Over time, the lyrics of the song evolved, and they became longer. Its as real as it gets. "It was too much for me to bear.". Werbelow, TamaraJuly 21, 1971 - July 26, 2017Tamara Werbelow, 46, of Sarasota, FL, died on July 26, 2017. "Maybe you like it. And again Manzarek with that riff, that freakin early Doors organ riff. Its authentic and swinging, and then that damn keyboard bass of Ray Manzareks kicks in. Mary got her first real job, in the office of a hospital X-ray department. The more abusive you are, the more they love it.". December 30, 2016 Morrison wrote this piece for his girlfriend Pamela Courson, and it was about the street in Laurel Canyon, California, where they stayed. What was it like for her these past 50 years, one wonders? James "Jim" Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 - July 3, 1971) was an American singer, songwriter, writer, and poet. In contrast, this cut is unreservedly stellar. She doesn't think the early Doors albums are all about her but says the lyrics include references to her and Jim's shared experiences, including the "blue bus" in The End. Jim est devenu un peu fou au moment de l'enregistrement. 2: Iron and clean. Jim and Mary had a romantic relationship before the band formed in 1965. Lets move to the end of The End. "No, I'm not. Up here in the Santa Monica Mountains, location of my Topanga home, the only couple L.A. radio stations I can stand dont always get good reception. The epic tune starts with that damned bopping Vox Continental Organ riff, which as Ray Manzarek noted in his autobiography, was a modification of the Herbie Hancock piano riff from Hancocks Watermelon Man though frankly, I think Manzarek was actually more influenced by the funkier keyboards of Rodgers Grant on the 1963 radio hit version of Watermelon by Mongo Santamara. They skipped dances and football games and hung out, at her house, his grandparents' house, wherever. 4 Reply mojorisin87 6 yr. ago State witnesses saw what they saw. On July 3, 1971, Pamela Courson reported that she found him dead in the bathtub of their apartment in Paris. That earlier version that was much more about Morrisons catastrophic breakup with Mary Werbelow. Her friends did cotillion dances at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel, hit Brown Brothers dairy store for burgers and malts, and shopped Mertz's records for Ben E. King, Del Shannon and Elvis Presley. Our Mary was 17, wearing a black one-piece, cut all the way down the back, square in front _ a little daring for the time, especially for a buttoned-down Catholic girl. He didnt like it. The first Strange Days session had been back in May, but now - August -- is the group's first chance back in the studio since then. I do hope she and Jim are together now though, wherever they are. Cosgrave states in his book that neither he nor Mary Werbelow ever heard Jim Morrison sing a note. Its a credible, well-written inside look at the crucial months just prior to the formation of the Doors, and the enigmatic, proud and stubborn Mary Werbelow. Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. Since she was the same age as Jim Morrison, Mary Werbelow may have passed away by now. Please ignore rumors and hoaxes. The original lyrics make it wrenchingly clear how haunted Morrison was by the specter of his soulmate rejecting him while she becomes a featured dancer on the Sunset Strip at Gazzarris, being ogled and hit on by innumerable guys. 50 years later, its a bit much. It was on the Doors first album, along with The End, which also was to/about Mary. Everyone has a story about Jim's brainy side. The Doors' final concert with Morrison, in New Orleans. ", The third and final night of competition, more than 1,000 people packed Clearwater Municipal Auditorium. I loved that Ray Manzareks wife Dorothy was there as well. ." Mary is afraid to share. Yet, without the commission of her harsh act, the crucial early Morrison lyrics dont get written, much less sung and sold for lots of money and lasting fame. Mary says Jim asked her to wear "something floaty" when she arrived in Los Angeles. Regardless, that riff is the perfect way to start an automobile journey. The bottom four sections are from FSU, where he got A's in Collective Behavior and Essentials of Acting, and a B in Philosophy of Protest. The days are bright, and filled with pain he sings, working to let her go but still gutted, reminding her that the time you ran was too insane and making us wonder what the hell it was that happened that provoked the running. The scream of a young man whose father, Admiral Morrison, helped start the illegal, immoral Vietnam War with a bogus action in the Gulf of Tonkin. Butter didnt like the way The Doors handled the blues. The whole dramatic section about What have we done to the Earth and We want the world and we want it now was a later revision. Hillsborough forms had