Ray Manzarek of The Doors dies

Bile duct cancer Aged 74, if he did nothing else than write the intro for Light My Fire would still have been guaranteed rock imortality. Once Morrison broke on through to the other side, there wasnt much for him to do other than market the morisson industry and go along with the myth that he was a mystic sage not an addled booze and acid casualty. The post Morrison doors stuff was shite certainly.

Don't know much about the post Morrison Doors but big fan of the band pre 1971.Ray certainly was a staunch defender of Jim and his various excesses,almost seemed to be in awe of him in fact.Oddly enough i was watching the Doors Miami concert on Youtube the other day and it has to be said that Jim didn't really come across as the philosopher king that his publicity blurb insisted he was-completely pissed and abusive to all and sundry,whether he whipped it out or not as was alleged seems to a disputed issue.Some great songs for all that and Ray Manzarek played a full part in their composition and performance,RIP Ray.

Heard the sad news on the radio this morning. Brilliant music. Iconic of it's era and MY era. Who cares if jimmy morrison was just a drunken lush ... it was their time, and those keyboards were just moving. As Merlin said quite succinctly much later in some film or other or other in the time of change at Camelot...." we are the last of the necromancers... our time has passed".

I hope everyone has been living it up as best they would while they could, it doesn't come around again.
Delighted to remember the music, the times and the culture.
I put the Riders of the storm to film somewhere during a Plymouth storm. Must find it.

One of my favourite films (of many...) with what must be one of the best opening scenes of all time. Complete with the Doors.....

keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel

I never really got into The Doors. I always thought that you would probably have to have been a part of it at the time.

I mean they're not the sort of band youngsters now would relate to and as a mere whippersnapper who was born in 1970, they were "Of a different era"

It might be the dark nature of the songs I know of theirs, but whatever it was I never found myself saying "A nice Doors track would go down a treat now".

If I was a student or young man born twenty years earlier I'm sure I would've connected more with them.

I was never really into them at the time other than the odd track. Now that I'm old, I appreciate some of what they did.

Greenjock wrote:

I never really got into The Doors. I always thought that you would probably have to have been a part of it at the time.

I mean they're not the sort of band youngsters now would relate to and as a mere whippersnapper who was born in 1970, they were "Of a different era"

It might be the dark nature of the songs I know of theirs, but whatever it was I never found myself saying "A nice Doors track would go down a treat now".

If I was a student or young man born twenty years earlier I'm sure I would've connected more with them.

Put this on your CD player in the car Jock and find yourself a motorway to bomb down;



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Greenjock wrote:

I never really got into The Doors. I always thought that you would probably have to have been a part of it at the time.

I mean they're not the sort of band youngsters now would relate to and as a mere whippersnapper who was born in 1970, they were "Of a different era"

It might be the dark nature of the songs I know of theirs, but whatever it was I never found myself saying "A nice Doors track would go down a treat now".

If I was a student or young man born twenty years earlier I'm sure I would've connected more with them.

You probably would Jocko, and maybe you will feel it with your generation. The Doors are not a youngsters' thing... they don't register. When those that share your desires and shared your times, start dying of old age and disease, it all gets a bit poignant I guess.
Whatever else that can be said, the 60s and early 70s music thing was a time for exploration that had probably never ever happened before at such a magnitude ... Mozart or no Mozart. It was very raw, no one knew where it was going. The hopes of a post war generation were wound up in it.
My elder brother died a few years ago, and at his funeral, a very famous guitarist and friend of his sang the Floyd song "Shine on you crazy diamond". He was, and there were a lot of crazy diamonds in those days, big time, what with the new freedoms and cultural avenues opening up to give us many of the freedoms we enjoy today. There wasn't a lot of the present day corporate cosetting and BS to get in the way. To see that vibrant, loving, colourful and human generation begin to pass into dust is poignant and the Doors were certainly there big time in the stories they told with gusto. Who cares if they were pissed, they were young men living their first and only youth singing what they felt. Who cares if the music was dark on occasion. The devil often has the best tunes as some wag said. It's all part of the travel. And then we're all gone. Nighty night.

Ronnies club on the Barbican used to play the end at the end of every evening and it always takes me back to that place when I hear it. I loved the Doors, proper rock band, great music, loads of attitude and controversy, the last thing you want as an angry young man is for your parents to love the bands that you do. RIP.

I liked the Doors and have a few of their albums. For me I liked the rawness of Jim Morrisons vocals backed up by the sometimes ghostly/ sometimes bluesy keyboard playing of Manzarek.

Light my Fire is the most well known track as well as some of the other mentioned above. I liked some of their more bluesy stuff (I often think the booze probably made Morrison's vocals harsher for this)- LA Woman, Love her madly etc.

The slower stuff was also good- People are strange, crystal ship.

RIP Ray

I liked the music, some of it does veer into lift music at Its worst and Morison could be pretty pretentious at its worst but at its best its sublime and really sums up the time, place and emotion of the flip side of the 60,s dream