Thursday, May 23, 2013

Ray Manzarek

Ray Manzarek.

I just spent almost an hour trying to write about this man in an analytical way. I deleted every goddamn word so I could start over and write from the heart.

When The Doors exploded the rock world, they brought an entirely new perspective with them. They were described as dark, complex, unique. They were all those things, but what they brought to rock more than anything else was intelligence. Literary and poetic.

They challenged their audience to know what they were talking about, to understand the references, to dig the poetry, to not shrink back from Morrison's in your face strutting.

Philosophy, Greek mythology, performance art, rebellion, jazz and the blues; blew your mind and expanded it even if you were not into drugs. Brief aside: If you were not into drugs, I probably didn't know you.

How many rock groups do you think were singing about the Oedipal Complex at that time?

They didn't even have a bass player. Pretty damn radical. The recipe back then was guitar, drums, bass, singer. Ray had a keyboard bass sitting on top of his organ and often played them simultaneously. Didn't slow them down at all; in fact it gave them an edge, a way to accentuate the uniqueness of their sound.

The story of the birth of this group is the quintessential rock tale. Ray and Jim met at UCLA while both were studying film. Two years later Ray randomly ran into Jim on a beach in LA; Jim mentioned he had been writing music. He shyly sang Moonlight Drive to Ray and that was it. Ray saw the possibilities and suggested they form a band. Two years later they released their debut album, which was huge.

I know you have a hard time accepting Morrison as shy, but when they first started performing, he sang with his back to the crowd.

When I first picked up on them, my head spun around three times.

Morrison was the "out there" guy. Over the top; challenging everyone and everything, pushing boundaries. And yet he was still a poet. Deeply sensitive.

Manzarek was the introspective one; intellectual, classically trained on keyboards while maintaining a love of jazz and the blues. The spiritual one who captured the flavor of sixties wonder and exploration and held onto it all his life.

They shared a love of literature and poetry and film. Their personalities and their interests resulted in a creative cocktail that jolted the world when they plugged it all into rock 'n roll.

Manzarek was a loving and a spiritual guy. I didn't get the full impact until I read his autobiography and he forced me to consider what the hell heart chakras were all about.

In every interview I have read and seen, he came across as a seeker. A guy open to life and open to creative approaches and answers. His curiosity was spiced with that sixties perspective matured. A beautiful way to keep alive a relevant and meaningful philosophy.

The tributes I have read have been consistent. Loving, creative, open minded, sensitive, spiritual.

I would give anything to go back to the sixties and listen in on conversations between Ray and Jim. Pretty good bet they defied the stereotypical opinion of rock musicians.

I have not done the man justice. Too emotional. This is one of those deaths that caught me off guard and hurt me.

I will leave you with his own words:

"Once you open the doors of perception, the doors of perception are cleansed, they stay cleansed, they stay open, and you see life as an infinite voyage of joy and adventure and strangeness and darkness and wildness and craziness and softness and beauty."

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