She Was a Rock Critic Who Became Jim Morrison's Partner

Patricia Kennealy-Morrison is dead at 75
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 5, 2021 4:06 PM CDT
She Was a Rock Critic Who Became Jim Morrison's Partner
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison.   (YouTube)

An obituary from the world of music is notable on two fronts: Patricia Kennealy-Morrison was a pioneering rock critic, but she might be better known for becoming the partner of a frontman she interviewed—Jim Morrison of the Doors. Kennealy-Morrison died of complications from heart disease in New York City at age 75, reports the Los Angeles Times. Kennely (she spelled her name differently at the time) interviewed Morrison in 1969, and a romance quickly resulted. Those who have seen Oliver Stone's film The Doors might recall the pagan wedding ceremony in which she and Morrison committed to each other in what's known as a hand-fasting ceremony, per People. Kennealy-Morrison had a cameo in the 1991 film as the Wicca priestess who performed the ceremony—although she ended up hating the film itself.

"It is sadly ironic that Kennealy-Morrison is most famous for her rock-star liaison, since she was a talented and strong-voiced critic who was acutely aware of the paucity of opportunities offered to women in music," writes Evelyn McDonnell in the Los Angeles Times. Kennealy-Morrison would go on to write sci-fi novels and mysteries. The New York Times also pays homage to her role as a music critic, noting this 1970 passage in particular from the magazine she edited, Jazz & Pop, in which she urged rock fans to be more discerning:

  • “How many excruciating guitar solos, how many organ solos that were so boring your legs started to hurt, how many meaningless vocal improvisations, have we all sat through?” she wrote. “And at the conclusions of all of these various monuments to rock ego, how many standing ovations have we bestowed?”
(More obituary stories.)

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