song on his later poetry album, The Ghost Song. The songs “My Wild Love” and “Wild Child” were also inspired by his ideas of Native American rhythm and ritual. He also consumed 8 buttons of peyote and tripped for a week and wrote about seeing the “God of Peyote”.

Influence

Morrison remains one of the most popular and influential singers/writers in rock history as The Doors’ catalog has become a staple of classic rock radio stations. To this day he is widely regarded as the prototypical rock star: surly, sexy, scandalous and mysterious. The leather trousers he was fond of wearing both on stage and off have since become stereotyped as rock star apparel.

Iggy and the Stooges are said to have formed after lead singer Iggy Pop was inspired by Morrison while attending a Doors concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After Morrison’s death, Pop was considered as a replacement lead singer for The Doors; the surviving Doors gave him some of Morrison’s belongings and hired him as a vocalist for a series of shows.

Wallace Fowlie, professor emeritus of French literature at Duke University, wrote Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, subtitled “The Rebel as Poet – A Memoir”. In this book, Fowlie recounts his surprise at receiving a fan letter from Morrison who, in 1968, thanked him for his latest translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s verse into English. “I don’t read French easily”, he wrote, “…your book travels around with me.” Fowlie went on to give lectures on numerous campuses comparing the lives, philosophies and poetry of Morrison and Rimbaud.

Scott Weiland, the vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, as well as Scott Stapp of Creed, claim Morrison to be their biggest influence and inspiration. Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver have both covered “Roadhouse Blues” by the Doors. Weiland also filled in for Morrison to perform “Break On Through” with the rest of the Doors. Stapp filled in for Morrison for “Light my fire”, “Riders on the Storm” and “Roadhouse Blues” on VH1 Storytellers. Creed performed their version of “Riders on the Storm” with Robbie Krieger for the 1999 Woodstock Festival.

The book The Doors by the remaining Doors quotes Morrison’s close friend Frank Lisciandro as saying that too many people took a remark of Morrison’s that he was interested in revolt, disorder, and chaos “to mean that he was an anarchist, a revolutionary, or, worse yet, a nihilist. Hardly anyone noticed that Jim was restating Rimbaud and the Surreal poets.”

Books

By Jim Morrison

* The Lords and The New Creatures (1969). 1985 edition: ISBN 0-7119-0552-5
* An American Prayer (1970) privately printed by Western Lithographers. (Unauthorized edition also published in 1983, Zeppelin Publishing Company, ISBN 0-915628-46-5. The authenticity of the unauthorized edition has been disputed.)
* Wilderness The Lost Writings Of Jim Morrison (1988). 1990 edition: ISBN 0-14-011910-8
* The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison (1990). 1991 edition: ISBN 0-670-83772-5

About Jim Morrison

* Linda Ashcroft, Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison, (1997) ISBN 1-56025-249-9
* Lester Bangs, “Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus a Decade Later” in Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, John Morthland, ed. Anchor Press (2003) ISBN 0-375-71367-0
* Patricia Butler, Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison, (1998) ISBN 0-8256-7341-0
* Stephen Davis, Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend, (2004) ISBN 1-592-40064-7
* John Densmore, Riders On The Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison and the Doors (1991) ISBN 0-385-30447-1
* Dave DiMartino, Moonlight Drive (1995) ISBN 1-886894-21-3
* Wallace Fowlie, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison (1994) ISBN 0-8223-1442-8
* Jerry Hopkins, The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison (1995) ISBN 0-684-81866-3
* Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) ISBN 0-85965-138-X
* Patricia Kennealy, Strange Days: My Life With And Without Jim Morrison (1992) ISBN 0-525-93419-7
* Frank Lisciandro, Morrison — A Feast Of Friends (1991) ISBN 0-446-39276-6
* Frank Lisciandro, Jim Morrison — An Hour For Magic (A Photojournal) ISBN 0-85965-246-7
* Ray Manzarek, Light My Fire (1998) ISBN 0-446-60228-0L. First by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman (1981)
* Peter Jan Margry, The Pilgrimage to Jim Morrison’s Grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery: The Social Construction of Sacred Space. In idem (ed.), Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam University Press, 2008, p. 145-173.
* Thanasis Michos, The Poetry of James Douglas Morrison (2001) ISBN 960-7748-23-9 (Greek)
* Mark Opsasnick, The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia (2006) ISBN 1-4257-1330-0
* James Riordan & Jerry Prochnicky, Break on through : The Life and Death of Jim Morrison (1991) ISBN 0-688-11915-8
* Adriana Rubio, Jim Morrison: Ceremony…Exploring the Shaman Possession (2005) ISBN 0-9766590-0-X
* The Doors (remaining members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore) with Ben Fong-Torres, The Doors (2006) ISBN 1-4013-0303-X

