The Doors Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) & Show # 457

 

Ray Manzarek best known as a musician in The Doors passed away on May 20th, 2013 due to complications with cancer at the age of 74. Ray played keyboards in The Doors and was also a founding member of the group. The Doors never had a bass player with the exception of some tracks on their studio albums, when playing live Ray would cover the bass and keyboard parts at the same time playing bass parts on a Fender Rhoades Piano as well as providing occasional back up vocals. Ray met Jim Morrison at UCLA Film school and then met up with him later on after graduating in a chance encounter at Venice Beach in California. The two decided to form a band after Manzarek heard Morrison’s lyrics to what was to become “Moonlight Drive”. They later recruited guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore to form The Doors. Some of the bands early influences were very Garage Rock influenced most notably citing Van Morrison’s Them as an influence. The bands sound featured many characteristics of the Garage Rock genre from the 60s along with many elements of Psychedelic music. The Doors went on to release six full length albums before Jim Morrison’s death which was in 1971. The band continued as a trio before splitting up in 1973.

In addition to being a musician in The Doors, Ray played in another group called Nite City releasing two albums one in 1977, another in 1978. Ray was also a music producer, he produced the LA Punk band X’s first album entitled Los Angeles, he was also an author, film maker and solo artist. The Doors influence would become massive even inspiring The Stooges in their early days, they were initially known as The Psychedelic Stooges. Along with Jim Morrison and the other members of this band, The Doors would go on to become a highly influential and iconic band in Rock and Roll music history.

The following video is from a performance on The Smothers Brothers Show from 1968.



This Week's Play List:

1. The Orbits – My Rosa Lee
2. The Rumblers – Surf Rat
3. The New Dimensions – Bongo Shutdown
4. This Machine Kills Robots – The Seaward
5. The Driving Beats – Beach Girls
6. The Gories – On The Run
7. The Band – Helpless
8. Kurt Vile – Snowflakes Are Dancing
9. Big Surf – Stoker
10. Link Wray – Green Hornet
11. The Doors – Wild Child
12. Iggy & The Stooges – Job
13. The Obits – The City Is Dead
14. Decades – Tonight Again
15. Pluto – Thirsty
16. Active Dog – Rat Race
17. Bureaucrats – Feel The Pain
18. The Exploding Hearts – Modern Kicks
19. Thee Oh Sees – Devil Again
20. Mystics – Get Away (Demo)
21 Young Rival - T-Shirt And Shorts
22. Sex Pistols – Holidays In The Sun
23. The Clash – Overpowered By Funk

To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for May 21. Or subscribe to Revolution Rock as a Podcast.