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On one of his walks through the narrow streets of St-Germain des-Près one day he discovered a recording studio, and went there again on June 16th to listen to a reel-to-reel tape of the poetry he had recorded in March 1969 in Los Angeles. On stepping out of the studio in search of liquid refreshment, he stumbled upon two young American street musicians who were playing guitar in front of the Café de Flore. He decided on the spot to buy them a drink. Later in the afternoon he invited them to a spontaneous recording session in the studio he had just come from. Everybody was already drunk. Jim told the engineer it was his own band called Jomo And The Smoothies and paid for an hour of recording. |
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"I get twenty-five percent of everything that happens, right?" he told the musicians. The others tuned their guitars. This took a fairly long time while the tape was running, and it sounded horrible. Jim grinned "They're tolerating us until we get our asses in gear." he said. |
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But the three musicians failed to make decent recordings of songs they knew, although one guitarist suggested songs like 'Little Miss Five Feet Five', 'Three Little Fishes' and 'I Wanna Dance With My Indigo Sugar'. Even when it came to his own material, Jim couldn't quite remember all the lyrics of his ode to Pamela, 'Orange County Suite', screaming and yelling the hazy parts. The session ended after only 14 minutes and the engineer cut the tape. Jim and the two others listened to the tape again, but decided not to record more. Jim scribbled "JOMO AND THE SMOOTHIES" onto the box and put it into a plastic bag in which he also put the poetry tape and a few other belongings. |
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Then they left the studio and split. Jim wanted to go for some more drinks but wasn't into carrying the bag around. After all, the poetry tape was the master copy from Elektra Records' archives, and together with the master of the recording he and the musicians had just made as Jomo and The Smoothies, the risk of losing the plastic bag somewhere in a Parisian bar during the night would have been too great. So he decided to pay a visit to Philippe, a friend of his who used to live just round the corner. |
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They shared a few drinks while copying some poetry tapes on cassette. When Jim left, he took the dubbed cassettes, but not the plastic bag with the two reels. Philippe ran after him shouting, "Jim, you forgot your bag!" but Jim was a ready going down in the elevator yelling back, "Keep it for me, I'll pick it up later!". |
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Philippe never saw Jim
Morrison again. Of course he was curious and looked into the bag. Jim
was carrying not only the two reels with him that night, but also a
note book full of poetry, a bunch of private photos (including a
polaroid showing Jim standing at the window of his Rue Beautreillis
apartment looking out in the street) and official Elektra press
pictures, also two newspaper articles. One was an interview with film
director Je1an-Luc Godard called "Film And Revolution", the
other was an article torn out from Patricia Kennealy's Jazz And Pop
magazine named Morrison Hotel Revisited. Philippe put the plastic bag
into a cupboard and forgot about it until he attended a celebration
concert for Jim Morrison's 50th birthday in Paris in 1993. He thought
it would be too selfish to keep the tapes and decided to give
DAT-copies to fans. Months later, in 1994, a bootleg CD came out in
Canada called Jim Morrison - The Lost Paris Tapes, containing
complete recordings of the two master reels... |
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The original tapes, however, were sold for $10,000 to a German fan in 1995. |
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LAST RECORDING SESSION: |
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Yeah! Nod your head if you... you know... Alright. Alright, now I... I get twenty-five percent of everything that happens, right? Fantastic... Got your action covered, Jim. 'Cos I brought them in here, alright? Fantastic. Now these cats are outta sight... Right? Sort of fun, sort of... Fucked... Do we have more than one minute? Oh yeah, we have as long as we want, man. Alright, what do you guys wanna sing? I wanna sing uh... You guys think of a song, man, that was like a... I wanna.... Uh, let him start, you know, he's a... I wanna play "Come On Baby, I Want To Dance With My Indigo Sugar", do you know that?