Films

By Jim Morrison

* HWY: An American Pastoral (1969)
* A Feast of Friends (1970)

Documentaries featuring Jim Morrison

* The Doors Are Open (1968)
* Live in Europe (1968)
* Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1968)
* Feast of Friends (1969)
* The Doors: A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
* The Doors: Dance on Fire (1985)
* The Soft Parade, a Retrospective (1991)
* Final 24: Jim Morrison (2008), The Biography Channel

Films about Jim Morrison

* The Doors (1991), A film by director Oliver Stone, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison and with cameos by Krieger and Densmore. Kilmer’s performance was praised by critics. Members of the group criticized Stone’s portrayal of Morrison, however.

Footnotes

1. ^ Bio of Jim Morrison.
2. ^ a b “See e.g., Morrison poem backs climate plea”, BBC News, January 31, 2007.
3. ^ Bio of Jim Morrison.
4. ^ “Dead Famous: Jim Morrison”, The Biography Channel. (Retrieved Dec. 2, 2007).
5. ^ Riordan, James (1992). Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison, HarperCollins. pp. 32. ISBN 0688119158.
6. ^ Walters, Glenn D. (2006). Lifestyle theory: Past, Present And Future, Nova Publishers. pp. 78. ISBN 1600210333.
7. ^ “Recruitment Film”. Retrieved on 2008-08-24.
8. ^ “FSU Arrest”. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
9. ^ Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith, “Criticism Lighting His Fire: Perspectives on Jim Morrison from the Los Angeles Free Press, Down Beat, and The Miami Herald (master’s thesis, Interdepartmental Program in Liberal Arts, Louisiana State University, 2007). Available at “http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11162007-105056/”.
10. ^ Getlen, Larry, Opportunity knocked so The Doors kicked it down, http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/investing/20030616a1.asp, retrieved on 24 August 2008
11. ^ Paul Lawrence (2002). “The Doors and Them: twin Morrisons of different mothers”. waiting-forthe-sun.net. Retrieved on 2008-07-07.
12. ^ Hinton (1997), page 67.
13. ^ Corry Arnold (2006-01-23). “The History of the Whisky-A-Go-Go”. chickenonaunicyle.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-30.
14. ^ “Glossary entry for The Doors”. Archived from the original on 2007-03-10. from Van Morrison website. Photo of both Morrisons on stage. Access date 2007-05-26.
15. ^ “Doors 1966 – June 1966″. doorshistory.com. Retrieved on 2008-10-13.
16. ^ Leopold, Todd, Confessions of a record label owner, http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/19/holzman.elektra/index.html, retrieved on 9 September 2007
17. ^ Light My Fire, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595880/light_my_fire, retrieved on 24 August 2008
18. ^ When the Doors went on Sullivan, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/03/ed.sullivan.sidebar/index.html, retrieved on 9 September 2007
19. ^ The Doors: Biography: Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thedoors/biography, retrieved on 24 August 2008
20. ^ Dead Rock Star to Get Pardon?, http://www.wltx.com/fyi/story.aspx?storyid=48833, retrieved on 9 September 2007
21. ^ Notable Actors – UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, http://www.tft.ucla.edu/alumni/notable-actors/, retrieved on 3 December 2008
22. ^ McClure, Michael, Michael McClure Recalls an Old Friend, http://archives.waiting-forthe-sun.net/Pages/Players/Personal/mcclure_recalls.html, retrieved on 9 September 2008
