In this 2011 documentary by British filmmaker Martin H. Smith, we find out that the title of the doc, taken from the title tune of the Doors’ album L.A. Woman is an anagram of Jim Morrison’s name and a tip of the hat to Muddy Waters (Got My Mojo Workin’), but not Mr. Morrison telling us about his erection, as everyone had thought.
That revelation aside, Mr. Mojo Risin: The Story of L.A. Woman which screens at the Mission Theater as part of Northwest Film Center’s Reel Music 29 festival, Monday, October 10, 9:15pm, focuses on the making of that album and the larger issues around the band and Morrison’s leaving the moment it was finished, moving to Paris and dying shortly thereafter. Its release marks the fortieth anniversary of the album.
It deals with the relatively short life of the band, and is told, for the most part, by the surviving band members Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Kreiger. Others include Jac Holzman, founder of their label Elektra Records, Bill Siddons, who was their manager and Bruce Botnick, engineer and co-producer of the album.
It is instructive to take a look at something Morrison once said, ”I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps “Oh look at that!” Then whoosh, and I’m gone … and they’ll never see anything like it ever again — and they won’t be able to forget me, ever.”
Except, we have to ask the question, does anyone in the current generation (or the previous two or three) really know who he was, or is familiar with his work? For those interested in discovering him, this is a great tool, even though the band members are over the top when it comes to being self-congratulatory…but that’s L.A. isn’t it. When it comes to deaths of that era which shaped a generation, the Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King, Hendrix and Joplin, Morrison’s was not felt with the same depth, the people who still visit his Paris grave notwithstanding.
Forgotten? Maybe. Neglected? Definitely. And the above quote distills what was annoying about him. Please let others give you praise. Popularity is fleeting, and today’s fiery comet is tomorrow’s truck driver.
For those familiar with Morrison, no we haven’t forgotten. We just stopped listening. My Doors LP’s have been sitting on my shelves, untouched for at least ten years (maybe more). Do they hold up? Yes and no. Toward the end, and particularly onL.A. Woman, Morrison’s voice had become gruff and scratchy, and not in the good way. Although he was hailed as a great poet at the time, upon further review, he’s no Rimbaud, believe me.
Still, the documentary is cleverly structured, telling the story of the band and the album by focusing on each song, one-at-a-time, winding up with the title tune. It deals with the major events in the life of the band, including Morrison’s alcoholism and his arrest for supposedly exposing himself during a Florida concert. I have a friend who was in the fourth row and she says he did not. She would have noticed.
Self-hyperbole aside, this is a must for Doors fans, or anyone who is curious about what all the fuss was about.
Rolling Stone Reports:
On Thursday, Florida’s Clemency Board pardoned the late Doors frontman Jim Morrison for two misdemeanor convictions stemming from a 1969 incident in which he allegedly exposed himself.The pardon was requested by outgoing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the state Clemency Board unanimously granted it.
In March 1969, a bearded, drunken Morrison was performing at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami when, during the performance, he allegedly asked the audience, “Do you wanna see my cock?” After the audience of more than 10,000 fans responded, he pulled down his pants and briefly simulated masturbation.
The New York Times reports:
It was a classic skirmish of the 1960s culture war, pitting a nonconformist rock star and his bohemian fans against clean-cut defenders of acceptable behavior, the counterculture against the mainstream, and Jim Morrison against Anita Bryant.
“The battle then was the battle that’s being fought today,” said Ray Manzarek, the longtime keyboardist for the Doors. “It’s the battle that America has been fighting.”
Jim Morrison of the Doors died while appealing his 1970 Florida criminal convictions.
But the possibility of forgiveness comes with memories of the socially polarized background that led to Morrison’s trial, as well as a lingering sense that the cultural flames ignited in that era have not been fully extinguished.
Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida wants a pardon for Morrison.
Now the governor of Florida says he will seek to put an end to it bypursuing a posthumous pardon for two criminal convictions that Morrison, the frontman for the Doors, received after some very bad behavior at a 1969 concert in Miami.
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