The Doors

I grew up listening to my father's music which was mostly jazz and music from the Big Band Era. I can still sing along with or hum the tunes to a ton of the old standards. My love for the music of the '30s and '40s, led to my singing (if only for a short time) in a jazz trio. So when the Beatles arrived on the scene, I didn't get it. I didn't understand all the hoop-la about rock 'n' roll.

Then came the summer of 1967. The Summer of Looooooove.There was a tremendous amount of stuff happening musically; the Beatles came out with Sgt. Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour and there were hits by, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Small Faces, Cream, Procol Harum, the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground, the Who and Jimi Hendrix, just to name a few.

But I still didn't get...

...until the Doors snuck into my room, invading my eardrums with "Light My Fire." They just sounded so different from other bands, no base...it was electric keyboard, guitar, drums and jeese, that guy Jim Morrison singing. I liked their songs. Their lyrics were so... so different and Morrison was so...you know...hot. They didn't have the aura of being light and fun-loving like the Beatles nor did they have the bad-boy image of the Rolling Stones. They were something other, they were moody, dark and mysterious. They appealed to my dark, moody, mysterious teen-aged self.

I loved and had no idea what "Horse Latitudes" meant. I still love it and still don't know what the heck, if anything, it means.

When the still sea conspires an armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead
Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

(Don't ask me why but I laugh every time I hear/read the line, "In mute nostril agony.")

Was there a first group, a first kind of music, that inspired, or moved you along your path in life? I give FULL credit to the Doors for leading me into the mansion called Rock 'n' Roll, but it was the Beatles who eventually won first place in my heart, and in whose room within the mansion, I spent/spend the most time.