23. ^ Unterberger, Richie, Liner Notes for Diane Hildebrand’s “Early Morning Blues and Greens, http://www.richieunterberger.com/diane.html, retrieved on 24 August 2008
24. ^ HWY: An American Pastoral, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388097/combined, retrieved on 24 August 2008
25. ^ Jim Morrison Biography, http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/1930:2450/1/Jim_Morrison.htm, retrieved on 24 August 2008
26. ^ Letter from Jim’s Father to probation department 1970
27. ^ Hoover, Elizabeth, The Death of Jim Morrison, http://www.americanheritage.com/entertainment/articles/web/20060703-jim-morrison-doors-drugs-rock-n-roll-aldous-huxley-paris-heroin-pamela-courson.shtml, retrieved on 24 August 2008
28. ^ Jim Morrison Biography, http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_story/1930:2450/4/Jim_Morrison.htm, retrieved on 24 August 2008
29. ^ Kennealy, Patricia (1992). Strange Days: My Life With And Without Jim Morrison. New York: Dutton/Penguin. pp. p.63. ISBN 0-525-93419-7.
30. ^ Kennealy (1992) plate 7, p.175
31. ^ Davis, Steven (2004) “The Last Days of Jim Morrison” in Rolling Stone. Retrieved 25 December 2007
32. ^ Kennealy (1992) pp.314-16
33. ^ “Ask Ray Manzarek” Transcript, Talk, BBC, 10 April 2002,
34. ^ Ronay, Alain (2002) “Jim and I – Friends Until Death”. Originally published in KING. Retrieved 25 December 2007
35. ^ Kennealy (1992) pp: 385-92 quotes from Ronay’s interview in Paris-Match
36. ^ Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman, No One Here Gets Out Alive page 373
37. ^ Hopkins, Jerry; and Danny Sugerman (1980) No One Here Gets Out Alive ISBN 0-85965-138-X
38. ^ Kennealy (1992) pp.344-6
39. ^ Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman, No One Here Gets Out Alive page 375, also see copyright in front of book on new material added in 1995
40. ^ Walt, Vivienne, How Jim Morrison Died, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1643884,00.html, retrieved on 24 August 2008
41. ^ “The shocking truth about Jim Morrison’s death surfaces”. AndhraNews.net story, July 8, 2007.
42. ^ “The shocking truth about how my pal Jim Morrison REALLY died”, mailonsunday.co.uk Accessed July 13, 2007.
43. ^ Doland, Angela, Morrison Bathtub Death Story Questioned, http://news.aol.com/entertainment/music/story/_a/morrison-bathtub-death-story-questioned/20070711145609990001, retrieved on 24 August 2008
44. ^ Mladen Mikulin – Sculptor
45. ^ photo of defaced bust on Morrison’s grave before it was stolen.
46. ^ Jim Morrison, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5221/is_2005/ai_n19141572/pg_2, retrieved on 24 August 2008
47. ^ The Stooges: Biography: Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thestooges/biography, retrieved on 24 August 2008
48. ^ Webb, Robert, ROCK & POP: STORY OF THE SONG – ‘THE PASSENGER’ Iggy Pop (1977), http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20051014/ai_n15713651, retrieved on 24 August 2008
49. ^ The Doors (remaining members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore) with Ben Fong-Torres), The Doors, page 104
50. ^ Biography Channel documentary
51. ^ The Doors (1991)

1943 – Jack Bruce of Cream with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker is born this day in rock history!

From Wikipedia

John Symon Asher “Jack” Bruce (born 14 May 1943) is a Scottish-born musician, composer and singer. He is best-known as an electric bass guitarist, harmonica player and pianist, and was most famous as a vocalist and the bass guitarist for the 1960s rock band Cream. He lives in Essex, England.

