 THE DOORS SUMMER'S GONE Harvey Kubernik Otherworld Cottage Industries (2018) How do you embark upon a writing project when there have already been more than a dozen books published about that particular subject? The answer: you better have a damn good novel approach to your material. As an ardent Doors fanatic/scholar, I am happy to report that Harvey Kubernik’s latest compendium, The Doors Summer’s Gone, has a slew of fresh first-person interviews that add substantially to the understanding and documentation of one of America’s most significant musical groups. It seems like Kubernik’s been chipping away at the stone of rock journalism for as long as such a thing has existed, and he certainly secured his Doors credentials in 1996 when he produced the elucidating two-CD set with keyboardist Ray Manzarek titled The Doors, Myth and Reality: The Spoken Word History. Summer’s Gone is a compilation of raw-transcript interviews with not just Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Kreiger, but Kubernik also sits down and queries such important figures in the Doors saga as photographer Guy Webster, Elektra president Jac Holzman, engineer and producer Bruce Botnick, bodyguard Tony Fuches, filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, and writer Anne Moore. |
Guess Who vocalist / keyboardist Burton Cummings tells a particularly fantastic story about coming to LA in 1969 to appear on American Bandstand, only to wind up at a party inthe Hollywood hills tinkling the ivories at the same piano with Jim Morrison. Cummings became Morrison’s chauffeur for the night when he impulsively offered to drive him and his two female accomplices around the San Fernando Valley in Morrison’s GTO. Manzarek later told Cummings “Hell, man, you spent more time with Jim than almost anybody. ”Kubernik asks a lot of straight-forward questions that demonstrate how conversant he is with the band’s history, but then he’ll follow up with some left field query that produces a lot of unexpected responses. I don’t know how much this approach will appeal to the casual fan/reader, but if you think you know the Doors story inside and out, there will be a number of revelations in store. Summer’s Gone is filled with a generous supply of photographs, mostly contributed by the godlike eye of photographer/musician Henry Diltz, a legend in his own right. Kubernik says in his introduction that he imagines this material will serve as a reference source for future biographers on the subject of the Doors. I can attest that it already has: I found it extremely inspirational as I was writing my recent 5,700 word essay on the Doors that was published in the June 2018 edition of The San Diego Troubadour. Randall Jahnson, who wrote the screenplay to Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors, contributes one of the book’s most memorable quotes: “I’ll wrap this up with something Clara, [Jim Morrison’s] mother, told me … regarding the Indians-on-the highway scene. They vaguely recalled having to slow down because an old pickup truck was parked on the side of the road with a group of Native Americans standing around it. There was no accident, though, no carnage, no ‘Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding.’ But there was something eerie in the air, she added. The Indians were keening. And perhaps that strange wailing made an impact on her impressionable young son. Then she looked at me and said ‘Little Jimmy had a tendency to embellish.’” (Jon Kanis) |
 |
and through other select retailers worldwide |