RIP: The Doors Ray Manzarek Dies at 74.

[4UConn]

Five to One
One in Five
Nobody here
Gets out alive.

Ray & Co. made some incredibly great music.

 

[CL82]

RIP. He was an incredible talent. He gave the Doors their carnival like sound.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Ray had the curse of many great musicians in hitching his train to someone as mercurial as Jim Morrison. Morrison was a great lyricist and had the charisma that Ray lacked, but Morrison was actually not that good a singer and he definitely was a colossal bag. By the last 2 years of Morrison's life he was just a fat, drunken junkie. They made some great music together. LA Woman is one of the best songs ever written. I believe that it was never performed live.

 

[4UConn]

Oliver Stone's "The Doors" was a big disservice to Jim Morrison, this according to Ray Manzarek. Ray was angry over the depiction of Morrison in the film and said Jim was nothing like the character portrayed. Morrison saw himself more as a struggling poet rather than a musician.

When I visited Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise in Paris, the cemetery attendant there told me that the Morrison grave accounts for 90% of the visitors to the cemetery. He also told me, interestingly, that the visitors were predominantly male, for whatever that's worth. I was further informed Pere Lachaise wants Morrison's body removed from there and was working to do that in the next few years.

A any rate, it occurred to me that the music of the Doors has had an enduring impact that has crossed several generations and is truly international in scope. This, in no small part, was due to Manzarek and Krieger's musical genius, and Manzarek's ability to keep the band together under difficult circumstances.

 

[CL82]

Visiting Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise is pretty cool. I sat there listening to the Doors and hanging out, perhaps with an adult beverage or two, with fans from France, Italy, Germany and of course the USA. Morrison had his limitations but clearly left an impact that lasts to this day.

For what it is worth LA Woman was written by Robby Krieger as was Love Her Madly.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Every contemporaneous account of Morrison, along with one of his bios, supports Stone's portrayal. Morrison was a spoiled brat whose brilliance and charisma served as a blank check to not just his own destruction, but that of everyone around him. If Morrison had reigned in his alcohol and heroin abuse at all, the Doors could have made great music for another 10+ years with Manzarek as the foundation. LA Woman was their best album in my opinion. They were really maturing as musicians and songwriters. They would be considered one of the greatest American bands in history if they had done that.

 

[CL82]

Every contemporaneous account of Morrison, along with one of his bios, supports Stone's portrayal. Morrison was a spoiled brat whose brilliance and charisma served as a blank check to not just his own destruction, but that of everyone around him. If Morrison had reigned in his alcohol and heroin abuse at all, the Doors could have made great music for another 10+ years with Manzarek as the foundation. LA Woman was their best album in my opinion. They were really maturing as musicians and songwriters. They would be considered one of the greatest American bands in history if they had done that.

Yeah but if he was well adjusted and focused he would probably have been an accountant or something.