cover image The Seekers: Meetings with Remarkable Musicians (and Other Artists)

The Seekers: Meetings with Remarkable Musicians (and Other Artists)

John Densmore. Hachette, $28 (240p) ISBN 978-0-30684-623-6

Densmore (Riders on the Storm), drummer for the Doors, meditates on creative personalities in this scattershot memoir. He revisits encounters with musicians including his high school band teacher and country legend Willie Nelson, as well as nonmusicians such as poet guru Robert Bly, whom Densmore accompanied on drums at a reading, and mythologist Joseph Campbell. Densmore offers some piquant memories—“ganga wafting from the room was so thick that it felt like I had to break through a barrier to enter,” he recalls of reggae superstar Bob Marley’s dressing room —and vivid evocations of people he knew well, including Doors singer Jim Morrison, whose trademark scream sounded “like someone being crucified, a moan from the bowels of his soul.” But many of the connections he recounts feel perfunctory, as when the Dalai Lama pushed Densmore away after he made “intrusive” eye contact in a handshake line, which prompts vague ruminations on the need to “listen to the silence.” Densmore’s insights into creativity, meanwhile, rarely go beyond uplifting platitudes. (“Music and poetry are two of the very few salves that can quell our warlike spirit.”) The result is an effusive but unsatisfying rehash of wan recollections and truisms. Doors fans might enjoy this, but for general readers it may leave something to be desired. (Nov.)