The Doors' Ray Manzarek dies at 74

cnn.com ^ | 05/21/2013 | n/a

[massmike]

The Doors' founding keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, died in Germany Monday after a long fight with cancer, his publicist said in a statement. He was 74.

The artist had been diagnosed with bile duct cancer.

The Doors formed in 1965 after Manzarek happened to meet Jim Morrison on California's Venice Beach. The legendary rock group went on to sell 100 million albums worldwide, establishing five multiplatinum discs in the U.S

Morrison died in 1971, but Manzarek carried on The Doors' legacy, continuing to work as a musician and an author.

[COBOL2Java]

Yet the band failed to succeed after Morrison's death, in spite of their efforts to keep going.

It was a darn shame, too, because each of them were excellent musicians in their own way. I guess with Morrison it was the perfect synergy, and once he was gone, it was gone.

[Borges]

Will you be indifferent when Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan die?

[dfwgator]

Didn’t Morrison hate Light My Fire?

[Moonman62]

You got it right.

Here's an interview with Manzarek describing how they put together Light My Fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBF8OIrz-88

[chessplayer]

RIP, Ray.

Manzarek was a first cousin of a girl I went with before I joined the Army. She loved to talk about getting backstage passes at Doors concerts.

Manzarek really let his keyboard talent shine in ‘Light My Fire.’ Fantastic song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSXrZYhJt4

[Fiji Hill]

I didn't care for "Light My Fire." My favorite Doors opus is "Strange Days," which I first heard in 1991.

[chessplayer]

Great cartoon! Thanks.

[chessplayer]

His voice was different, but his vocals still turned out very well.

---

Morrison actually had a good singing voice.

[dragnet2]

Should anyone care what you think?

[dfwgator]

Perhaps his more “mature” voice on LA Woman suited the songs on that album. It does work on “Riders” especially.

[chessplayer]

I do know who Ray Manzarek is. At one time, I really liked him and the Doors. Now I know better.... I wish folks would stop and consider their fondness for secular pop and classic rock music, especially those who consider themselves social conservatives, Christians, and just plain all’round conservatives. Consider who you stand with in fondness.

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So just because we are conservatives means we have to reject good music? I don’t buy that. The music of the 1960’s- early 70’s was fantastic. It was a period of incredible musical genius. Nothing since has even come close to it. It’s all I listen to.

[chessplayer]

Perhaps his more “mature” voice on LA Woman suited the songs on that album. It does work on “Riders” especially.

---

Riders,,,another great song! Looks like I will be listening to Doors songs all day, today. lol

[dfwgator]

My college roommate was a big Doors fans...I remember many times playing the first album while hammered and Singing Alabama Song(Whiskey Bar) at the top of our lungs....ahh, good times...yep, good times.

[Fiji Hill]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I interpret "The End" as being about a coup d'etat in South Vietnam in 1963--although I may be the only one who has come up with such an interpretation. Here is some of the symbolism in the song:

• Stranger's hand--foreign aid
• desperate land--South Vietnam
• Roman wilderness of pain--government-by-coup-d'etat, ancient Roman style
• children are insane--South Vietnam'm coup-happy military elite
• King's highway--Route 1, the "street without joy"
• Weird things inside the gold mine--the State Dept. or CIA
• summer rain--South Vietnam's summer rainy monsoon
• West--SEATO
• snake--the Soviet bloc
• ancient lake--Communism
• seven miles--The Warsaw Pact's seven members
• he's old...--Nikita Khrushchev or Ho Chi Minh
• blue bus--military vehicle in which Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were held before they were killed
• killer--General Duong Van Minh
• ancient gallery--the CIA or USIA
• hall--the presidential palace
• sister--Tran Le Xuan, Diem's sister and Nhu's wife, and South Vietnam's "first lady"--in Los Angeles at the time of the coup
• father--President Ngo Dinh Diem
• brother--Ngo Dinh Nhu
• mother--Tran Le Xuan or journalist Marguerite Higgins, defender of Diem and author of Our Vietnam Nightmare (New York: Harper, 1965)

[RckyRaCoCo]

Don't much care for anything that came out of the 60's, that (counter)culture inflicted permanent damage to this country in so many ways...

That said, so many don't appreciate the gifts that are given to them, they use it, abuse it, even throw it away.

Even though part of that era, Ray Manzarek(at least in most interviews I had seen anyway) seemed to keep it all about "the music", you could see/hear his joy in the cultivating of his gift, and the pleasure of sharing it with others.

While I'm sure he still got caught up in all the crap of that time, many of us just appreciated..."his music".

RIP.

[chessplayer]

“Yet the band failed to succeed after Morrison’s death, in spite of their efforts to keep going.”

---

It was a darn shame, too, because each of them were excellent musicians in their own way. I guess with Morrison it was the perfect synergy, and once he was gone, it was gone.

---

Yup. A “perfect storm” of 4 good talents coming together. Take one part away, and it’s never at the same level, again.

[chessplayer]

You might be onto something. I was always curious why they chose that song for the movie ‘Apocalypse Now.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4

[driftless2]

Sorry...having the right politics does not mean good music...or anything else concerning arts and music. Many certifiable, leftist nutjobs have made great music. Conversely, Wagner was an anti-Semitic crud who made great music. By the way, I’m not a huge Doors fan, but I did like a lot of their top 40 hits. Morrison was a lunatic...big deal.

[driftless2]

Morrison’s voice improved as his time with the band progressed. When he first started singing with the Doors, one of the band members admitted his voice wasn’t very good. Which just proves a singing voice is like a musical instrument...the more you practice with it, the better you get.

[plain talk]

Hey didn’t know you played. I found original studio version hard too for my clumsy untrained hands. I remember in 1967 trying to play that thing thru a friend’s vox continental hooked up to a Vox Super Beatle while the song was still getting the original air play. it was an incredible unique sound.