R.I.P. Ray Manzarek, Keyboardist for The Doors

Mention the ’60s rock band The Doors, and the only member most people will be able to name is this guy:

The Lizard King can keep his fans. The member of The Doors whom I admired wasn’t the front man, but the versatile keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, who passed away yesterday:

As The Doors’ keyboardist, Ray took up double duty, playing a Vox Continental organ (many people mistakenly thought it was a Farfisa) with his right hand, and the band’s basslines on a Fender Rhodes piano or Fender Rhodes bass keyboard. With both hands full and each one playing very different lines, Ray defined both the Doors’ instrumentation and the sound we now know as “psychedelic organ rock”.

I must confess that I steal a lot of my keyboard playing tricks from Ray’s right hand: the one-two rocking between single note and full chords, the I-IV-VII ostinato sequence that you’ll hear in Riders on the Storm, the glissandos and the willingness to throw the wrong chord in the right place by using the ol’ fist. I have tried — and failed — several times to emulate his amazing left hand, with which he played those Doors-y basslines. I’m still working on it.

Here are The Doors playing Light My Fire during their 1968 European tour. In this version, Ray throws in a little Latin jazz comping during his solo:

If Light My Fire is the definitive psychedelic organ tune, Riders on the Storm sets the bar for Rhodes piano. I’ve listened to this a zillion times driving down the 401 between Toronto and Montreal:

This one, as people from the 1960s say, blew my mind: it’s a video of the recording session for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Craigslist, a Doors-themed song for which he invited Ray to play keyboards. Al posted it in Ray’s memory, and it’s always great to see the master at work:

Ray went on to become a music producer for a number of acts including Echo and the Bunnymen and legendary L.A. punk rock band X. Here’s X’s album Los Angeles:

On the Live From Daryl’s House video series, Ray and Doors guitarist performed some of their numbers, including People are Strange:

I’ll close with this video, in which Ray’s just being his affable self — he’s always great in interviews — talking about how The Doors got together, how he creates his sounds, how they wrote music, and how Light My Fire came together, all the while radiating with his love for playing music:

Requiescat in pace, Ray, and from one keyboard player to another, thanks for all the inspiration.

Joey deVilla

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Brandt Hardin says:

May 21, 2013 at 3:00 pm

Ray's playing was a staple of The Doors. He'll certainly be missed after such a long and fruitful career helping to create such haunting music. The Doors' songs opened my mind to other realms of possibilities and cleansed my perception. I paid tribute to Ray when I heard of his passing by creating a new portrait of him and some melting doors which you can see on my artist's blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2013/05/in-memoriam-ray-manzarek.html Drop by and let me know how The Doors influenced you too.