errors, Evacuation alerts could be better _ and louder. " The Crystal Ship " is a song by American rock band the Doors, from their 1967 debut album The Doors, and the B-side of the number-one hit single "Light My Fire". Ce soir-l, le groupe s'attaque The End, une chanson que Jim a crit pour sa copine de lyce Mary Werbelow. If you see your name among the Clearwater High School graduates, someone is looking for you! Think about that for a minute. He talks as much as he sings. Three years after Morrison's death, Courson also died of overdose heroin at the age of 27. Mind-fryingly great, and Doors, I salute you. She's worried that others will seek interviews that she does not want to give. He was unmarried but had a common law wife named Pamela Courson, and in his will, he left everything to her. And yet, Morrison continues in a musical bridge that appears only once in this 11 minute long song. She says she's not sure why she's talking now. Everybody, everybody, remembers the notebooks. She considered writing about the references but decided against it. Trouble is, you were laying on the couch, or the carpet, for the past 25 minutes. "To this day, I don't know if it was right," says Kallivokas, who says he got an A+. They don't even mention Kennealy by name." Mary Werbelow, Jim Morrison and the Doors. She can't see what good could come of it; some things are just meant to be kept private. Maybe. The key fact: Mary Werbelow didnt believe in Jim Morrison, despite their being each others first lovers. The lyrics at the start and ending are heartbreaking. ", Before a photo shoot for the Doors' fourth album, she says Jim told her: "The first three albums are about you. There were no computer edits then, so the tape was chopped! No doubt about it, she was a knockout. Morrison was sick to death of singing it. With it tinkling sweetly, we go bar-hopping with band, into a land that precedes Lucy in the Sky and is much, much darker, a morphing cross of psychedelia and alcoholism, that cheesy Vox Continental rock organ mixed with the mad son of a hammer dulcimer. The days are bright, and filled with pain Morrison sings in The Crystal Ship. 1 on the Billboard charts. He told our Mary he was a regular pro at the game of matchsticks, a mental puzzle in which the matches are laid out in rows, like a pyramid. Some older kids invited me to play poker, and one had some friend down there who had given him a dub tape of the bands first album. By phone she is told that back in Clearwater, they're tearing down the house on N Osceola Avenue, the place Jim lived in when they met, to make way for condos. He enrolls at St. Petersburg Junior College. What are you gonna do about it? Ever. Classical, jazz and news usually the first two are fuzzy, and the current events on the news station KNX usually send me into a frothing rage or a state of stupefied boredom. She discovers Jim sleeping with a woman who claims they were married in a Pagan witch ceremony. Jim liked his alone time, in his bedroom, reading. The End. Were you prepared to hear it in ten minutes? Quite the opposite, she says. It developed into an 11-minute epic. "I looked at you, you looked at me." Hmmrocking track though. "His only purpose in life was observation.". I'm in love with you.". ), I'll never look into your eyes . Doors drummer John Densmore responded with a letter of his own: "Jim wrote The Crystal Ship for Mary Worbelo (sic), a girlfriend with whom he was breaking up. According to our records, Mary Werbelow is possibly single. Its about taking acid! This is the ennnnd.. He and I met by telephone in 1996, when I was serving as pop music critic for the St. Petersburg. Besides, journalists always get it wrong. This is a scream to end all screams. The revised version of The Butts Band issues 'Hear And Now' (1975) before breaking up. The Doors perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. He was the lead singer and predominant lyricist of the Doors, and is considered to be one of the most charismatic frontmen in the history of rock music.He has been referenced throughout pop culture in film, literature, television, theater, poetry, and even comic books. Although California state didn't recognize common-law marriage, Courson's plaque was written as Pamela Susan Morrison in the mausoleum at Fairhaven Memorial Park after her tragic death. This week, we're thrilled to hear from Bill Cosgrave, author of Love Her Madly, a lyrical and moving account of the days before legendary rock band The Doors became a worldwide phenomenonthe days before the shy, quiet Jim Morrison, who hadn't ever been heard to hum a tune, became a . I'm surprised he held out that long. Months later, Jim Morrison was dead. The Doors release their first album. For much of that period, Morrison wanted to get back with Mary Werbelow, only to be continuously rejected. Naturally, he had written all of two sentences. On