Every day, we all face the inevitable realization that we aren’t getting any younger. Seems that nary a week passes without seeing the news that another icon from our youth has moved on. Of late, the news of the passings of icons like Dr. Joyce Brothers, Jonathan Winters, and George Jones come as no big surprise. The march of time I suppose. But others . . . others strike a different chord with us and I’m not really sure why. Last week, I heard the news that Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist of The Doors, died in Rosenheim, Germany after a long fight with cancer.
I guess it came as a shock to me because it comes 42 years, literally a lifetime, after the death of Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison. (Assuming of course that you don’t cast your lot with the conspiratorialists that believe Mr. Mojo Rising is alive and well, drinking whiskey sours on some deserted Caribbean Island.) The Doors were one of the most influential bands in the history of rock-n-roll, owing, in large part, to the innovative keyboard riffs of Ray Manzarek. It was the marriage of Manzarek’s sonic banshee keyboard style to Morrison’s haunting vocals that made the band so unique. But because Morrison died so young, the picture of The Doors I have tattooed on my mind is that of youth and Ray’s passing just doesn’t jive with that image.
Raymond Daniel Manczarek, Jr., born February 12, 1939, was an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, and co-founder of The Doors from 1965 to 1973. Manzarek died on May 20, 2013, of complications related to bile duct cancer. Manzarek was a gritty Polish kid, born and raised on the south side of Chicago. Growing up, he took private piano lessons but his real love was basketball. Young Ray only wanted to play power forward or center and at 6 feet 1 inch tall, that was going to be a challenge. At the age of 16 his coach insisted that he play guard, or not at all. So Ray quit the team. Manzarek said later if it was not for that ultimatum, he might never have been with The Doors. He attended St. Rita High School in Chicago and graduated from DePaul University with a degree in Economics and played keyboards in many shows at the school.
In 1962–1965, he studied in the Department of Cinematography at UCLA, where he met film student Jim Morrison. Forty days after finishing film school, thinking they had gone their separate ways, Manzarek and Morrison met by chance on Venice Beach in California. Morrison said he had written some songs, and Manzarek expressed an interest in hearing them, whereupon Morrison sang a rough version of “Moonlight Drive.” Manzarek liked the songs and co-founded The Doors with Morrison at that moment.
Outwardly the two were an odd match. Morrison, strikingly tall, dark and handsome, looked the part of rock star. Manzarek, with glasses and comparatively close-cropped blonde hair, looked more like a college professor. Later, Manzarek met drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a Transcendental Meditation lecture. Krieger’s Spanish-influenced guitar and Densmore’s subtle, jazz-infused drumming cemented the band’s signature sound.
In January 1966, The Doors became the house band at The London Fog on L.A.’s Sunset Strip. According to Manzarek, “Nobody ever came in the place…an occasional sailor or two on leave, a few drunks. All in all it was a very depressing experience, but it gave us time to really get the music together.” The same day The Doors were fired from The London Fog, they were hired to be the house band of the legendary Whisky a Go Go. Their first performance at the Whisky was with the Van Morrison’s group “Them” (Remember G-L-O-R-I-A…Gloria?).
The Doors’ first recording contract was with Columbia Records. After a few months of inactivity, they learned they were on Columbia’s drop list. At that point, they asked to be released from their contract. After a few months of live gigs, the band was “rediscovered” and The Doors were signed by Elektra Records.
The band took their name from a line in Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The line comes originally from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Together, The Doors recorded numerous multi-platinum albums and had hits with “L.A. Woman,” “Break On Through to the Other Side,” “The End” and Ray Manzarek’s masterpiece, “Light My Fire.” The Doors has sold more than 100 million albums and their music has been re-released and repackaged multiple times over the years, been featured prominently in movies and holds a lofty perch in rock history.
The Doors lacked a bassist, so Manzarek usually played the bass parts on a Fender Rhodes piano. His signature sound was the Vox Continental combo organ. Known for its bright, thin, breathy sound, the “Connie” was used by many other psychedelic rock bands of the era. If you’re not a devotee of The Doors, you’ve heard the “Connie” featured prominently on hit songs like “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals, “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians, and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly. But nobody played the Connie as well and as often as Ray Manzarek. Later Ray switched to a Gibson G-101 Kalamazoo combo organ because the Connie’s plastic keys frequently broke during Manzarek’s frenetic playing.
Manzarek occasionally sang for The Doors, including the live recordings of “Close To You” and on the B-side of “Love Her Madly,” and “You Need Meat (Don’t Go No Further).” He also sang on the last two Doors albums, recorded after Morrison’s death, Other Voices and Full Circle. Additionally, he provided one of several guitar parts on the song “Been Down So Long.”
For fans and musicians alike, The Doors’ brooding and sometimes dark sound crystallized the experimental rock music emanating from Los Angeles. The “L.A. Sound” stood in stark contrast to the lighter, soaring sound coming out of the San Francisco Bay Area typified by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. To me, what made The Doors sound so musically different was that Ray Manzarek’s keyboard was the lead instrument. I’d never heard that before. Most bands led with a guitar, some with the drums, but The Doors led with a keyboard. I’m sure it had been done before, but it was a new sound to me. And, after all these years, it’s the sound I can remember. If you doubt it, Google “Riders on the Storm” and get back to me.
In an interview with National Public Radio in 2000, Manzarek described the band’s sound this way: “We were aware of Muddy Waters. We were aware of Howlin’ Wolf and John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Plus, Jan and Dean and The Beach Boys and the surf sound. Robby Krieger brings in some flamenco guitar. I bring a little bit of classical music along with the blues and jazz, and certainly John Densmore was heavy into jazz. And Jim brings in beatnik poetry and French symbolist poetry, and that’s the blend of The Doors as the sun is setting into the Pacific Ocean at the end, the terminus of Western civilization. That’s the end of it. Western civilization ends here in California at Venice Beach, so we stood there inventing a new world on psychedelics.”
Ray Manzarek was iconic, brilliant, eccentric and way ahead of his time. He will be missed. But now I realize that his passing, at the age of 74, is really not that shocking after all. From all accounts, Manzarek loved life. We should all be so lucky as to find something that makes us as happy as pounding keyboards made Ray Manzarek. The fact that he helped change the face of music while doing it, well, that’s just a bonus. Manzarek himself explained it thusly: “The only thing that ultimately matters is to eat an ice-cream cone, play a slide trombone, plant a small tree, good God, now you’re free.” In that case, make mine a triple scoop.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