Biography
Jack Bruce was born in May 1943 in Bishopbriggs, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to musical parents who moved around a lot, resulting in the young Bruce attending 14 different schools, ending up at Bellahouston Academy. Bruce took up jazz bass in his teens, and he even won a scholarship studying cello and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and played in a dance band to support himself. The academy disapproved of its students playing jazz, however. “They found out,” Bruce told Musician correspondent Jim Macnie, “and said ‘you either stop, or leave college.’ So I left college.”

Early career
While still at college Jack Bruce played with orchestras in Glasgow music halls.[2] After leaving college he toured Italy playing double bass with the Murray Campbell Big Band.[3] In 1962, Jack Bruce became a member of the London-based band Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated,[4] in which he played the double bass. The band also included organist Graham Bond, saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Ginger Baker. In 1963, the group broke up and Bruce went on to form the Graham Bond Quartet with Bond, Baker and guitarist John McLaughlin.They played an eclectic range of music genres, including, bebop, blues and rhythm and blues. As a result of session work at this time, Bruce switched from double bass to electric bass. The move to electric bass happened as McLaughlin was dropped from the band; he was replaced by Dick Heckstall -Smith on sax and the band pursued a more concise R&B sound and changed its name to the Graham Bond ORGANisation. They released two studio albums and several singles, but were not commercially successful. They did, however, influence a number of other musicians, such as Keith Emerson, Jon Lord, Bill Bruford and John Bonham.

During the time Bruce and Baker played with the Graham Bond Organisation, they were known for their hostility towards each other. There were numerous stories of the two sabotaging each other’s equipment and fighting on stage Hostility grew so much between the two that Bruce was forced to leave the group in August 1965.

After he left Bruce recorded a solo single “I’m Gettin Tired” for Polydor records. This was a commercial failure and is now very collectible. He soon joined the John Mayall Bluesbreakers group, which featured guitarist Eric Clapton. Although a brief stay of 3 months, it did sow the seeds, especially in the improvised live performances, of future musical direction. The Universal Deluxe 2CD set Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton contains all the known tracks featuring Jack Bruce.

After the Bluesbreakers Bruce tasted his first commercial success as a member of Manfred Mann in 1966, including a No.1 single with Pretty Flamingo. When interviewed on the episode of the VH1 show, Classic Albums, which featured Disraeli Gears, Mayall stated that Bruce had been lured away by the lucrative commercial success of Manfred Mann; Mann mused about having had someone of such talent playing bass for the group, and reminisced that Bruce would attend the recording sessions without having rehearsed but would play the songs straight through without error, opining that perhaps the chord changes seemed so obvious to Bruce. [5]. The complete Manfred Mann recordings with Jack Bruce are available on the 4 Cd EMI box set Down the Road Apiece.

Whilst with Manfred Mann, Bruce again collaborated with Eric Clapton for 3 tracks on the Elektra sampler album What’s Shakin’ . Two of the songs, “Crossroads” and “Steppin’ Out”, were to become staples in the live set of his next band.

With Cream
In July 1966 Bruce moved on to his most famous role as bass player, main songwriter and lead vocalist with Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton in the power trio Cream, considered the first supergroup.

While with Cream, Bruce played a Gibson EB-3 electric bass and became the most famous bassist in rock, winning musicians polls and influencing the next generation of bassists such as Sting and Jeff Berlin.[6] He also wrote most of Cream’s original material, with lyricist Pete Brown, including the hits, “Sunshine of Your Love”, “White Room”, and “I Feel Free”.

By 1968, Cream were hugely successful; they grossed more than the next top six live acts of the day added together (including Jimi Hendrix and The Doors). They topped album charts all over the world, and received the first platinum discs for record sales, but the old enmity of Bruce and Baker resurfaced in 1968, and after a final tour, Cream broke up.

The Solo Years 1970′s
Before Cream split, Bruce recorded an acoustic free jazz album with John McLaughlin, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman, and released it in 1970 as Things We Like. This album was a precursor to the jazz fusion boom in the early 1970s, and more recently, it has been sampled by many hip hop artists.

