Ray Manzarek, one of the founding members of The Doors, has died in Germany after a long battle with cancer.
When I think of The Doors, I think of Jim Morrison’s deep, throaty vocals — but I think equally of Ray Manzarek’s keyboards. Both of those elements made The Doors musically unique, and both were equally important. Mazarek’s deft chops on the keyboard helped to burn countless Doors’ songs into the brain synapses, where they will remain forever and can be hauled out and remembered, note by note. Most of The Doors’ great songs had a great keyboard riff in their somewhere, but my all-time favorite is Riders On The Storm. For us wannabe musicians, who don’t know anything about those black and white keys, it’s one of the great air piano songs ever. I’ve “played” that extended keyboard solo on desktops, tabletops, car dashboards, and the air above the walkway around the Yantis Loop, always with a smile on my face and those lilting notes lifting my heart. I’ve put a YouTube video of Riders on the Storm below, and it still sounds fantastic and absolutely fresh.
Thank you for that, Ray Manzarek. You were one of those creative forces who helped to change the course of popular music, and you made my life a little bit richer through your genius.
Seriously, is this what we’ve come to? Americans can’t even sit in an airport terminal without being hectored repeatedly by a federal agency about how to sneeze and cough, and using a particular kind of baggie when going through security? Can’t we leave it to the mothers of America to teach their children to cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough? And why should it make a difference to the feds whether my liquids are stored in one plastic bag versus two?
When The Monkees TV show first began airing and their songs dominated the airwaves, Davy Jones became the heartthrob of millions of adolescent girls. He was one of the first post-Beatles teen idols. At that time, at least, the role of teen idol carried a certain responsibility — you had to be squeaky clean in your public persona, give mindless interviews about your pet peeves and favorite foods to magazines like Tiger Beat, and pose in the most ridiculous publicity photos imaginable. Jones carried it off with elan, and then he handed off the baton to Bobby Sherman, who handed it off to David Cassidy, who handed it off to some other fresh-faced, inoffensive object of the platonic affections of millions of teenage American girls.
Consider Neil Young, for example. He’s been a fixture of the rock ‘n’ roll scene since the 1960s and has had successful musical releases in each of the intervening decades. But, even by the high standards of his career, the 1970s were remarkable. Consider the astonishing albums he produced during that magical decade: After The Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), Tonight’s The Night (1975), Zuma (1975), American Stars ‘N Bars (1977), Comes A Time (1978), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). Many musicians would gladly claim what he produced during that single, prolific decade and call it an entire career.
Bowie is an interesting character for a lot of reasons and has produced a lot of memorable music. Bowie wrote All The Young Dudes — the epic song from the legendary band Mott the Hoople — and his playlist includes classics like The Jean Genie, Space Oddity, Diamond Dogs, and Changes, among many others. Bowie is one of those artists who seems to leap easily from genre to genre, from hard rock to pop and back again.
