No one’s getting the nickname “Lizard King” without demonstrating a propensity for the shocking and obscene, and Jim Morrison certainly lived up to his eyebrow-raising moniker. The Doors frontman was notorious for his antics, largely fueled by alcohol and pills, that often jeopardized his bandmates as much as they did himself. On February 9, 1970, The Doors released Morrison Hotel during a particularly tenuous time in their career, made so by their troublingly fearless leader.
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The fifth studio album reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200, thanks to earworm songs like “Peace Frog” and “Roadhouse Blues”, both of which remain in the regular classic rock radio rotation to this day. The album was the band’s best across the pond, peaking at No. 12 in the U.K. Not chart-topping success by definition, but these feats were all the more impressive when considering how much pushback the band was facing before, during, and after the release of Morrison Hotel.
Clashes with television networks and nightclubs, public indecency charges, becoming the first rock ‘n’ roller ever to be arrested on stage, jail time, an entire protest march in his (dis)honor—the rock frontman was speeding down an increasingly destructive path during the band’s Morrison Hotel era.
Jim Morrison Stirred Major Controversy Ahead of ‘Morrison Hotel’ Release
Just over a year before The Doors released Morrison Hotel, Jim Morrison found himself in one of the biggest scandals of his short-lived career. While performing a concert in Florida on March 1, 1969, the frontman began an obscene sequence that keyboardist Ray Manzarek would later say was more myth than misdemeanor. In his memoir, Light My Fire, Manzarek described Morrison asking the audience, “You wanna see my c***?” When they “roared” in approval, Manzarek said that Morrison began pretending to reveal himself without actually doing so to elicit a reaction. Manzarek wrote, “It’s a lot more fun to believe the myth, isn’t it? So we do.”
Nevertheless, Florida law officials responded firmly, charging him with indecent exposure and profanity. Conservative protestors organized a march to display their disapproval of The Doors’ raucous singer. And from there, Morrison’s troubles continued. In November 1969, officials charged Morrison under a new skyjacking law that forbade passengers from engaging in disorderly or disturbing conduct.
Just like the time Jim Morrison got The Doors kicked out of the Whisky A Go Go, the singer’s antics were harming more than just himself. The band inevitably felt the brunt of his backlash, too, as radio stations began banning the group from airplay and when venues canceled their performance dates. Morrison Hotel was, for all intents and purposes, a comeback from a worsening rabbit hole of self-destruction. In this context, peaking at No. 4 in the U.S. and No. 12 in the U.K. is just as impressive an accomplishment as their only No. 1 album, Waiting for the Sun, from 1968.
Sadly, Morrison’s calamitous trajectory came screeching to a halt when he died in the bathtub of his Parisian apartment on July 3, 1971. He was 27 years old.
Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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