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Mark Opsasnick's Book

THE LIZARD KING WAS HERE
The LIFE and TIMES of JIM MORRISON 
 ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

Excerpt from  'THE LIZARD KING WAS HERE'
                       The LIFE and TIMES of JIM MORRISON  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

LET IT ROLL
Morrison did like to travel alone much of the time and there is little doubt that the Club Log Tavern was the seedy kind of place he would have been attracted to. Confirmation of his visits to the roadhouse ultimately came from one of his friends from GW High, Maggie Phillips, who had also witnessed Morrison's highly significant poetry readings at coffee 'n confusion in Washington during the same approximate time period. Maggie reported that she had been in the Club Log Tavern with groups of friends on two separate occasions and both times had been surprised to see Jim Morrison lurking in the shadows alone and taking in the young group of musicians onstage

MONSTERS OF RHYTHM
As it turned out, the house band at the Club Log Tavern from 1959 to 1961 had indeed been Ronnie and the Offbeats, a group of White teenagers from Washington, D.C. who skillfully churned out a mixture of rock, rockabilly, blues, and jazz tunes night after night. The band had been playing area CYO", teen club, firehouse, and community center dances during the summer of 1959 when they decided to approach the owner of the Club Log Tavern and inquire about working weekends there. Carl Simpson took a liking to the youngsters because of their ability to play a wide range of rock and roll and blues material. When Ronnie and the Offbeats first started working the Club Log Tavern, their lineup consisted of vocalist Ron MacDonald, fourteen-year-old Danny Gatton on lead guitar, Ernie Gorospe on bass, John Broaddus on tenor saxophone, Dick Heintze on organ, and Jerry Wallmark on drums. They worked the roadhouse for more than two years and in the rare instances when they had a weekend off, a rock band from Prince George's County, Maryland call the Savoys was usually booked to fill the void. The Club Log Tavern could accommodate approximately 150 patrons and Ronnie and the Offbeats almost always drew a full house on Friday and Saturday nights.

Followers of Washington rock and roll history are very familiar with this band, as Ron MacDonald, Danny Gatton, and Dick Heintze are considered legends of the local music scene. Ron MacDonald was especially noteworthy since he had grown up in Washington and had previously played in the teen band called the Triumphs during the fifties with childhood friends Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, both of whom would later become members of the great rock and roll band Jefferson Airplane. If Jim Morrison had actually witnessed Ronnie and the Offbeats in the Club Log Tavern, MacDonald was bound to have had some knowledge of it. 

Today Ron MacDonald is still involved in the world of popular music and currently fronts his own band Nightwatch, which plays a multitude of styles from jazz to blues to rock and roll at nightclubs and events throughout the Washington area.

When I broached the subject of Jim Morrison having visited the Club Log Tavern at the same approximate time Ronnie and the Offbeats worked the state, MacDonald carefully accessed his memory banks: "You know, I've had people come up and tell us that Jim Morrison used to watch us, the Offbeats, at the Log Tavern. I've heard that story for more than thirty years and even today when I'm out performing with one of my bands people will still come up and tell me that. It's funny because I can remember different ties when several teenagers came up to us at the Log Tavern and I do remember this one guy that did look a lot like that high school picture of Morrison and he did talk to me several times and I've always remembered that."

MacDonald elaborated on  his band's curious fan: "This is how it was. There was this one kid in particular who would come in on different Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights and he used to come up and talk to us on our breaks and I was the frontman and since we only had one microphone I guess I was kind of representative of the band. he would come up and basically just ask about the music or who did a particular song we had just played or something like that because we were playing a lot of current R&B and we were also doing a lot of old obscure John Lee Hooker stuff and a lot of Bo Diddley material and songs in general that most teenagers that age most likely would not have heard of or have had much interest in. I think what really struck me at the time was wondering what this kid was doing in there in the first place because he looked so young, but then I reflect back on it and we were too  young to be in there as well. When I saw him in there, which was quite often, remember him sitting in a back booth and it was always with a pad or a notebook and he was always scribbling something. I had no clue what the guy was doing and I thought he might be writing love letters to his girlfriend or drawing pictures or something like that. You know, I can remember maybe once or twice there may have been one or two girls sitting with him, but that's a very vague memory. Every time I had a conversation with  him, he'd come up to the bandstand by himself. He was just kind of hanging out and he'd walk by and say 'Hey man' and that kind of thing. That's my memory."

The former lead vocalist for Ronnie and the Offbeats then told me how he came to realize that it really was Jim Morrison who had been taking in their performances at the Route One nightclub: "Years later I played with Danny Gatton in bands like the Take Five Combo and the East Coast Express and the Drapes and along the way the Doors had some major hits and occasionally somebody who was in the club where we were playing would come over and say, "Hey, you know, back when he was in  high school, Jim Morrison used to go to the Log Tavern and see you guys.' over time it happened so much that it made us start thinking about it a little more. I  had to check out his pictures and I looked at some of their early albums, and then much later some of their videos, and there was such a strong resemblance there and I immediately thought back to that one kid that looked a lot like him sitting in the back booth of that club by himself. When one of the books came out on him and I looked at his high school picture I knew right away it was him and I said to myself, 'You know, that's the kid who used to sit in the back!' In fact, to this day I remember how the place was physically laid out and I know the booth he used to sit in most of the time. I can still picture it. It was against the back wall and my memories of Morrison are him sitting in the back booth with  his notebooks and standing in the back of the club and coming up to the stage to talk in between our sets."

