My recollection of Kansas and the Doors by Kerry Livgren
In the summer of 1970, Kansas (the first rendition of the band) got an opportunity to go to New Orleans and play for a couple of weeks at a club in the French Quarter called the "Inner Section".
The reason we got this job was that Ehart, Hope, and Williams had been down there before as members of "White Clover" and had played a few of the local places, as well as become acquainted with Don Fox, the owner of the infamous "Warehouse" which hosted a lot of well known recording acts. Fox later became a very influential promoter. Years later he would do several of the big Kansas tours.
We were quite excited about the trip. (any road trip was exciting for us).
One of the reasons I was particularly excited was that the guys had met quite a few musicians in New Orleans that I would probably never get a chance to meet in Kansas. On one occasion, Jim Morrison of the Doors (who I understand liked to hang out in N.O.), came in to the club where White Clover was playing and got up on stage and "jammed" with them.
Actually, I think the jamming consisted of some ad lib free form poetry and sang. Being a big Doors fan, I found this story intriguing. The Kansas band was so dirt poor that at one point we wrote Morrison a letter begging him for money to keep us going. (We never heard back).
The "Inner Section" was a small club (on Royal Street as I recall). We could barely fit on the stage, and we had to play several sets every night. Being a financially challenged rock and and roll band as we were, we stayed with a friend and former manager of the band, Phil Musso, who had a small house down at the end of St. Charles Street near the Camellia Grill. We used to ride the Trolley to the Quarter to hang around all day before we had to play. On nights when we weren't playing we would go over to the Warehouse and see whoever was there.
I got to see "The Band," which was quite a treat as I was a big fan of theirs also. While we were there we saw a poster for the Doors who were coming the following week. We went nuts and begged Fox to let us open the show for them. He always liked us, so he set it up with the Doors management and they gave us the gig. (In those days things like that happened.)
We really thought we had our big break. Needless to say, the anticipation and excitement were at an all time high. Just to be able to play at the Warehouse would have been a big deal, but to open for the Doors was premium.
We showed up early to set up for the show. Kansas was a huge band onstage, and I remember being amazed at how Spartan the Doors equipment was. We kept looking around wondering when they would show up.
The Warehouse had but one small dressing room. With today's prima donna band attitudes that would be unheard of. It was a small room above the stage with a low ceiling and big wooden beams. Kansas barely fit in there, much less anyone else.
At last the Doors came walking in -- all except Jim Morrison. We must have been pretty "starry-eyed." I felt like I was in the presence of some sort of deities.
I remember having a conversation with Ray Manzarek about the keyboards he used. I asked him why he never used anything else, like a Mellotron. (I was enamored with those things.) He told me the Doors just didn't need anything else for their sound.
Though we were in a reverie, we kept wondering when Morrison would show up.
At last he came in the Door. (no pun) I remember that Phil Ehart, who had met him before said "Guys, this is Jim Morrison." I stepped forward and shook his hand, but Dan Wright, our organist, jumped up from the chair he was in, hit his head on one of those low wooden beams, and was knocked out cold on the floor. Morrison just looked down at him expressionless.
I remember thinking "Oh Boy, not only is this profoundly embarrassing, but now Dan is out cold and we can't play without him." Fortunately he came to, and were able to play, albeit Dan had quite a headache.
Jim Morrison definitely had an unusual presence. There was an air of unpredictability about him. We could hardly take our eyes off of him. At one point, he looked up at the wooden beam, hoisted himself up, and hung upside down from it like a bat. He then started to recite some (ad lib, I assumed) poetry. We were transfixed. I couldn't believe I was in the room witnessing this.
Then he suddenly dropped off the beam and landed on the floor, laying there as if dead. The other members of the Doors seemed not the least concerned - as if this happened every day. Morrison got up, brushed himself off, and acted as if nothing unusual had happened. I don't recall a single word of the poem.
I don't think Kansas had one of our better performances that night. Things never seem to go well when there is that much adrenaline. I remember thinking that everything sounded out of tune and it felt as if I had duct tape around my fingers.
After our set, I went out into the audience to watch the Doors. That band created an atmosphere that was completely unique. There was something very dark and mysterious about their music. I don't believe I have seen a singer that had such command over an audience.
When they were playing "When the Music's Over," and they got to the part of the song where Morrison sings "we want the world and we want it...," he paused, the band went completely silent, and he unscrewed the mic stand from it's base and held it like a spear. You could have heard a pin drop in that place. Nobody breathed. I remember thinking "is he going to throw it?" NOWWW!!! He didn't fortunately, but it was quite a moment.
There was more. When they came to "Light My Fire", the Doors waved us up on to the stage to play with them. Our Sax player, Larry Baker, and our Flutist, Don Montre, got to do most of the playing, but it was quite a thrill indeed.
It was several years later before Kansas became a major recording artist in our own right, but I will never forget that evening.
What perhaps makes it even more memorable is that I understand that the New Orleans concert was the last performance Jim Morrison ever did with the Doors. After that he went to France and never returned.
