This is personally a sad note, as The Doors have been my favourite band, over 40 years, since being a teenager.
Ray Manzarek, keyboard player for The Doors, wrote the renowned introduction to fellow band-member, Robby Kreiger's classic, Light My Fire, and is generally considered to be the creative musical influence to nearly all of their songs, with lyrics written by the lost-time late Jim Morrison. Manzarek, along with former manager Danny Sugarman, was seen as the shining light for maintaining the memory of The Doors, long since Morrison's death in 1971.
Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek dies
The Age
May 21st, 2013
Bernard Zuel
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/doors-keyboardist-ray-manzarek-dies-20130521-2jxie.html
Ray Manzarek was always the keeper of the Doors' flame: its most dogged defender and its most eloquent explainer.
Right up to his death this week the keyboard player saw himself as one whose job it was to bring us "what's left of the dream of the '60s" and to celebrate the work of a man he considered a great American poet, the Doors' singer and lyricist Jim Morrison.
"[The Doors] bring you a little bit of that magic, to reignite a passion, to reignite some kind of a fire," Manzarek told me once. "To say to you there is another way of being instead of the conservative peoples of the Book, the three big book people. We're offering you another religion, a religion of the future."
Manzarek convinced Morrison to form a band when he heard his fellow film student declaim some lines of poetry on Venice Beach in 1965 and reportedly exclaimed "those are the greatest f--king song lyrics I've ever heard".
He never lost that faith.
Along with guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore the short-lived but long influential band in the second half of the 1960s redefined Los Angeles from a city of sun and surf to one of sin and psychedelics. And in the middle of it was Manzarek who notably not only played some of the most famous piano/organ lines of '60s rock – such as the twinkling runs of Riders On The Storm and the vamping parts in Hello I Love You – but on stage famously played the bass parts with foot pedals on his organ.
In a statement on hearing of Manzarek's death Densmore, who called him "my musical brother", said that "there was no keyboard player on the planet more appropriate to support Jim Morrison's words."
"Ray, I felt totally in sync with you musically," Densmore said. "It was like we were of one mind, holding down the foundation for Robby and Jim to float on top of."
That foundation remained integral to Manzarek, his passion and volubility – along with some of the most popular songs of the golden decade of pop and rock - helping keep the Doors fresh for each generation of 15 to 16-year-olds to discover and elevate to icon status.
Just how integral can be seen in this impassioned description Manzarek gave to Fairfax's Philippa Hawker almost 20 years ago: "This [the Doors] is my guts, this is my semen, this is John and Robby and Jim Morrison and Ray and the music we made, this is the semen of our psyche," Manzarek said. "Women can actually create flesh and blood, but men can't make babies: all we've created is these little vibrations in the sonic ether called songs."
'Damn body slows down'
Manzarek, 74, died at a medical clinic in Germany following a battle with cancer, the group's manager Tom Vitorino said.
Manzarek, who lived in Northern California's Napa Valley wine country for the past decade, had been seeking treatment in Germany for bile duct cancer, Vitorino said. He died in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his wife and brothers.
The band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, sold 100 million records since its heyday with psychedelic-era classics such as 1971's Riders on the Storm.
Manzarek's electric organ was a defining aspect next to Morrison's booming voice in the band's blues and jazz influenced take on rock and roll.
"I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today," The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger said in a statement. "I'm just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him."
The Doors broke up shortly after Morrison's death from heart failure in 1971, but their mythology exploded following the 1980 publication of the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive and the 1991 film, The Doors, by director Oliver Stone.
The band recorded a total of eight albums between 1967 and 1972. After the band's break up, Manzarek released two albums with the rock band Nite City in the late 1970s and six solo albums, most recently Translucent Blues in 2011 with blues-rock guitarist Roy Rogers.
Manzarek and Krieger became locked in a legal battle with drummer John Densmore in 2003 after the two reunited under The Doors name and later "The Doors of the 21st Century," but were finally forced to tour as Manzarek-Krieger.
Manzarek, who was born in Chicago in 1939, embraced old age in a 2006 interview with Reuters.
"We occupy these bodies for 70, 80, 90 years, and it's so much fun being alive on planet Earth that you want to keep this thing as fresh as you possibly can," he said.
"The spirit, the mind, the soul, what's inside of you just gets hipper and hipper as you get older ... you get a whole broadened outlook on things," he added.
"That just naturally keeps going, but the damn body slows down."
Manzarek is also the author of two novels and most notably the 1998 memoir, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors.
Manzarek is survived by his wife, Dorothy, two brothers, a son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.