her beach towel, Mary turned to her friend and uttered the first sexual comment of her life: Jim tagged along when his friend came over to flirt with Mary Wilkin. It was the best money Ive ever lost. This was a crucial time for the band, as Morrison had suddenly developed his singing chops to a startling degree, literally a quantum leap in his vocal prowess. The 1st pic shows the closest doors on the right, the 2nd shows Roy giving me one of the cabinet doors that was above the closet." Come on. Later shed be singing the song, but 6-7 months later. As opposed to the first track, listeners fifty years ago had no clue what this song meant. I dont doubt it would have hit, but then the band would have been where they wound up with Touch Me except earlier. Maniacal? Together again, in an exciting, intimidating city, they kept separate apartments. Actually, I was already aware of the L.A. band, The Doors, the previous year. He lives in Kelowna, British Columbia. Toss the dude out of your home and two years later he goes iconic, and four years after he becomes a superstar, he then dies and becomes legendary. He wrote poetry. "And that came to the forefront when he had a couple drinks.". If you are a Doors/Morrison fan, its a must-read. More Gonzo Today Doors articles by Kyle K. Mann: The Doors- 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition review, Almost-Rape, American Tourists, and Pope Garbs, Grammys 2023 Brings Out the Best in Journalism, So, about Sierra Drummonds new song Signs, Chapter 1 from The Community Garden more than tomatoes are dying, Remembering Ryan Leone: Author, Filmmaker, and My Friend, Dont Run Again, Joe Greetings from Scranton, Gonzo News Update Sunday, June 26, 2020, Disney Owns the Sex Pistols and Trivializes Punk, Celebrating a Half Century of the Music of Frank Zappa, Album Review: The Damn Truths Devilish Folk, The Doors First Album and Mary Werbelow: 50 Years on, CIA Whistleblower John C. Kiriakou: the Gonzo Today Interview, Copyright 2023 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes. Jim Morrison was her first love, before he got famous with the Doors. I miss my baby. Its Morrison being dealt epic humiliation. He said Jim answered: "You've got to make them believe you're doing them a favor by being onstage. Mary calls Clintonville, WI, home. What an illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences. If anything, there is more echo on Densmores drums than any other track, but man does it work, from the opening snare whack on the four beat, and on. Two UCLA film students put their talents together in 1965 _ Ray Manzarek and his keyboards, Jim Morrison and his poetry _ and started the band that became the Doors. But more than any Door, a presence looms over this cut. . "That's where the songs came from, out of those notebooks," said Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek. A Foreword by Michael C Ford . Jim brought her to a party. Naval Academy, is called to duty aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. The improvised sections, especially the Oedipal story, have been analyzed thoroughly. "July 2, 1971. Good coda, well done. A recording musician since the 70s and radio broadcaster in multiple fields in the '80s and '90s, Kyle sometimes supports himself part time as a Union film crew member in Hollywood. She still aches for love lost; her regret never relents. (There's a few moments where Polyphonic and Morrison are vocalizing at the same timewe recommend turning on captions). Mary has kept quiet, until now. 16 Magazine's Gloria Stavers. Silence. Pictorials. They don't really have a clue," says Mary Werbelow. And Phil Anderson, George Greer, Ruth Duncan, Gail Swift and Mary. "It was not happening. "Today I went to visit the building w/ the infamous garage apartment where Jim Morrison hid in the closet w/ Clearwater girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. If she won, it was on to Miss Florida. Mary's father banned Jim from the Werbelow house. "So that crowd control works," Kallivokas teased, talking about theories that intrigued Jim in Collective Behavior class at FSU. When Jim and Mary's . Mary performed matadorlike body twirls. Neurotic? Morrison originally composed the song about his girlfriend Mary Werbelow, who followed Morrison across the country from Florida to reside on the . Mary followed him out to California in 1964. A million light-years from the teeny bopper music ruling the airwaves. Furious at her father's snooping, she burned all Jim's letters, a move she came to regret, deeply. This was not puppy love, Mary says, like the earlier boyfriend who played guitar, wrote songs and serenaded her by phone. Its an intimate, funny and ultimately heartbreaking book. This was different. Jim Morrisons first girlfriend. He would eventually ask if she had changed her mind. While in Florida, Morrison began a love affair with a