In July of 1971, while the youth of America in general and the rock world in particular were still reeling from the dual deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix just months earlier, the third domino fell.
Jim Morrison, the electrifying lead singer of the rock band 'The Doors', snorted some heroin, climbed into a bathtub, and died there of an overdose of the drug. He was just 27 years old. Is that age of death getting to sound like a broken record?
Morrison was born in Florida in 1943 to a U.S. Navy officer and his wife. His father, George Morrison, fought in the Pacific theatre of World War II, was intimately involved in the 'Gulf of Tonkin' incident during the Vietnam War, and became the youngest Admiral in the history of the Navy. He is still alive today, about to turn 90 years old this coming January, nearly four decades after his son's death.
As a small child, the Morrison family moved to New Mexico, and he became fascinated by many of the customs and the culture of the Native Americans in the area. At only four years of age, young Jim was out in the desert for a drive with his family when they witnessed the aftermath of a horrific auto accident that resulted in death and injuries to members of a Native American family.
He would later go on to say that it was the pivotal incident in his life, one that he would repeatedly make reference to and draw upon images of in his songs. The move to New Mexico was just one of a number of family moves in his childhood that included California, Virginia, and Florida stops due to his father's military duties.
