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Post subject: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 2:34 pm
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Cancer got him today....


http://www.tmz.com/2013/05/20/ray-manza ... rs-cancer/


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 2:58 pm
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I can't believe it. I always thought he was so cool, he dressed in a suit and dress shoes while everyone else in The Doors wore...whatever those things were. He was a great keyboard player, he played both the organ and bass keyboard at the same time. I love The Doors and I always will. RIP.

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 3:03 pm
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R.I.P Ray.... :cry:

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 3:29 pm
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Thaks for posting. R.I.P. Ray Manzarek
I didn't ever get to meet him but I did get to see him and his band in concert twice.

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 3:55 pm
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Seems like just yesterday George Noory was interviewing him on the late-night Coast To Coast radio show.

RIP, Ray......you left footsteps which few will match.

:(

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 4:53 pm
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Rest in Peace, Ray. We will miss you.

I had not realized that he was a little bit older than your average 60s rock star when the Doors first got big. He passed away at the age of 74, which would have put him around 28-29 when the debut album wast released. Still a young guy back then obviously, but he was a few years older than the other band members.

Never met Mr. Manzarek, but I did have the pleasure of meeting Robby Krieger several years ago in NYC. He seemed like a nice guy, at least from my impression of him. I'm glad he and Manzarek got the chance to tour again a few years back.


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 4:57 pm
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Jeez guys I was just reading this was an internet hoax? that he is alive and well?! Now the hoax stories are being retracted......

RIP Ray

Some days it gets really difficult wrt what to believe anymore......

ginop


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 7:11 pm
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I didn't see that coming,I wasn't even aware that he was ill.His inimitable unique keyboard work was his trademark as were his dexterous basslines on his ever present Fender Piano Bass.Back in the late 80s I bought a cassette(CDs were the new thing then!)of Echo And The Bunnymen and when I heard one of the songs Ray's name came to me in a flash because the keyboard style had an uncanny resemblance to Ray's,when I looked at the liner notes I found that it indeed was him.How he could perform such dexterous right hand melodies and then play such melodious and often complicated bass lines always astounded me-I guess that anyone else who dabbles in keys would feel the same about his playing.God Bless You Ray,thanks for the incredible and memorable melodies that you wrote to entertain us and many generations to follow.

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 7:11 pm
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R.I.P Ray. Making music with Jim once again. The Doors are one of my favorite bands. Gotta love the sound of that Fender Rhodes!


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 9:27 pm
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R.I.P. Ray !!

Thanks for the Music.. !!

Sitting on Mary Jo McConnell's porch, February, 1967... she played her newest album 'The Doors' and there was no turning back for me, I had crossed over.

One of his last recordings:



cheers!

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 9:48 pm
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another incredibly talented musician and seemingly great person. rip ray.


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 4:24 am
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I woke up today thinking about what a loss to music in America Ray Manzarek's passing represents. (bump)

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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 8:57 am
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Raymond Daniel Manczarek, Jr. is better known as Ray Manzarek. Ray Manzarek was a class act and one of the most enduring figures from 60's American Rock. He was the first superstar KB player and beyond that a published author, producer and film maker.

Ray's formal education was in economics and film, not music. This son of Polish immigrants who grew up on Chicago's South Side did not set out to play music professionally. After public schools in Chicago, he went to DePaul University in Chicago and got a degree in Economics. That fortunately would not be the end of his formal education. From there he decided he had more interest and talent in film making than banking and fiance, so he went to California where in three years he graduated again, this time from UCLA's Department of Cinematography. It was while at UCLA that he had first met fellow UCLA student Jim Morrison.

Over a month after graduation from UCLA Manzarek goes to Venice Beach where he runs into Jim Morrison quite by accident. At this meeting Morrison offers up in conversation that he had been writing some songs. Ray asked Jim to sing one and Morrison piped up "Moonlight Drive" and Manzarek says that is the first moment he realized they could and in fact should play music together and The Doors was born as a duo then and there.

Manzarek met drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a Transcendental Meditation lecture and they came on board. "There wouldn't be any Doors without Maharishi," is Densmore's recollection.

