On This Day In History - December 12, 1970 - Jim Morrison Plays Final Show With the Doors (At The W

UltimateClassicRock.Com - Jim Morrison was already in a headlong downward spiral by the time he performed his final show with the Doors. Mired in a losing battle with alcohol, the troubled singer had multiple legal woes hanging over his head when he took the stage at the Warehouse in New Orleans on Dec. 12, 1970. The disastrous performance would bring the group to a screeching halt and prove sadly prophetic for the doomed singer, who had only months to live.

The once-svelte Morrison had carved out a unique niche with his hyper-sexualized stage persona and leather pants, but by 1970 his severe drinking problem had turned him into a sad caricature of his former self — an overweight, bloated alcoholic with a scruffy-looking beard, whose performances sometimes degenerated into wrenching self-parody.

Morrison’s burgeoning problems with alcohol also made him wildly unpredictable as a performer; he was arrested onstage at a gig in New Haven in December 1967, and charged with exposing himself at a concert in Miami on March 1, 1969, causing many venues to ban the Doors outright. The group retreated to the studio to record what would become ‘L.A. Woman,’ and at the New Orleans gig — one of only two scheduled — they debuted several of those new songs, as well as performing their existing hits. Read the full article at UltimateClassicRock.Com