Linda Ronstadt Recalls Harrowing Flight With the Doors in the Late 1960s

Countless musicians have met their untimely end because of aviation accidents, and in the late 1960s, it seemed like Linda Ronstadt and the Doors were in a position to add their names to the list. Fortunately, they avoided disaster and arrived at their destination safely. But it still made for an interesting story from the road.

Add it to the list of unusual experiences encountered while touring with the Doors and their infamous frontman, Jim Morrison.

Linda Ronstadt and the Doors Take Sketchy Flight Mid-Tour

Linda Ronstadt and her folk-rock band, The Stone Poneys, toured extensively with numerous chart-topping acts in the late 1960s. The Stone Poneys went on the road with the likes of Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and L.A. rock band the Doors. Ronstadt’s time with the Doors proved to be particularly memorable. That was thanks in no small part to a rather harrowing flight the musicians took from Rochester, New York, to Boston, Massachusetts, during inclement weather.

“We got hung up [in Rochester],” Ronstadt explained during an interview at the Bitter End in 1968. “We were supposed to go to Boston to do a concert in the afternoon; we had to do two shows. Boston was fogged in, and all the airplanes were grounded, and we couldn’t go. We’re going to lose all that money, right? And all those kids were waiting for us. So, our manager, Herbie Cohen, never to be daunted, you know. He forced us all at solid gunpoint on this DC3, this rickety old plane. And he got some kind of used tire salesman to fly it ‘cause he couldn’t find a pilot.”

The singer joked that she and the rest of the musical entourage hijacked the plane and “went to Cuba, in fact” before assuring her interviewer that the entire group made it to Boston safe and sound—albeit an hour late for their first performance.

The Stone Poneys’ Singer Had Strong Feelings About The Doors

Riding through dense fog in a “rickety” airplane with a “used tire salesman” in the cockpit is about as fanciful a tour story as most musicians would like to endure, especially at a time when so many stars were meeting tragic ends in plane and helicopter incidents. But that was just one of the many interesting experiences Linda Ronstadt and the rest of the Stone Poneys had while touring with the Doors over the course of several months. For Ronstadt, the biggest wild card on the road was the Doors frontman, Jim Morrison.

“I remember seeing them at the Whisky A Go Go. I thought, ‘If they just get rid of their singer, they could have hits,’” Ronstadt said during an appearance on the It’s Only Rock and Roll podcast. And I continued to feel that way until the end of our tour. But Morrison was a troubled guy. I didn’t think he was a very good singer, but he was magnetic. The fans loved him. But he was drunk all the time, and he wore the same pair of snakeskin pants every day. Gross. He wasn’t exactly the person you wanted to sit next to, you know?”

Speaking at the Hudson Union Society in 2013, Ronstadt recalled the “troubling” dynamic Morrison adopted with his audience. “The way that the audience and the people that have, maybe, a terrible identity crisis would project themselves up on the stage onto Morrison and then just kind of idolize him. It was this kind of narcissistic feeding frenzy. It was really disturbing.”

At least in those instances, Ronstadt could rest assured knowing she had both of her feet planted firmly on the ground.

Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images