VALLEY NEWS & GREEN SHEET- FEBRUARY 13, 1970
By MIKE MOORE
The Doors are faltering, a racehorse with the greatest potential but temperamental and with hoofs of clay. They were top bill in a convert Saturday night at the Long Beach Sports Arena, along with Albert King and the Flying Burrito Brothers.
It was clear that the predominately middle-teen audience came out to see Jim Morrison of the Doors, and that alone is a sign of their deterioration.
Maybe the troubles really began when Morrison, a leather-cloth exhibitionist, became a sex symbol for would-be groupies and plastic hippies. Elektra, worried about lagging creativity and sales, threw in the final straw: arrangers.
It’s the one thing when the Beatles or Dylan use musicians to extend their pallet, but another when labels try to hide drying-up juices with a battalion of strings and brass. (Remember George Shearing and Strings?)
The group sleepwalks now, a mere appendage of Morrison (their next album is called “Morrison Hotel”), burdened with an organization and slightly padded record company that hasn’t had to many successes lately.
Morrison’s voice, always sounding like the scarred hands of a Karate Master, is almost unusable. His singing is mostly moans and roars, shorthand that allows his fans (younger and less knowledgeable than before) to fill in the gaps.
The group’s scheduled set was extended when Morrison, apparently unhappy with how it was going, had the lights turned off again and rattled on for another or so.
I couldn’t make it through the last half-hour and wandered backstage, standing dazedly with police guards and the limousine driver waiting for the end so they could rush Morrison off.
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