The Doors Forum

Michael,

During your time with the band, as Love was the first racially diverse rock band of that era, did you ever experience or witness firsthand the ugliness of racism because the band was an integrated group?

Never once, during my years with the group, did I ever witness or experience any vestige of racism directed against any of the members of Love. I suppose there could have been a kind of "second hand" racism... in that, there were parts of the country where no agent in his right mind would have booked us, (like maybe a small town in the deep South), but we wouldn't have been booked into a small market anyway. All our gigs were in large cities, where, for the most part, (even back in the post-JFK mid-sixties), people had sophisticated concepts of racial equality (and where Elektra had good distribution.) I never met anyone who felt our racial diversity was anything other than just another component of our uniqueness.

MichaelStuart-Ware wrote:Never once, during my years with the group, did I ever witness or experience any vestige of racism directed against any of the members of Love. I suppose there could have been a kind of "second hand" racism... in that, there were parts of the country where no agent in his right mind would have booked us, (like maybe a small town in the deep South), but we wouldn't have been booked into a small market anyway. All our gigs were in large cities, where, for the most part, (even back in the post-JFK mid-sixties), people had sophisticated concepts of racial equality (and where Elektra had good distribution.) I never met anyone who felt our racial diversity was anything other than just another component of our uniqueness.

For the Miami Pops gig in '68 that never happened:
Did you all travel south for it via auto?
If so, there weren't any "Easy Rider" type scenarios for the band when you all stopped at whatever places in the South?

We never traveled very far by car. I think the furtherist we ever traveled by car was by limo from New York City, just up the road a piece to a little college in the Kaatskills and we didn't make it. On time anyway. I mean, everybody (the prospective audience) was gone when we got there.

We flew from New York to Miami.

Johnny and Bryan and Kenny and I got there in the middle of the night, and as the plane did kind of a wingover, to position for landing, we looked out the window, and there was a full moon, big and bright and yellow. So, Kenny and I were seated next to each other and he elbows me and says, "Hey look... 'Moon over Miami'." That's a Betty Grable/Don Ameche movie from back in the forties. A musical, actually.

Johnny mentioned that Elvis Presley was in the same plane to Miami. Do you recall anything about that, Michael?

I think Elvis was on the plane when the group landed in Dallas,Texas in '66.

On the subject of flying, how did the band handle it? Was it something that a specific member had a fear of flying or was it just routine business for all?

MichaelStuart-Ware wrote:I think Elvis was on the plane when the group landed in Dallas,Texas in '66.

That's right Michael! Late December 1966.

Nobody was afraid of flying. Just routine business. Except for getting to the airport on time. There was something about the, "start early so you don't be late," concept that rubbed us the wrong way, which usually resulted is us having to run that last little bit. Some anxiety there, I guess, but no real fear, because in the backs of our minds the thought was, "Well, if we miss this plane, we'll just catch the next one."