Bruce continued to work on many other collaborations with other musicians. The first of these, Songs for a Tailor, was released in 1969, featuring both Heckstall-Smith and Hiseman. It was a worldwide hit, but, after a brief supporting tour with Larry Coryell and Mitch Mitchell in his band, he left to join the jazz fusion band Lifetime. With drummer Tony Williams, guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young, the group recorded two albums. Jack joined on the second album; Turn it over. However, they did not get much critical and commercial acclaim, and Lifetime broke up in 1970. Bruce then recorded another solo album Harmony Row, but this was not commercially successful.

In 1972, Bruce formed a blues rock power trio, West, Bruce and Laing. Besides Bruce, the group consisted of Leslie West and Corky Laing, formerly of the hard rock band Mountain. They produced two studio albums, Why Don’t'cha and Whatever Turns You On, and one live album, Live ‘N’ Kickin. The band soon broke up, and, not long after, Bruce released another solo album, Out Of The Storm. In was at this time Bruce co-wrote the title song on Frank Zappa’s successful Apostrophe album.

A tour was lined up to support the Out of the Storm album with a band featuring former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and jazz keyboard player Carla Bley, with whom he had collaborated with in 1971 on Escalator over the Hill. The tour, documented on Live at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, ended with Taylor leaving, and no studio album was completed.

In 1977, Bruce formed a new band with drummer Simon Phillips and keyboardist Tony Hymas. The group recorded an album, called How’s Tricks. A world tour followed, but the album was a commercial failure. The follow-up album Jet Set Jewel was put on hold when Bruce was dropped by his record label RSO. In 1979, Bruce toured with members from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, reuniting him with John McLaughlin, and introducing him to drummer Billy Cobham.

A 3 Cd collection of his 1970s BBC recordings called Spirit was released in 2008.

The Solo Years 1980′s
By 1979, Bruce’s drug habit had reached such a level that he had lost a lot of his money; in that year he married his second wife, Margrit Seyffer. She organised his career from a business standpoint, and Bruce played a lot of sessions with Cozy Powell, Gary Moore and Jon Anderson to raise money. By 1980 his career was back on track with his new band, consisting of drummer Billy Cobham, guitarist Clem Clempson, and keyboardist David Sancious. They toured widely to support their album, I’ve Always Wanted to Do This, but it was not commercial success and the band split. During the early 80s, he also joined up to play with mates from the Alexis Korner days in Rocket 88, the back-to-the-roots band that Ian “Stu” Stewart had put together, and Bruce appears on the album of the same name, recorded live in Germany in 1980. They also recorded a “live in the studio” album called Blues & Boogie Explosion for the German audiophile Label Jeton.

In 1981, Bruce collaborated with guitarist Robin Trower and released two power trio albums, BLT and Truce, the first of which was a minor hit in the United States. By 1983 Bruce was out of contract with the major record companies, and he released his next solo album Automatic only on a minor German label.

In the 1983 Bruce began working with the Latin/world music producer Kip Hanrahan, and released the collaborative albums Desire Develops an Edge, Vertical’s Currency, A Few short Notes from the End Run, Exotica and All Roads are made of the Flesh. They were all critically successful, and in 2001 he went onto form his own band using Hanrahan’s famous Cuban rhythm section. Other than his partnership with lyricist Pete Brown, the musical relationship with Hanrahan has been the most consistent and long-lasting of his career.

In 1986 he re-recorded his famous Cream song “I Feel Free” and released it as a single to support an advertising campaign for the Renault 21 motor car.

A solo album, Somethin’ Els, recorded in Germany between 1986 and 1992, saw him reunited with Eric Clapton and received, belated, but widespread critical acclaim.

His German TV concerts of this 1980s period have been collected on a two-DVD set, Live at Rock Palast.