The fledgling Doors first gig was as house band at a joint called London Fog on Sunset Strip in LA. It was there that the band got their act together, often to a nearly empty room. The big hip crowd was at the Whiskey a Go Go then. The Doors were fired at London Fog, but the same day they got hired as the new house band at the Strip's Whiskey a Go Go. British Invasion group THEM was the current but temporary house band, having signed to play the Whiskey for a three week span. The Doors shared the stage at the Whiskey with Them for a week, opening for Them. Them at that time still featured legendary singer Van Morrison. The Doors found Them and Van Morrison a major influence that skewed the Doors more toward Blues Rock. That last night the two bands played on the same bill at the Whiskey a remarkable thing happened. The Doors jammed with Them for a 45 minutes set which included 25 minute version of "Midnight Hour" and a 20 minute version of "Gloria." That jam is the stuff of L.A. music legend with oral histories of the event passed down to children and grandchildren to this day. For many there, it was a musical highlight of their life.

From there you probably know all about the Doors. Getting signed by Columbia, quitting Columbia, getting signed by Elektra, the resulting Elektra singles and albums, their defiant "Ed Sullivan Show" performance of an unmodified "Light My Fire" (including the original line "You know we couldn't get much higher" against Sullivan's wishes) and the death of Jim Morrison which came during a slew of rock star deaths including Hendrix and Joplin. Bad things do come in threes it seems.

In a post-Morrison world Manzarek and the Doors pressed on releasing two more albums with Manzarek playing a larger role with Manzarek credited for some guitar tracks on the "L.A. Woman" album in addition to his usual keyboard/vocal credits. It should be pointed out that The Doors played their own instruments on their own recordings, unlike most of the music coming out of L.A. at the time.

Post-Doors Manzarek played on numerous projects both studio and live. He produced music and became a rock music authority guesting on radio shows and TV shows. He also began to focus more attention in directions outside making music. Ray becomes a published writer with two novels in addition to his autobiography "Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors" in 1998. He also wrote a novel based on the urban legend of Jim Morrison faking his death called "The Poet In Exile" and a second unrelated novel about the Civil War.

The Doors never had an electric bassist. Manzarek played the bass parts on a Fender-Rhodes keyboard pretty much innovating the key-bass concept in pop music. Previously most organists used bass pedals for bass tones. Instead of the ungainly Hammond B-3 with bass pedals, his organs were the more portable electronic organs of the day. His signature tone is a Vox Continental combo organ, but during the Doors later days he gigged with the more durable Gibson G-101/Kalamazoo K-101 combo organ, both being pretty much the name instrument just having different brand names. The Fender-Rhodes usually supplied the bass parts live though.

If I had ever met Ray Manzarek I would have asked, "Why no electric bassist in The Doors? Was it by design or were you secretly a closet bassist Ray?" That was the exact question I had for him. Of course part of the reason they sounded different was no electric bass. I would also have told him that my personal favorite Doors song was "Riders On The Storm." It was a brilliant and moving work of well crafted finesse and controlled power that always stopped me in my tracks.

Works like that one, and of course Morrison's lyrics in general, made The Doors music more enduring than most other L.A. club acts of the day and in fact worthy of their cult-band status. Rarely did any two of their songs sound alike, they had some variety of flavors and moods in there. The Doors had depth.

Cancer is the most evil disease I can think of right now. It now claims yet another music icon.

"Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm"


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 11:50 am
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Rest easy, Ray. :(


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Post subject: Re: RIP Ray Manzarek
Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 12:29 pm
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Good synopsis brotherdave !

But, it should also be mentioned that Morrison almost killed the band before they even started due to his terrible stage fright.

For their entire run at London Fog, Morison, due to his fear of performing in public, stood and performed with his back to the audience.

Phil Tanzini, one of the owners at the Whiskey booked them conditionally requiring that Morrison face the audience.

For better or worse, the band made sure that Jim was well full of anxiety relievers for their opening night, and the rest as they say is History !

That is until the night they played the unedited version of The End... the Whiskey fired them the next day.

cheers!

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