woman named Mary Werbelow. The Doors released L.A. Woman in April 1971, with hit songs Love Her Madly and Riders on the Storm. They live there for three years. Mary Werbelow, -His True Love. About Mary Werbelow is a member of the following list: Jim Morrison. She had heard Doors songs on the radio, but she didn't go to his concerts, she didn't keep up with his career. When the Musics Over was written and evolved, I believe, just before the Doors started playing at London Fog on the Sunset Strip in May, 1966. Now we get three short cuts, starting with this wonderful throwaway. But what the hell. Shes still alive, last I heard. Playing-wise, Krieger and Densmore command this epic work. She has trouble sleeping. As sung on the breakthrough first Doors album in the summer of 1966, it is his counter-rejection to what was a long, slow break up with Mary Werbelow, who shared, along with his father Admiral Morrison, a distaste for the Doors. Before starting film school in Los Angeles, Jim Morrison spent 2{ years in college in Florida. Scary looking little thing. Whatever he liked, she liked. A few minutes ago, I finally saw pictures of one. Broken hearts are for assholes Frank Zappa sang, but the other side of that is the bewildered hideousness of being rejected by a true love. 0. So Rothschild cuts out the long organ and guitar solos and bingo! Deadline reports . One links to a promotional film for Florida State University that features a 20-year-old Jim Morrison, in coat and tie, playing the role of a student whose college application was denied; he questions a college official about why. He says Mary wanted Jim to go back to school, get a master's degree and make something of himself. "He didn't sit around and sing," Mary says, laughing. "There was no one who wasn't under observation," Gates says. The End was not among the first songs rehearsed by the band in its early days, but I believe the words were in a note book. Red carpet photos. His articles and interviews first appeared in Gonzo Today in early 2015, and some of them are fairly good. The large diverse crowd loved it all. This was intense. Fast cut, sexy, about making love and prolonging it, Dont move too fast stuff, modal organ solo. The pair quickly became a couple, with Morrison describing her as his "cosmic partner.". She did the bossa nova. "You're going to leave me," he would tell her. May 1944. They would rag Jim that the books crowding his living space were for show. Soul Kitchen starts with one of Manzareks crazy-making riffs, Densmores crashing, spooky rock drums (tuned to within an inch of their lives by Producer Rothschild) and a loopy, freaky guitar solo. Few bands divide critical opinion like the Doors. She says his heroes were William Burroughs, William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, Norman Mailer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Arthur Rimbaud, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac. In the studio, the band is smoking a lot of pot. This is Greek tragedy material, with the cruel Gods above laughing. I put the needle onto the lead-in groove, Side One, Cut One: Break on Through. Shes turning her back on James Douglas Morrison, who not much later conquered the world, an Icon forever. I let him go and never gave him that second chance. But I know right now, and I listen. Doors concert at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium. The End is written about her. Especially if I was high. So while those rascals were cleaning out my wallet, I was getting turned on to some seriously different sounds. Oct 19, 2020 - Explore blue yster dvp's board "Mary Werbelow" on Pinterest. But when the Jaycees called to recruit her for the Miss Clearwater competition, Mary's mother answered the phone. Mary Werbelow. General CommentIt's about Mary Werbelow. Morrison reportedly told Werbelow that the Doors' first three albums were about. Music is your only friend The song there halts completely for about 4 seconds. I can listen now thanks to Densmore and Krieger, but this might be the weakest cut on the record. Mary joins him in Los Angeles. When Jim drove, Mary kept a notebook at the ready. It was because of the rejection of Jim Morrison by the brilliantly smart, fabulously beautiful and uncommonly charismatic Mary Werbelow, that he sat writing lyrics on the beach in Venice and Santa Monica in the summer of 1965. Kyle K. Mann She never saw Jim again. . Album: 1999. Its a new year, and there is some amazing music floating around, like nothing we had ever heard before. Ship of Fools brings you back to the blues. An artist herself, she didn't want to spoil people's various interpretations. Paul: I thought it was a miracle that anyone got her to tell her story. Its still a good listen, if you accept it for what it is. His articles and interviews first appeared in Gonzo Today in early 2015, and some of them are fairly