The Solo Years 1990′s
In 1989, Bruce began recording material with Ginger Baker and released another solo album, A Question of Time. Baker and Bruce toured the US at turn of the decade. In 1993 Baker appeared, along with with a host of former Bruce band colleagues, at a special concert in Cologne to celebrate Bruce’s 50th birthday. A special guest was Irish blues/rock guitarist Gary Moore. The concert recordings were released as the live double album Cities of the Heart. On the back of this successful gig Bruce, Baker and Moore formed the power trio BBM, and their subsequent album Around the Next Dream was a top ten hit in the UK. However the old Bruce/Baker arguments arose again and the subsequent tour was cut short and the band broke up. A low-key solo album, Monkjack, followed in 1995, featuring Bruce on piano and vocals accompanied by Funkadelic organist Bernie Worrell.

Bruce then began work producing and arranging the soundtrack to the independently produced Scottish film The Slab Boys with Lulu, Edwyn Collins, Eddie Reader and The Proclaimers. The soundtrack album appeared in 1997. In 1998 he returned to touring as a member of Ringo Starr All Starr Band which also featured Peter Frampton on guitar. At the gig in Denver, Colorado the band was joined on stage by Ginger Baker, and Bruce, Baker and Frampton played a short set of Cream classics.

The Solo Years 2000′s
In 2001 Bruce reappeared with his most successful band of recent times featuring Bernie Worrel, Vernon Reid of Living Colour on guitar and Kip Hanrahan’s three-piece Latin rhythm section. Hanrahan also produced the accompanying album Shadows in the Air, which included a reunion with Eric Clapton on a new version of “Sunshine of Your Love”. The band released another Hanrahan produced studio album, More Jack than God, in 2003, and a live DVD, Live at Canterbury Fayre.

Bruce had suffered a period of declining health, and in the summer of 2003 was diagnosed with liver cancer. In September 2003, he underwent a liver transplant, which was almost fatal, as his body initially rejected the new organ.[7] He has since recovered, and in 2004 reappeared to perform “Sunshine of Your Love” at a Rock Legends concert in Germany organised by the singer Mandoki

In May, 2005, he reunited with former Cream bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker for a series of well-received concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall,[8] released as the album Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6 2005, and New York’s Madison Square Garden.

A biography of Bruce, entitled Jack — The Biography of Jack Bruce was written by Steven Myatt and published in 2005. He also appeared live with Gary Moore and drummer Gary Husband at the Dick Heckstall-Smith tribute concert in London.

Concert appearances since then have been sparse, but in 2006, Bruce returned to the live arena with a show of Cream and solo classics performed with the German HR Big Band. This was released on CD in Germany in 2007 to critical acclaim. 2007 also saw him make a brief concert appearance in opening a new concert hall in the Scottish Royal Academy of Music, Glasgow with Clem Clempson, keyboard player Ronnie Leahy and Gary Husband.

In 2008, Bruce collaborated again with guitarist Robin Trower on the album Seven Moons. It also featured Jack’s regular drummer Gary Husband. Unusually the lyrics were not written by Pete Brown or Trower’s regular lyricist Keith Reid, but by the band.

In May 2008 Bruce was 65 years old and to commemorate this milestone two box sets of recordings were released. Spirit is a 3CD collection of Bruce’s BBC recordings from the 1970′s. Can You Follow? is a 6CD retrospective anthology released by the Esoteric label in the UK. This anthology is a wide ranging collection covering his music from 1963 to 2003 and, aside from his work with Kip Hanrahan, is a comprehensive overview of his career.

Solo discography
Songs for a Tailor (September 1969)
Things We Like (Recorded August 1968, released December 1970)
Harmony Row (September 1971)
Out of the Storm (November 1974)
Live at Manchester Free Trade Hall 75 2CD (released 2003)
How’s Tricks (March 1977)
Spirit- Live at the BBC 1971-1978″ 3CD (Released 2008)
Jet Set Jewel (recorded 1978, released 2003)
I’ve Always Wanted To Do This (December 1980)
Automatic (Vinyl Only Release)(January 1983)
A Question of Time (December 1989)
Something Els (Recorded 1987 released March 1993)
Cities of the Heart 2CD (1993)
Monkjack (September 1995)
Shadows in the Air (July 2001)
More Jack Than God (September 2003)
Live with the HR Big Band (December 2007)
The Anthology – Can You Follow? 6CD (May 2008)