Doors Examined Brief bio excerpt of Paul Rothchild from "The Doors Examined" by Jim Cherry.
If anyone qualifies as being the fifth Door', it's Paul Rothchild.
As a producer for Elektra Records he was there from the beginning of The Doors' professional career until almost the end. Born April 18, 1935, Paul Rothchild grew up in New Jersey with music a part of his life from the beginning as his mother was an opera singer. Rothchild met Elektra Records' founder Jac Holzman when he worked at a record shop and Holzman delivered Elektra records from the back of his Vespa scooter.
Rothchild and Holzman kept in contact. Rothchild went to work for a Boston record company that distributed Elektra records in the area but it was when Rothchild became the head of Prestige Records' folk division that Holzman started thinking of stealing him away to Elektra because of Rothchild's knowledge of music. Rothchild was perceived by musicians as the 'real deal' while Holzman was seen as a stuffy business type.
Rothchild arrived at Elektra Records in 1963 at a critical period in its history. Elektra was expanding into folk and was already eyeing the growing folk-rock scene in Los Angeles. Rothchild was a key player in Holzman's and Elektra's expansion and in the first two years of Rothchild's tenure as a producer, Holzman kept him busy in the studio until Rothchild was arrested in 1965 for possession of marijuana.
Rothchild had to serve eight months of prison time but Holzman kept him on the payroll. When Rothchild was released from prison, Holzman was moving Elektra towards rock 'n' roll and had him work on The Butterfield Blues Bands' second album East-West which has been hailed as an early example of 'acid rock'.
When Holzman started scouting L.A. bands he was hindered because of the conditions of Rothchild's parole, but by August of 1966 he was able to bring Rothchild to L.A. to see The Doors. The Doors had come to the attention of Holzman from Arthur Lee of Love.
At first Rothchild wasn't impressed with The Doors, but upon seeing a second show he saw the literary influences and the dark theatre the band possessed. Rothchild went into the studio with The Doors and by all accounts worked with the band as an equal (in an age when the producer was the final authority in the studio), listening to what the band wanted to accomplish as well as making suggestions.
Rothchild was willing to experiment along with the band suggesting a section of Robby Krieger's guitar be played backwards on a song, or putting a microphone in an empty garbage can while everyone shouted into it. He was also a perfectionist in the studio. As Jim Morrison's alcoholism and behavior in the studio grew more erratic, he clashed with Rothchild's perfectionism which resulted in longer and longer periods of time to create an album's worth of songs.
The clash of wills came to a head in The Soft Parade sessions during which Rothchild said he practically had to piece together songs from the many takes. Rothchild produced all The Doors' albums except L.A. Woman. During rehearsals for L.A. Woman he said the music reminded him of "cocktail lounge music". Rothchild's leaving The Doors allowed them to regroup and find themselves as a band again, thus enabling them to make one of the classic albums of rock 'n' roll.
Paul Rothchild died of lung cancer on April 30, 1995 at the age of 59.
Angels Dance And Angels DiePatricia Butler in her book, Angels Dance and Angels Die
While doing the research for this book, I was reminded time and again that memories of the past are subjective at best. A good example is a little dispute I had with Paul Rothchild. You probably noticed that this book is dedicated to Paul, so obviously we were good friends and I trusted him absolutely; Paul had no reason to lie to me about anything, nor would I ever suspect he would. Which is why it was so frustrating when Paul told me in one of our early interviews that late in her life Pamela had become obese, ballooning up from about 96 pounds to nearly twice that.
“She went the Jim route completely,” he told me. “Jim turned his Michelangelo beauty into a grotesque fat man, she turned her Botticelli beauty into a grotesque fat lady. She had nothing appealing about her.” I was stunned! Of course I immediately set about trying to get confirmation of Paul’s recollection, confirmation I never found. It is true that at the time of her death, Pamela was 115 pounds—the ideal weight for her height, but twenty pounds heavier than she had been before she and Jim left for Paris.
Though she was always slender, never even a pound overweight, over the years Paul’s memory had multiplied this twenty-pound gain several times until, in his mind, she was remembered as obese. When I pressed him, he told me that he had seen her in this condition about six months before she died. But the photo you saw of Pamela earlier in the book, with Randy Ralston at Diane Gardiner’s house, was taken within that time. Does she look like “a grotesque fat lady” to you?
Of course not. Was Paul lying to me? No, but his memory was lying to him. These are the tricks memory can play on all of us, and it is always wise to remember this when either writing or reading a book about real-life events of long ago, or even last week.
BAM Interview with Paul Rothchild:
BAM: Excuse me for interrupting, but you are quoted in No One Here Gets Out Alive as saying you thought Riders On The Storm was cocktail music.
Paul Rothchild: ... I did NOT say that about Riders On The Storm. Danny Sugerman, (co-author of the book) is a FAN of the Doors who took Jerry Hopkins' original manuscript and destroyed it. Danny didn't interview me, Jerry did. Danny then changed a lot of my interview to HEARSAY that other people did. I am FURIOUS about the book, and so is everyone else I've talked to who is quoted in it. It's a great piece of sensationalism, very little of which holds to historical fact. The general shape of it is correct, but Jim is sensationalized rather spectacularly, and the best parts of Morrison are not there. The people who really helped the Doors' career are treated in a very cavalier manner, and the only people who come off well in my opinion are the groupies and sycophants who were hanging around the band and close to Danny Sugerman - who was a groupie himself
WebEditor: In the same interview, the following exchange occurred:
BAM: Love Her Madly was not one of their better singles, I agree.
Paul Rothchild: That's exactly the song I was talking about that I said sounded like cocktail music. THAT'S the song that drove me out of the studio. That it sold a million copies means nothing to me. It's still bad music.
Doub Lubahn in his book "My Days With The Doors" comments on Paul Rothchild 's "forgettfulness":
This takes us back to early 1967. The Doors' first album is out, but "Light My Fire" has not yet taken them to the top of the charts. I am working on Clear Light's first album. At the same time I'm on my second or third trip to the Canyon to rehearse for "Strange Days"
Paul Rothchild is driving and pops the question: Would I consider joining The Doors as an equal partner - a five-way split?
I tell him "No"
I will always regret that "No" moment. I wonder what would have happened if I had said "Yes." Maybe nothing, but it does pass through my mind a lot.
In 1988 I ran into Paul in New York. I reminded him of that conversation. To my amazement, he denied it ever happened!