It was our privilege to have shared that evening.
Set list and notes on the show on mildequator.com
Densmore writes about everyone deciding to call it quits after the warehouse performance:
But New Orleans was the lowest note yet, especially after the tease of the night before. I could smell death.
The limo ride back to the Pontchartrain Hotel was ominous. It was like returning home from a burial.
Jim made small talk, but the rest of us were dead silent. I knew Ray and Robby were finally ready to call it quits. It started drizzling as we pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel.
Jim and Bill Siddons got out and went into the lobby. I hung back, giving Ray and Robby the eye to stay, implying I had something to talk about.
After Bill and Jim were inside, I spoke up. “Well?” I said. They knew what I was talking about. The gig had been so embarrassing they could read my mind.
“Okay, it’s finished!” Ray retorted sadly. Robby took a beat, digesting what Ray had just said, realizing that half of our quartet had just caved in. He nodded in agreement. It seemed that the black cloud that had been over my head for several years was starting to lift. The Jim who’d wanted to quit years ago now would play anywhere, at any time.
It was the only thing left that he enjoyed doing besides drinking. We would have to be the ones to throw in the towel. And we just did. Three pallbearers, standing in the rain, had just put our live act in the ground. Finally.
Riders on the StormKrieger writes of the warehouse performance:
But then came New Orleans. It wasn’t that bad of a show at first, but as it went on, Jim deteriorated before our eyes.
I’ve read all kinds of accounts of the show, but I seem to have blocked most of it out of my mind. All I really remember is the end of the set, when Jim sat down on the drum riser and slumped forward as if he was barely able to stay awake.
Ray wrote in his autobiography that he saw Jim’s essence leave his body through his crown chakra and vanish into the night air… or something. I just saw a guy who had probably taken a bunch of barbiturates.
Either way, Ray and I finally agreed with John that we should stop touring. We may have disagreed about the significance of some of Jim’s post-Miami performances, but the New Orleans show removed any doubt: he needed some time off.
In the dressing room afterward, I asked Jim what was wrong. He tried to slur out one of his classic apologies and I immediately knew we weren’t going to have any sort of productive conversation, so I left him alone.
Set the Night on FireRay Manzarek writes of the warehouse performance:
That fateful last concert in New Orleans, where the bayou and the voodoo conjoined to snuff out Jim’s spirit. It just left him. Halfway through the set his energy, his vital force, his chi, just left him. It became a vapor. An exhalation of the stomach that rose out through the top of his head. Off into the ether. Perhaps to join Pan and the satyr. Perhaps to dissipate into the universe.
I remember that concert like it was yesterday. A packed warehouse on the docks. Low, dark, and ancient. Slave vibes, juju vibes, Marie Laveau, and Dr. John walking on gilded splinters. It was musty with 150 years of cargoes coming and going on the Mississippi. I didn’t like it. It was like Van Gogh’s Night Cafe. It was not a place to make music. It was a place to plan a crime, buy drugs, or commit a murder.
Halfway through a lackluster set, Jim suddenly left the stage. I could feel it. I usually played with my head down and my eyes closed. Concentrating on my left-hand bass, right-hand organ, John’s beat, Robby’s chords and fills, and Jim’s words. I knew where everybody was at every moment. I could feel them. Their presence. Their essence.
And at a most inappropriate place, in the middle of a song, in the middle of a short solo, Jim left the stage. Now in the middle of “Light My Fire” Jim would frequently leave the stage to get a beer as Robby and I soloed for upwards of ten minutes or more. But this was not “Light My Fire.” And Jim was gone.
I could feel him leave. And then I looked up and I was shocked. He was standing at the microphone! He hadn’t left the stage. Only his essence had. And it was streaming up from his stomach and out through his crown chakra. Out into that voodoo night. Spreading itself over the assembled multitude. Disappearing into the sweat and heat and dust and rafters of that ancient edifice in the New World city of Orleans on the bayou.
And then Jim began to sing again. But without any commitment to the words. Without passion. Without energy. He was spent. Exhausted. He badly needed to rest. He needed to rediscover himself. And he needed time away from his drinking buddies. He needed time away from those ne’er-do-wells on the Morrison dole. He needed to be a poet again. A quiet, contemplative poet.
John and Robby saw it, too. And they saw Jim lose it at the end of the set. They saw him pick up the mic stand with its heavy, weighted base and begin to smash the stand into the old plank flooring of the stage. Over and over and over. Smashing the stage to pieces. Smashing his life to pieces in a blind rage. A fury had overtaken him and he couldn’t stop.
He splintered the wood and shattered his soul. Vince finally came out from behind the amps and put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. He immediately stopped. His rage dissipated with Vince’s comforting touch. He put his arm around Vince’s shoulder and just stood there, at the mic, looking out at the audience as we finished the final chorus of “The End.”
We would never play that song with Jim Morrison ever again.
Light My Fire
