Shaman's Blues: The Art and Influences Behind Jim Morrison and the Doors by Denise Sullivan

Press release for Denise Sullivan's new book about the inspiration and influences behind Jim Morrison and the Doors. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) December 07, 2013 - New York, NY - Sumach-Red Books, an imprint of Blooming Twig, is pleased to announce the spring 2014 publication of Shaman's Blues: The Art and Influences Behind Jim Morrison and the Doorsby Denise Sullivan. For her fifth book, the California-based music journalist and author of the acclaimed Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop, chose to delve into the artistic underground, cultural forces, West Coast landscape and secret influences that inspired Morrison and the Doors to create some of rock'n'roll's most dangerous yet enduring works.

From "Break on Through (To The Other Side)" to "Riders on the Storm," the Doors music is celebrated, highly historicized, and beloved by each new generation, yet behind the rock'n'roll myths and the monstrous creation of the band called Jimbo, there were four young men who from 1965-1971 went in search of something mightier, creating music that transcends time and place, living on for the ages. But while a history of discontent conspired to topple them, the Doors stayed grounded by roots in the arts that dated back millennia. In her inquiry into the search of how and why the Doors stayed devoted to their art while a history of discontent as she says, "conspired to topple them," author Sullivan connects them back to the roots that grounded them.

"The depth of Morrison's artistic and intellectual capacities as a visionary poet, performer and thinker have long been underestimated and overshadowed by his rock star reputation and the circumstances of his premature and mysterious death," explains Sullivan. "Musically, the Doors drew from wildly diverse sources, a deep well. Researching and reconciling their influences, I hope to offer fresh insights into the Doors' often-told tale."

Led by Morrison's thirst for discovery, Sullivan's inquiry explores the band through its dark themes and distinctly prophetic and Western perspective. Spirituality and drugs, along with political, environmental and social concerns all play roles in the story. But while Beat poetry, William Blake and Arthur Rimbaud swirled in Morrison's mind, and the band laid down tracks that followed jazz, classical, and Far East patterns, the Doors often landed at the center of the blues. Lured by its nighttime rhythm, its cinematic storytelling abilities and inescapable American history, the band resisted, but Jim's connections to its rhyme schemes and emotional depths won out in the end: The blues is at once the Doors known and secret influence - among others explored here - and Morrison was haunted by them. Simultaneously horrified and inspired by a past and future all too real to him, this fresh telling of the Doors' story makes new connections with the subconscious tidal wave that carried Morrison from Gulf Coast Florida to California gold.

"Denise Sullivan represents the insider intellectual stamina of rock 'n' roll journalism without the pomp and pretense. She is the past and future of the form, rolled into one uncanny style." - Pop Matters

Denise Sullivan is an American music journalist, historian, and author of music biographies as well as the critically acclaimed music-history book, Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music from Blues to Hip Hop. Kirkus Reviews calls it "A welcome exploration of how African American popular music became America's vernacular." Library Journal says, it's "Packed with informative details and commentary and those who are willing to give it the thoughtful reading it deserves will be rewarded."

Sumach-Red Books is an imprint of Blooming Twig, an award-winning indie book publisher based in New York, NY and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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