good. The birth of the signature intro is in the movie. Read more Product details Publisher : Dundurn Press (November 3, 2020) Language : English Paperback : 224 pages ISBN-10 : 1459746600 _ excited, like it was breaking news, not William Blake. March 1, 1969. Kyle K. Mann is the pen name of a contributor to, and publisher of, Gonzo Today. Different indeed! The book covers Morrison's early relationship with the mysterious Mary Werbelow, his night-stalking forays into the dark corners of Venice, CA, his trips through Big Sur and down through Mexico, and covers the philosophical and literary influences that later surfaced in his music. From drug abuse to repeated infidelities to explosive arguments, their relationship was the definition of tumultuous and sometimes even escalated into violence. He'd bait and goad, get a rise, take notes. Jim Morrison was her first love, before he got famous with the Doors. Bryan Gates hadn't seen Jim in ages. He lives high atop Topanga, California, where owls hoot and coyotes howl. Hour after hour, day after day as those early Doors fought their way, after a hiccup with Columbia Records, to a deal with Jac Holtzman at Elektra and the crucial production of Paul Rothschild. (I believe that how it was anyway. Prologue. Ill spare you, and me. As the times were changing and drugs and alchohol began to creep into everybodies life, Mary and Jim's relationship became more and more rocky. Shortly after, Mary says, he told her he was humiliated, considered his formal education over and needed to forget everything. Its direct and final. She needed more time to explore her own identity. Morrison doesnt kick in with vocals until nearly a half minute of this power trios music, underpinned by an actual bassist, Larry Knechtel, who lays down an unspectacular if thoroughly solid funky bass pattern over Manzareks Rhodes Piano Bass. Gates asked. Trust me, it can not get any more spaced out than this crazed music by the three Doors. They nurtured him, listened to him, celebrated him and backed him up. The Werbelow family name was found in the USA between 1880 and 1920. Facts About "1999" "1999" was the lead single from Prince's 1982 album of the same name "1999" placed 339th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; Following Prince's 2016 death, the song hit the Billboard Hot 100 again, eventually rising to number 27 Cymbals crash fade. This song was too hip then, and almost still is now. Jim Morrison is one of the most famous rock singers in the world. She lives in California, alone, in an aging mobile home park. And its a strange new world, with an island in your arms, country in your eyes but watch out for the arms that chain, eyes that lie because there are those, you see, that dont get it. What ever happened to her? Now many years later, Morrison has raised his head again last month when I heard that Canadian Bill Cosgrave - who is a brother of another friend here in British Columbia - had written a book about his friendship with Jim Morrison and his then partner, Mary Werbelow. Slave order No. A brave new normal, or: typing with a broken hand, Grammys 2023 Brings Out the Best in Journalism, So, about Sierra Drummonds new song Signs, Chapter 1 from The Community Garden more than tomatoes are dying, Remembering Ryan Leone: Author, Filmmaker, and My Friend, Dont Run Again, Joe Greetings from Scranton, Gonzo News Update Sunday, June 26, 2020, Disney Owns the Sex Pistols and Trivializes Punk, Celebrating a Half Century of the Music of Frank Zappa, Album Review: The Damn Truths Devilish Folk, The Doors First Album and Mary Werbelow: 50 Years on, CIA Whistleblower John C. Kiriakou: the Gonzo Today Interview, Copyright 2023 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes. But the relationship of Pamela Courson and Jim Morrison was far from a fairytale. How can you say that? Maybe not. "They take a part of him and sensationalize that. Mary didn't have heroes like that. On July 3, 1971, Courson found him in the bathtub. "You'll have to be my slave for the day.". Then, Densmores first two snare hits exactly in synch with the bass notes man, thats punchy. Oh, to travel back in time and be a fly on the wall as When the Musics Over came to life. Finally Ill keep listening as Morrison sings the first verses. It hurts me to say that. What are you gonna do! Great tune, one of the few cover tunes the Doors would record, written by the legendary Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill back in the 1920s. Hot! It was worse when he drank. Jim Morrison announces his drunken presence with dissonant blasts from a harmonica. Good clean mix, as always with Paul Rothschild and Bruce Botnick. There was no autopsy. See, The Song That Everybody Knows originally was over seven minutes long. She was just finishing her junior year at Clearwater High, where all the boys had flattops; she was not going to be seen with such a hairy mess. If she had appeared and said a few words, it would have stopped the show. Mar 29, 2021 - For dedicated Doors fans, three years of Jim Morrison's life has remained a mystery: his relationship with Mary Werbelow, whom he meet on Clearwater Beach. 