No wait, let's... I'll put the... I'll put the mike in
here, we can... we can all sing. We can all sing. |
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Do you know "I Want To Dance With My Indigo Sugar"? No, I don't know that song, I'm sorry. ...Get some tuning. What the hell's he's doing? The universe is in tune. It's probably an ordered universe. Oh, he's a poet, you know. Poet. He don't know it. He's a Longfeller! It's probably an ordered universe seen ninety-three billion million miles from here to walk Taurus... Do you know that one? You guys gotta get in tune, then I can get in tune with you. I can't tune this one, so maybe it'd be better if you worked on that one. Yeah, he doesn't... he's not an instrumentalist, really. I'm more of a... A suburban... in... Industrialist. Give him... No, give him your tune. You think we're doing the right thing? |
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He... No, he's... He's got one, one of those chords on him... Beautiful cigar, man. I see why Fidel is just always... Yeah, you have to bite the ends off! ...Outta sight... uhhh... You don't have to bite the end off that! You gonna be a suburban... sub... Suburban industrialist, you have to! I think they're pressing us... Hello Mother! Uh no, they're tolerating us until we get our asses in gear, right? They've got nothing better to do, have they?... You think so? Should I act straighter? No, give them a little... Give them a little... Give them a little soul? Let them know you're where they're at. |
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Artistry. No, no, just a little... Assholetry... Well I used to know her... But she was ten feet tall... And she had blue eyes... I don't, get... Hey, let's get in tune, come on. I don't know. Hey, forget it, it doesn't matter, he's... He'll never get in tune, man, he's not a musician... I'm a singer... He's... Hey, I think he's got one extra string on it. He must be a poet. Hey, come on, give me it... Well, we'll get it half-way there anyway. I'm tryin' harder... Wait, I'll try real hard this time... How's that? That's beautiful, man... You are really outta sight, you, you know... I would, I would suspect... They're looking bored in there. Uh, yeah... It's... Uhhh... And I, I don't... I don't blame them. O.k.? Alright? Hey listen, I... Ummm, hey, would you give us a... An audition? You know, just pretend like we're just some nutty group, came in, and somehow... They carted me into an audition... Uhhh... Would you nod yes if you...? One of those guys passed out. Uhhh I think... That's... When he nodded his head, man, he fell backwards. No... He said yes, O.k. O.k. Starting now! A one, a two, a three... I like it... Not bad... Hey you, you cats really go good together, you really do... Who's he? Hey, remember this goes on for about a half an hour, so you better just... Forty-five minutes. O.K., now you name the song and we'll play it. Anything... Anything... How about uhhh... "Mr Five Feet Five"? Do you know that one? I was... I was hoping you'd ask that Want a puff?... "Little Miss Five Feet Five"... Oh, no, wait a minute, wait, what do you want to play? Anything, anything at all, just play. How about "Three Little Fishes, They Swam To The Sea"? No, no, I... Let's... No... Do... No, do a real song, man... How 'bout this one?... Ready? Now listen, I got a favourite ... I wrote this myself... Ssssh... Come on... Well I used to know someone fair... uh... she had orange ribbons in her hair. She was such a trip, she was hardly there, but I love her, just the same. |
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Well, I got t'know someone fair... She had... Orange... Ribbons in her hair! She was something fair... T.V. maniac - he wouldn't care... I would care... I'd care... Such a hard road long to seek it... Such a one good thing to freak it... Ssuch a one now would not care... Wish I was the one that's there... Yeah, come on... You got to! waaa!... Yeah!... Kill them!!!... |
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Uh - uh... I didn't mean 'kill 'em', I just meant... You gettin' that there? Yeah... Oh she used to have some fair so hair, just as if there was no-one out there... disappears... Yes, her friend had a baby, she could not resist... Yes, there was no-one who could... Break through a window, yeah, knocked on her door... Friend wouldn't answer, but... She's still home... Well, her father has passed over, and her sister is a star, and her mother smokes diamonds, and sleeps out in the car... Yeah, but she remembers Chicago, the musicians and guitars, grass by the lake, and people who laugh'd, make her poor heart ache... Now we live out on the valley, we work down on the farm, we climb up to the mountains, and... Everything's fine... You're still mine... I'm still yours... You're still mine... Daaa-daaa-daaa, Daaa-daaa-daaa... Hey, you wanna hear that? Yeah. Just for the hell of it, you know. He's kind of ridiculous. Really ridiculous, man, I think it's ridiculous. He didn't tape that. Mmmm. Sure they did. Oh, they couldn't have taped that, man. We ordered them to. Fuck. I'd like to hear it... Just to hear how fucked we were... |
THE END