It seems a logical conclusion that if Jim Morrison had indeed attended the Club Log Tavern and had watched Ronnie and the Offbeats perform on several occasions, he must have taken something from those performances and incorporated them into his later vocal work and performance style with the Doors.  Something kept drawing him back to the nightclub, whether it was the roadhouse's unique ambiance, cheap beer, or the sound and visual image of the young musical group on the stage. Did Jim Morrison have this teenage rock and roll band in mind when he took to the stage years later with the Doors? I put the question to Ron MacDonald, who responded: "I've hea4rd that rumor from people who approached us - Morrison may have been influenced by us - but that sort of thing is difficult to document. The only way to know for sure is to ask him, but of course that's impossible now.  I wouldn't have thought too much about it until I'd heard some of those vocals and some of the arrangements on those Doors songs and compared it to some of the shuffle stuff we were doing and it seemed to me it was just too close to be a coincidence. The thing that did it was one time Danny Gatton and I were driving in a van to some gig - I'm not sure if it was here or upstate New York - and this was maybe eight or ten years later, and we heard a Doors song come on the radio and Danny looked at me and I looked at him and he said that it sounded a lot like this arrangement of this tune we used to do and I agreed because of the vocal phrasings and certain kicks that were there. After that we just didn't pay any attention to it because it was probably just a coincidence, but then gradually we began hearing the rumors and that struck us as kind of funny. I went back and listened to their albums and there were a couple of things that him me because if was a different bag and you can hear some influences there. I'm not saying these guys were trying to copy Ronnie and the Offbeats, but there are some things that you can hear vocally that are in a lower range and are very close to the phrasing that I use to do. When I watched their videos, some of  Morrison's movements and microphone techniques were very similar to mine, but a lot of front people have similar techniques. I never jumped around or acted crazy like a lot of rock and roll guys did, but on our blues numbers I'd do things  like two-hand the microphone and twist it around a certain way and stand a certain way and even though it's subtle I can see some of that with Morrison." 

I asked MacDonald if he could cite some specific examples of Doors songs that sounded reminiscent of material performed by Ronnie and the Offbeats. He offered: "It's just that you'd listen to some of the Doors records and in a couple of songs you'd hear the phrasing or certain arrangements and some of the stuff sounded close to the material we had been doing and that kind of confirmed it for me. One example of a song that stuck out was 'Break on Through' because we did a cover of Jimmy Reed's blues song 'You got me runnin', you got me hidin' and 'You got me run, hide, hide, run.' I'd sing that in such a way and when Morrison came out with 'Break on Through' there was a strong similarity in the way he sang that song. There were others like that, but who really knows? Jim Morrison was just a very talented singer and it's amazing to think that he used to come into the Club Log Tavern when he was in high school and watch us play. That in itself is really quite a story."

When Jim Morrison left Alexandria for Florida in August 1961, life went on at the Club Log Tavern and few noticed the absence of the local high school kid who had allegedly been so enamored with the rock and roll offerings of the Richmond Highway nightclub. Ronnie and the Offbeats left the Club Log Tavern at approximately the same time Morrison moved to the Sunshine State and subsequently made their mark by heading at many of the Washing area's top nightclubs including the Alpine Room, the Bastille, Benny's Rebel Room, The Champagne Room, The Devonshire Grill, the Famous Rand's, the Rocket Room, and Strick's. Their lineup changed about, with bassist jack Casady passing through prior to the group's break-up in 1964. The band, which still gathers for periodic reunion gigs, became legendary in local music circles because its lineup had featured the incredible guitarist Danny Gatton, who was known for his unique individual style of play that combined elements of jazz, rock, and country music. Success as a solo artist seemed imminent for Gatton when he signed a sever-albmum deal with Elektra Entertainment in 1991, yet his roller coaster career came to an end with his untimely passing in October 1994. Ronnie and the Offbeats had been one of the first musical combos that Gatton had ever been a part of and their story has been recounted in various published works including the 2003 book "Unfinished Business: The Life and Times of Danny Gatton" , by Ralph Heibutzki.

AUTHOR'S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest gratitude goes to Ron MacDonald, Randy Maney, and Bill Thomas - all of whom provided me with extensive interviews on numerous occasions and repeatedly made themselves available for fact checks.

Entire interview can be found in Mark Opsasnick's book titled 'The LIZARD KING was HERE' , The LIFE and TIMES of JIM MORRISON   ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
THE LIFE & TIMES OF DANNY GATTON

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