Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison
Sixties rock kingpin Jim Morrison personified the period's allegiance to sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. Butler reexamines his life, emphasizing his "cosmic mate" and common-law wife, Pamela Courson. More or less ignored by previous Morrison biographers, Pam and Jim's relationship was relatively private and long term for a rock couple then and maybe for any couple anymore. A few years after Morrison's 1971 death, Courson died of an apparent heroin overdose. In the finest rock tradition, the circumstances of her death were questionable and were not much investigated: "At that time, in that place, if it looked to us like someone had died of a drug overdose, frankly we thought they deserved it and didn't waste our time on it," said one police officer who asked to remain anonymous. Perhaps this well-referenced, moving book will spark yet another renewal of interest in Morrison. After all, as a 1980sRolling Stoneheadline put it, "He's hot, he's sexy, he's dead." More of his strange story only makes him more so.Mike Tribby