Gary James' Interview With Rock 'n' Roll Author
Jerry Hopkins



He wrote books on the biggest of Rock stars. We're talking Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Jim Morrison. He was the co-author of No One Here Gets Out Alive, which went all the way to number one on the New York Times Best Seller list and remained on that list for nine months! It enjoyed a revival in 1991 when Oliver Stone released his movie on The Doors. Today there are more than four million copies of Jerry Hopkins' book on Jim Morrison in print. Jerry Hopkins died on June 3rd, 2018. I interviewed Jerry Hopkins on December 7th, 1992 about his book, The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison, which was released in 1992.

Q - Jerry, you're one of these guys I have wanted to speak with for the longest time and I'm very happy that we can finally talk.

A - Oh, well, thank you. It's very flattering for you to say so.

Q - I've been reading your books for a long time now.

A - (laughs) I must be an old fart by now then. (laughs)

Q - No. No. I've really enjoyed reading your books.

A - Thank you.

Q - Your latest book on Jim Morrison made for a good read.

A - Thank you.

Q - You brought out a lot of material I've never read before. Would it have been better for the book had you released it when Oliver Stone's film came out?

A - Probably.

Q - Why didn't you release it then?

A - It wasn't ready.

Q - You were still doing the research then?

A - Yeah. In fact, I didn't have all of the French documents in my hand, which I think is an essential part of telling the story about what happened in Paris, until long after the movie had been released. So, I think the timing would have been better in the sense of the marketing. I think the book is a lot stronger now because of the additional information I was able to put into it.

Q - You spent some time with Jimi's brother Andy. Did you also spend some time with Jimi's sister Ann?

A - No. When I researched the first book, No One Here Gets Out Alive, most of the Morrison family did not co-operate. Jim, at that point, had been dead only a matter of months really and they were not willing because of Jim's relationship with his parents, which was virtually non-existent, the ill feelings between them. They didn't co-operate in any way with any ventures at that time. Andy Morrison chose to talk to me. I spent a weekend with him. Ann Morrison, his sister, didn't want to talk to me, but a variety of cousins and aunts and grandparents and so forth did choose. So, it was a matter of individuals deciding.

Q - Would you know why Ann or Andy have not written a book about their brother? We've seen Janis Joplin's sister write a book.

A - I honestly don't know. Neither one of them are writers to start with. Of course that wouldn't stop there being a book. They could always tie-in with some co-writer as very frequently happens. I have not stayed in touch with Andy. I've lost track of him. I never talked to Ann. I don't know where she is. So, I really don't have an answer. I'd have to ask them.

Q - I always thought they should come forward and do an extensive interview about Jim's earliest days or write a book about it.

A - That's what it would've had to be because they didn't know Jim once he became a star.

Q - If you read the books about Morrison, his story picks up when he's in college. It's the early days when he was a kid that would be interesting.

A - Yeah. That's why I went back to all the cities and towns he grew up in and interviewed as many of his classmates and went to his high schools and talked to his high school girlfriend, people like that. Thank God for Andy because he was not only there virtually from the beginning, but he had a good memory. The most interesting thing for me always is what the childhood was like. I'd rather know what Jimi Hendrix was like as a kid, what Davie Bowie was like as a kid. Any of the people I write about, it's the child that makes the man. The personality is pretty well formed by the time you're seven, they say. If you overlook that part of the story you're not only overlooking an essential part of it, you're missing the best part.

Q - The authorities at the cemetery where Jimi Hendrix is buried want him moved. The parents don't want that to happen. They want him to stay there. How did you find out about that?

A - I first heard about it from someone who is now researching, believe it or not, a biography of Pamela (Courson, Jimi's girlfriend). She had gone to the cemetery and was the first one to tell me about that story. I later confirmed it with a friend of mine who is a journalist in Paris. The story hasn't come out yet. I don't know why, but the Morrison family wants to keep him there and in fact is paying, not at the cemetery's request or insistence, but on their own I understand, is paying the cemetery a certain amount of money on a regular basis to try and keep the area clean, you know, clean up some of the tombstones that have been vandalized by graffiti.

Q - Page 43 of your book: "After registering for the draft, he (Jimi) got excessively drunk. An uncle who lived in Clearwater was obliged to get him out of a situation so sticky that thirty years later as I was doing my interviews, no one would talk about it." And you have no clue as to what that was all about?

