How the Angels and the Demons Wrestled for the Soul of Jim Morrison

Of all the great rock stars, Jim Morrison is one of the most oft-written and talked about and probably least understood. As tales of his larger-than-life exploits continue to circulate - and grow bigger in the telling - his dark and destructive side becomes the dominant part of the picture, overshadowing his inspiration, creativity, wit, intelligence and humor. The more human qualities don't translate so easily onto the stage, the big screen, or the pages of rock biographies.

However, the two bios written by former members of the Doors, Riders on the Storm by John Densmore and Light My Fire by Ray Manzarek, go a long way towards amending this lopsided portrait of Morrison. Without shirking away from the booze, the drug abuse, the constant stream of women and all the antisocial antics, the two authors manage to still convey their conviction that Jim Morrison was a man motivated, above all else, by a passionate love for - and deep-seated need to create - art.

Ray Manzarek's book is probably the most sympathetic of all. He recalls the early days of the formation of the Doors, days spend woodshedding their songs near the Pacific ocean, where the reach of Western civilization came to its terminus. Manzarek and Morrison saw themselves as a new breed of pioneers, exploring the undreamt-of potential of wedding poetry with rock'n'roll, taking the plunge into the unknown in a spirit of adventure and discovery. Following their collective muse in an era when the counterculture was growing strong enough to challenge the status quo, they truly believed that their music could change the world. Some may call this naive; but then again, it may have been this very conviction that made the music they created so powerful and enduring.

Manzarek talks about the users and hangers-on who attached themselves to Morrison, even in the early days. Because the singer was so experimentally-minded, so capricious and impulsive, he was vulnerable to temptation. While the band was still rehearsing, scouting around for local gigs and trying to land a recording contract, those temptations were not so ubiquitous. After fame and fortune hit, however, Jim Morrison was like a wide-eyed kid in a candy store. He quickly succumbed to the good (albeit destructive) things that came his way.

Unfortunately, the ensuing burnout - the spiralling fall of Icarus, was pretty much all that the rest of us got to witness. And when we begin with the idea of Morrison's premature death and all that wasted potential, it becomes easy to overlook much of the artistry within what he left behind for us. The drama looks like self-indulgence. The poetry sounds like pretension. The theatrics reek of narcissism.

Riders on the Storm and Light My Fire both, in their separate ways, do a commendable job of reducing the rock star Jim Morrison to human proportions while at the same time elevating his songs and poetry to their rightful stature.