When I commissioned Denny Dent to paint a mural of Jim Morrison on the billboard of Gazzarri’s night club back in 1982, he was an unknown starving artist. He had never painted in front of a crowd, and he was extremely nervous, so much so that he fainted after he left the stage.

His aspirations were to have a new set of teeth put in (he was toothless) and to go to Las Vegas and become a famous artist. He accomplished all of his goals, and his work now sells in the high-dollar range.

Denny passed away on March 29th, 2004.  He was sixty five.

Alan Graham

http://jfrichmond.com/poete.html

The Doors played Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip numerous times in early 1967 according to Greg Shaw’s The Doors On The Road book.  In 1982, that venue was the site of Morrison The Rock Opera put on by Alan and Anne Morrison Graham.  This photo is the back wall of the Gazzarri’s parking lot advertising that event, which I recently shared in conjunction with a story about the artist Denny Dent, who painted that wall.  In later years, the building was totally gutted and remodeled and re-opened first as Billboard Live and then as Key Club.  The point of this story is that the rock venue that stands where Gazzarri’s once stood is closing its doors in March 2013