A - No. I couldn't find out when I was researching the first book and the second one I didn't have the budget to go travel all over the country again and try to dig it up this time around. I don't know what it was. "So sticky" is sort of their description of it. It may have been a whole lot less salacious than that makes it sound.

Q - It seems that whoever brought that up was teasing you.

A - Well, I don't even remember who told me at this point. It was probably one of his classmates who didn't know what it was either. Or, maybe it was his grandmother. I interviewed his grandmother who was a proper Southern lady who you don't talk about your dirty dishes or your dirty laundry in public.

Q - Did you happen to meet with or talk with Patricia Kennealy?

A - Oh, sure. I know her quite well. She remains friends.

Q - What can you tell me about her?

A - She's extremely protective, obsessive about the relationship (between herself and Jim) and the version of what happened. She's not too thrilled about this new book. She's still talking to me with her teeth clenched. We've been friends from the beginning. I was the first one she talked to. She spoke very highly of me in the book (her book Strange Days). At the time I was the first person she ever told about the wedding (to Jim). We've remained in touch most of the years since. I gave her some credence I suppose, but see it's because I tend to believe her. Everybody says, "What's a witches wedding anyway?" Ships captains marry people. Back during the '60s everybody was joining the Universal Life Church, becoming ministers in order to get out of the draft. And although I'd already put in my military time, I became a Universal Church minister and married people. I was sincere about it and so were the people I married. So, I'm not going to put down anything she says was a ceremony. It's just as valid to me as any other (ceremony).

Q - Page 64 of your book: "Jim got bombed on LSD and delivered an inspired performance at The Whisky that got them fired. It was during the performance of 'The End' that the months long employment at the club ended." In an interview with Mario Maglieri by Masters Of Rock magazine, who I assume was the manager of The Whisky, he was asked about that and he said, "Never happened. I don't know who started this, but I never told him he couldn't perform. Whoever started it should have come to me and asked me." Who did you get your information from?

A - Okay. I got it from all three surviving Doors and Elmer Valentine, who owned the club.

Q - And here we have the manager of the club who said it never happened.

A - Yeah. Who are you gonna believe? That happens frequently in history. There's always two sides to every story if not three or four or six, and sometimes there in direct conflict. But four sources is better than one I think.

Q - This manager also said Morrison also exposed himself on stage and it was no big deal.

A - Well, I don't know anything about that either.

Q - You never heard that story about Morrison at The Whisky

A - No. I didn't talk to Mario. He was unavailable when I was doing my research.

Q - You do not believe that Jim Morrison exposed himself in Miami, do you?

A - No.

Q - Just about the time Oliver Stone's Doors film came out there was an article by Bill Cosford of the Knight Ridder News Service. He said he was a student at the University Of Miami when The Doors performed there and he was at the concert and he definitely saw Morrison expose himself.

A - Okay.

Q - That is the first time I've ever read that someone saw Morrison do that.

A - Where was that guy when they were looking for witnesses? The point I made in the book is that every witness who testified that Morrison exposed himself either was related to a policeman or worked in the prosecuting attorney's office and therefore I think were very suspect. It was clear to me that this was a frame-up.

Q - And it wasn't until much later that charges were brought against him.

A - Well, it was about five days later.

Q - Maybe you should get a hold of this guy Bill Cosford and talk to him.

A - Well, at this point I couldn't care less. I'm not going to rewrite my book.

Q - An updated version might come out as more information becomes available.

A - That's true, but rather than to continue to rewrite his early life, I'm really more concerned about the other facets that are in this new book, the Question and Answer interviews that I put together, the true story about his death and the consideration of Jim Morrison as a phenomenon. It's been twenty years since he's died and The Doors are selling more records now than they did when he was alive. Most of the people who call me or write me letters weren't even alive when Morrison was making his hits. I do not put Jim up there in the same league with Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, but a lot of people do. It's very clear from all the attention that's been paid, besides the record sales and all the books and Oliver Stone's movie, that the guy is a cultural icon that has to be recognized. One of the reasons I wrote the second book is what happened since he died as well as take another look at his life and how he died.

Q - In the official bio of The Doors from Elektra Records, it states: "Today it is still uncertain not only how Jim Morrison died, but if he really died. Page 189 of your book: "In L.A. one of the FM stations began playing a mystery tape that sounded like a near perfect copy of Jim's voice and someone, it's not sure who, paid a visit to the journalist who had known Jim, so upsetting the journalist that he still won't say it wasn't the man he once interviewed."

