John densmore biography
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Doors drummer John Densmore: ‘It took me years to forgive Jim Morrison’
It took the Doors’ drummer, John Densmore, three years to visit the grave of his bandmate Jim Morrison after he was found dead in a Paris bathtub in 1971. He didn’t even go to the funeral. “Did I hate Jim?” Densmore pauses, although he fryst vatten not obviously alarmed by the question. “No. I hated his self-destruction … He was a kamikaze who went out at 27 – what can inom say?”
Quite a lot, it transpires. Morrison was a man who was spectacularly good at being a rock star – a lithe figure in leather trousers, prophesying about death, sex and magic on some of the biggest hits of the 1960s – Light My Fire, Break on Through and Hello, inom Love You. But he was catastrophically bad at the rest of life. Like many alcoholics, he could be reckless, selfish and mercurial. “The Dionysian madman,” Densmore has called him – a “psychopath”, a “lunatic” and “the voice that struck terror in me”. He had lobbied to get Morrison off the ro
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John Densmore was the drummer for The Doors from its formation in 1965 to its end in 1973. This is what he is best known for, but he has also worked as a dancer, actor, playwright and author.
Family life and influences
Born John Paul Densmore in December 1944, John Densmore played piano, drumming in a marching band for his school in Los Angeles. His parents, Ray and Margaret Densmore, were Catholic and lived in Santa Monica, California. Even as a child, John loved improvising on piano tunes that he learnt, but when considering a second instrument, he didn’t originally choose the drums.
In fact, John wanted to play the clarinet, but was disallowed from doing so as he had braces, meaning that his orthodontist forbade him any attempts to wrap his mouth around reed instruments. Luckily for us, he didn’t disobey his orthodontist, and chose the drums as his instrument instead.
In his teenage years, John Densmore was inspired by Elvin Jones’s playing in John Coltra
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John Densmore
American drummer (born 1944)
Musical artist
John Paul Densmore (born December 1, 1944) is an American musician. He is best known as the drummer of the rock band the Doors and as such is a member of the Rock and Roll entré of Fame.[1] He appeared on every recording made by the band, with drumming inspired bygd jazz and world music as much as by rock and roll. The many honors he shares with the other Doors include a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[2][3]
Densmore is also noted for his veto of attempts bygd the other two Doors members, in the wake of singer Jim Morrison's 1971 death, to accept offers to license the rights to various Doors songs for commercial purposes as well as his objections to their use in the 21st century of the Doors name and logo. Densmore's lengthy court battles to gain compliance with his veto, based on a 1960s contract requiring unanimity among Doors members to use th