Jim Morrison was the Lead singer for the rock group the Doors. He was born December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida. When he was a kid, hes family moved alot, because his fathers career as a Navy officer. In the late 50s, they settled in Alexandria, Virginia, where Jim went and completed high school.

In 1964, he moved to the West Coast, and in 1966 he enrolled as a film major at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). It was at UCLA where Morrison began using drugs, such as LSD. He met film student Ray Manzarek, a pianist, guitarist Robbie Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. As the group began to play together, combining Jims poetic lyrics and Rays classical music training, they formed a style of rock music that had never been heard before. They got the name of their band, the Doors, from a poem by William Blake, who wrote, ""If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite.""

After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors released a series of albums based on rock and roll, psychedelia, and blues. Their debut album the next year had the hit songs ""Light My Fire,"" ""Break On Through,"" and ""Twentieth Century Fox."" Also in 1967, they released the album Strange Days, which had the songs ""People Are Strange"" and ""Love Me Two Times."" It was Morrisons charming stage presence that invited a cult-like following for the band..

The Doors continued to make music at a steadly, even as they became involved in their drug-addicted world. Waiting for the Sun (1968) and The Soft Parade (1969) were from Morrison Hotel in 1970. All three albums go on to make the bands musical growth and were critically successfull, while adjusting only few hits. L.A. Woman (1971), the final Doors album featuring Jim Morrison, included the rock lullaby ""Riders on the Storm,"".

Adored by his fans as a type of god, Jim named himself the ""Lizard King."" His life, as well as the band members, became involved with drugs and alcohol. Towards the end of his life he was having a fifth of liquor every day.

Being extremly drunk, Morrison went on stage with an audience of thirteen thousand in Coconut Grove, Florida. Jim flashed the audience, angering community members. therefore, he was arrested and found guilty of exposure and drunkenness. He was sentenced to six months of hard labor, although the sentence was appealed and he died before there was a new trial.

Morrison married girlfriend Pamela Courson, who he met in 1966. It was Pam who found him dead, on July 3, 1971, in his Paris hotel. His death, most likely a drug overdose, but was said to be a heart attack, and no autopsy was ever performed. Having a private funeral, Jim was buried in the Peere Lachaise a graveyard in Paris, where his gravesite continues to be visited by fans leaving personal gifts including notes, graffiti, cigarettes, photographs, condoms, and drugs. The cemetery receives 1.5 million visitors a year; a large number of them attributed to Jim Morrison.

Selected records:

• THE DOORS, 1967
• STRANGE DAYS, 1967
• WAITING FOR THE SUN, 1968
• THE SOFT PARADE, 1970
• ABSOLUTELY LIVE, 1970
• MORRISON HOTEL, 1971
• 13, 1971
• L.A. WOMAN, 1971
• OTHER VOICES, 1971
• FULL CIRCLE, 1972
• WEIRD SCENES INSIDE THE GOLD MINE, 1972
• THE BEST OF DOORS, 1973
• THE BEST OF THE DOORS, 1974
• AN AMERICAN PRAYER, 1980
• GREATEST HITS, 1980
• ALIVE SHE CRIED, 1983
• THE DOORS LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 1987
• IN CONCERT, 1991
• THE DOORS SOUNDTRACK, 1991
• GREATEST HITS, 1996

                                                     QUOTES

"A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself."

"The only time I really open up is on stage. I feel spiritual up there... I don't really feel I've done a complete job unless we've gotten everybody in the theatre on common ground."

"I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing the established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road towards freedom- external revolt is a way to bring about internal freedom."

"There are things known, and there are things unknown, and inbetween is
The Doors."

"O great creator of being, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives."

"If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."

"When you make your peace with authority, you become authority."

"I think I was just fed up with the image that had been created around me... and so I put an end to it in one glorious evening."

"When the music's over, turn out the light."