A - I just think it's one of those trivial, weird scenes inside the gold mine, as I call them.

Q - Do you happen to know who that journalist was?

A - I don't remember now.

Q - That was someone who obviously believes they were visited by Jim Morrison?

A - It appears to be, but it also could have been a hoax on the part of the journalist in the story.

Q - Jerry, if people surrounding Jim in Paris in 1971 withhold information, then why should we believe them today?

A - Why believe anything anybody says about anything? Most people tend to tell the truth. Memory is selective. We remember things the way we wish to remember them, but why I give so much credence to the information about his death that's in the second book is that it's new information. Yes it conflicts with the heart attack in the bath tub story, but there is agreement when Agnes Varda, Alain Ronay, and Danny Sugarman and Diane Gardner and all the rest are all telling what seems to be a piece of the same story and then the police depositions and other documents from Paris also fit the same scenario, it seems to be the truth to me. What they were all doing after the death was stonewalling and lying.

Q - Was there no one in Jim Morrison's life who he would have listened to and maybe his life would have turned around?

A - He was an addictive personality who pushed things to extremes. He believed in taking risks. "Woke up this morning, had myself a beer. The future's uncertain and the end is always near." He believed in breakin' on through to the other side, to keep quoting him. Yeah, he was an addictive personality who abused drugs and I include alcohol in there. Death is random when you talk about people who live that way. (Keith) Moon is dead. Elvis Presley is dead. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. It's a long list, but why isn't Keith Richards dead? Why isn't Eric Clapton dead?

Q - I've wondered that myself.

A - It's random. In a way there's no accounting for who gets it and who doesn't.

Q - Keith Richards and Eric Clapton just got lucky.

A - Yeah.

Q - Paul Rothchild, (The Doors' producer) didn't like the music being recorded on "L.A. Woman". When I asked Ray Manzarek about it, he told me I'd have to ask Paul about it. He didn't know why Paul didn't care for that album. I think it's some of the best music made by The Doors.

A - Well, I did too, but Paul didn't agree and Paul remains consistent today. I talked to him as recently as last year (1991). He didn't like the last album, so he had the guts to walk away from it. I mean, you know, The Doors were a big group. If you don't like some music and it's a big group guaranteed to make you more money, 'cause you know a producer gets a piece of every record sold, and you still walk away from it, I think it says a lot about your integrity even if your judgment may be questioned later on.

Q - Did he get into any specifics about why he walked away from that last album?

A - He said he thought it was cocktail music and it put him to sleep, but I guess he's referring to "Riders On The Storm".

Q - Which is a Doors classic.

A - Well, we don't all make the right call all the time.

Q - When you're walking through a mall and they're playing The Doors' music or you hear a Doors' song on the radio, what goes through your mind? Does it make you sad?

A - Well, I'm glad they're still playing the music. I don't get sad. I mean Jesus, I'm a professional writer. I've published twenty-six books and not all of them have been about Rock 'n' Roll. Jim Morrison is not my life. I'm sorry he's not still around contributing, but look at the body of work that was put down before he died. I'm just thrilled it's still getting exposure.

Q - I just thought that since you'd interviewed him and knew him, that it would hit home a little more than someone you never interviewed.

A - Look, my father's dead. Morrison wasn't a friend of mine. He was an acquaintance. I knew him pretty well. I don't get sad about my father's death. I mean, why? What's the point? Everybody is gonna die at some point.

Q - Absolutely. On page 381 of Harrison Edward Livingston's book, High Treason Two, which by the way was a New York Times best seller, he writes: Some sixteen famous, popular singers died within a short space of time, all of whom came out against the Vietnam War. These entertainers spoke to millions of young people and their opposition to official poling may have marked them for death." I assume one of the people he's talking about is Jim Morrison.

A - Alright. You want my reaction to that?

Q - Yes.

A - Horse shit. The C.I.A. had better things to do than kill Rock 'n' Roll singers. I'm not saying they were good things to do, but I sincerely doubt there was any conspiracy behind the death of a lot of Rock 'n' Roll singers who abused themselves as openly as people like Janis and Jimi and Jim.

Official Website: www.JerryHopkins.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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