Why ‘Phantom’s Divine Comedy’ was believed to be Jim Morrison from beyond the grave
When Jim Morrison, the mysterious and enigmatic frontman of The Doors, passed away in 1971 at just 27 years old, fans across the world were left devastated. At such a young age, Morrison had decades ahead of him, full of potential. Luckily, the singer had released a significant body of beautiful work before his death, yet there was so much left for him to say.
Therefore, when an album was released in 1974 by an elusive band whose vocalist sounded incredibly similar to Morrison, it wasn’t long before fans speculated that the frontman wasn’t actually dead – he was just making music under a different name. Tired of the constraints of fame and the chaos it brought – Morrison was arrested on stage multiple times – fans suggested that his relocation to Paris and subsequent death was a guise to allow the singer to start a new life.
The theory was aided by the fact that Morrison had written an eerie journal entry not long before his death, hinting at a man abandoning his life. He wrote: “Weeping, he left his pad on orders from police and furnishings hauled away, all records and mementoes, and reporters calculating tears & curses for the press: ‘I hope the Chinese junkies get you and they will for the poppy rules the world.'”
Phantom’s Divine Comedy Pt 1 was released by Capitol Records, although no one seemed to know who the members of Phantom’s Divine Comedy actually were. The lyrics were mysteriously credited to ‘The Phantom’, and the musicians were labelled as Drummer X, Bassist Y, and Keyboardist Z. With little known about the musicians behind the album, theories about their identities began to spread rapidly.
Because Morrison never received an autopsy, fans found it easier to believe that the musician might not have died and was simply making music as The Phantom, certainly a fitting name for someone assumed to be dead. Of course, Morrison really did die, and it was soon revealed that Phantom’s Divine Comedy was actually a band from Detroit known as Walpurgis.
The real Phantom was a man named Ted Pearson, who later went by Arthur Pendragon, and the other musicians were James Rolland, Harold Breadley, and Russ Klatt. Pendragon had played with The Doors’ Ray Manzarek before, and a rare photo of the two, joined by Iggy Pop at Jim Morrison’s third-anniversary disappearance party, can be found floating around the internet. However, not much is known about the project, which remains a fun piece of Doors-related history, even if they had very little to do with it.
Listen to the album below.