My favourite song of all-time will always be:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbBUWU_Blso[/youtube]
Ray Manzarek, keyboard player for The Doors, wrote the renowned introduction to fellow band-member, Robby Kreiger's classic, Light My Fire, and is generally considered to be the creative musical influence to nearly all of their songs, with lyrics written by the lost-time late Jim Morrison. Manzarek, along with former manager Danny Sugarman, was seen as the shining light for maintaining the memory of The Doors, long since Morrison's death in 1971.
Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek dies
The Age
May 21st, 2013
Bernard Zuel
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/doors-keyboardist-ray-manzarek-dies-20130521-2jxie.html
Ray Manzarek was always the keeper of the Doors' flame: its most dogged defender and its most eloquent explainer.
Right up to his death this week the keyboard player saw himself as one whose job it was to bring us "what's left of the dream of the '60s" and to celebrate the work of a man he considered a great American poet, the Doors' singer and lyricist Jim Morrison.
"[The Doors] bring you a little bit of that magic, to reignite a passion, to reignite some kind of a fire," Manzarek told me once. "To say to you there is another way of being instead of the conservative peoples of the Book, the three big book people. We're offering you another religion, a religion of the future."
Manzarek convinced Morrison to form a band when he heard his fellow film student declaim some lines of poetry on Venice Beach in 1965 and reportedly exclaimed "those are the greatest f--king song lyrics I've ever heard".
He never lost that faith.
Along with guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore the short-lived but long influential band in the second half of the 1960s redefined Los Angeles from a city of sun and surf to one of sin and psychedelics. And in the middle of it was Manzarek who notably not only played some of the most famous piano/organ lines of '60s rock – such as the twinkling runs of Riders On The Storm and the vamping parts in Hello I Love You – but on stage famously played the bass parts with foot pedals on his organ.
In a statement on hearing of Manzarek's death Densmore, who called him "my musical brother", said that "there was no keyboard player on the planet more appropriate to support Jim Morrison's words."
"Ray, I felt totally in sync with you musically," Densmore said. "It was like we were of one mind, holding down the foundation for Robby and Jim to float on top of."
That foundation remained integral to Manzarek, his passion and volubility – along with some of the most popular songs of the golden decade of pop and rock - helping keep the Doors fresh for each generation of 15 to 16-year-olds to discover and elevate to icon status.
Just how integral can be seen in this impassioned description Manzarek gave to Fairfax's Philippa Hawker almost 20 years ago: "This [the Doors] is my guts, this is my semen, this is John and Robby and Jim Morrison and Ray and the music we made, this is the semen of our psyche," Manzarek said. "Women can actually create flesh and blood, but men can't make babies: all we've created is these little vibrations in the sonic ether called songs."
'Damn body slows down'
Manzarek, 74, died at a medical clinic in Germany following a battle with cancer, the group's manager Tom Vitorino said.
Manzarek, who lived in Northern California's Napa Valley wine country for the past decade, had been seeking treatment in Germany for bile duct cancer, Vitorino said. He died in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his wife and brothers.
The band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, sold 100 million records since its heyday with psychedelic-era classics such as 1971's Riders on the Storm.
Manzarek's electric organ was a defining aspect next to Morrison's booming voice in the band's blues and jazz influenced take on rock and roll.
"I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today," The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger said in a statement. "I'm just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him."
The Doors broke up shortly after Morrison's death from heart failure in 1971, but their mythology exploded following the 1980 publication of the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive and the 1991 film, The Doors, by director Oliver Stone.
The band recorded a total of eight albums between 1967 and 1972. After the band's break up, Manzarek released two albums with the rock band Nite City in the late 1970s and six solo albums, most recently Translucent Blues in 2011 with blues-rock guitarist Roy Rogers.
Manzarek and Krieger became locked in a legal battle with drummer John Densmore in 2003 after the two reunited under The Doors name and later "The Doors of the 21st Century," but were finally forced to tour as Manzarek-Krieger.
Manzarek, who was born in Chicago in 1939, embraced old age in a 2006 interview with Reuters.
"We occupy these bodies for 70, 80, 90 years, and it's so much fun being alive on planet Earth that you want to keep this thing as fresh as you possibly can," he said.
"The spirit, the mind, the soul, what's inside of you just gets hipper and hipper as you get older ... you get a whole broadened outlook on things," he added.
"That just naturally keeps going, but the damn body slows down."
Manzarek is also the author of two novels and most notably the 1998 memoir, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors.
Manzarek is survived by his wife, Dorothy, two brothers, a son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.
My favourite song of all-time will always be:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbBUWU_Blso[/youtube]