1 Light My Fire. Its Mary Werbelows tune. Kallivokas remembers the night his Clearwater High buddies and a new kid came by Alexander's Sundries, his father's drugstore on Clearwater Beach. It was not until six days later that the Doors' manager announced Morrison's death to the world. He went from zero to sixty as a singer in a single year. Jim had just finished the year at St. Petersburg Junior College. Mary vehemently denies it, but Manzarek says she told Jim, "The band is no good and you'll never make it." July 3, 1971. They don't really have a clue.". In the spring of 1965, Bill Cosgrave was smuggled across the border into the United States after receiving an irresistible invitation from his captivating friend Mary Werbelow. They derived the name of the group from the poetry of William Blake ("If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite.") It stands up after 50 years of overplaying all right, the long version! Always that tension hearing it on the radio, waiting to see if its cut. You could always tell. Chris Kallivokas, Bryan Gates and Tom Duncan. "I was so scared," she says, laughing. The girlfriend in question was Mary Werbelow . The group's music gets lumped with other psychedelic rock of the '60s, but it defies simple description, influenced by flamenco, Indian, blues and classical music. The courtroom in Miami was packed. The two young men quickly bonded. He recited long poems from memory. Jim studied film. And the Strange Days re-release is next. For indecent exposure, Morrison sentenced to six months "confinement at hard labor" in the Dade County Jail. By July, Light My Fire hits No. Id taken my first acid trip a few months earlier, and another in December. He was also in a relationship with Mary Werbelow as a teenager, who said in a 2005 interview that Jim had confessed that his first three albums were about her. From Bill's clandestine crossing of the Canadian-American border to homelessness on a Los Angeles beach and the formation of The Doors, we are in for a wild ride in the literary equivalent of a 1965 VW love and peace bus. His room was in back, books stacked everywhere save for the path to his bed. "The chicks we get, the money. He mourns their breakup in the Doors' ballad The End. 6 pictures of Mary Werbelow. They were nearly inseperable for 3-4 years and their breakup was so hurtful to Jim it prompted him writing "Crystal ship" and "the end". He just finished a year at SPJC and will head to Florida State in the fall. I love it for those reasons. More about Mary Werbelow edit Dating History Grid # 1 Jim Morrison 19 2 1962 - 1965 I will do this repeatedly. Its a story, a cascade, with Densmore making comments and interacting. Mary Werbelow was born in 1945 and is 78 years old now. I really hurt him.". November 2, 2020 Mary Werbelow is polite but firm: She doesn't do interviews. And all because of Paul Rothschilds edit. The song was a goodbye love song.". Its title would be Strange Days. The other members were jazz drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. For nearly 40 years, all manner of people have tracked Mary down and asked for her story, including Oliver Stone, when he was making his movie starring Val Kilmer as Jim. What are you gonna do! The scream is of rejection from his ex-girlfriend Mary Werbelow, of alienation, of rage at what has happened in two short years. With the country debating indecency run amok, Jim Morrison was Exhibit A. Mary Werbelow (Jim's college girlfriend) is described in your book as being a somewhat strange person. Others said it was hype, Morrison only simulated what he was accused of. I had read about this instrument, which producer Rothschild brought into the studio for the quasi-merry tune, in the various Doors books. He must really like me, Mary thought. I find it reassures me, somehow. Manzareks inner oompah takes over, not only on that tuba-like bass keyboard of his but on a truly bizarre instrument called a marxophone, the name of which sounds like something Harpo would play. The first Doors demo tape, recorded before Krieger joined, and recorded while the band included Manzareks two brothers, was still called Rick and the Ravens. Either way, when he died, his net worth was a relatively modest $400,000. Sitting through other contestants' routines, Mary scanned the darkened hall until she spotted Jim, bored senseless. The cover boy, 26 now, has a paunch and beard, a cowboy hat with a skull and crossbones and noticeably slurred speech. . Morrison sings the words he wrote for her, she who rejected him, who mocked him, his efforts, his dreams of their life together.