Whistling Clarabella: 100 Awesome Things - Part 30

For anyone who saw the Entertainment/Culture section of their news this week, or anyone who has ever spoken to me for any length of time, I don't suppose today's subject will be any surprise.

Because Ray Manzarek died the other day.

It's been established time and again that I am a Doors fan, that I have my share of "Morrison Issues". I have, in point of fact, my share and the shares of at least nineteen hundred other people.

That doesn't mean Morrison was the entirety of the Doors' success. Here's the truth of it: without Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore, Morrison would've merely been the most beautiful Venice Beach acid casualties. He wasn't a musician. Indeed, listen to some of his live improvisations and discover Morrison barely even managed a sense of rhythm at times.

None of them were quite typical. Densmore's drumming is/was more there's-magic-in-them-thar-silences jazz than chuck-it-all-in-be-as-loud-as-you-can rock. I actually got into it with someone the other day about Krieger's guitar playing. They said he "wasn't much of a guitarist". I countered that he just didn't play like most lead guitarists - not particularly rifftastic and without extended soloing. In fact, I'm not sure there are many guitarists who work like Krieger. Then there was Manzarek, who heard rock music and thought "Hey, this needs more Bach!" and was right. They didn't even have a bass player (most of the time).

My point? The Doors didn't sound like anyone else at the time. Nobody else was quite doing what they were doing. Even at the height of the psychedelic Summer of Love, they saw through the lie. There's not a single straightforward love song in their entire catalogue. Love, yes, but not simple. Lots of death, snakes, sex, pain and darkness but not much simple 'I love you' stuff. Their take on psychedelia is dark and cynical - not bad going given The Doors was released months before the so-called Summer of Love.

I've been listening to the Doors these last few days. Sucked into their fascinating, terrible world yet again. I've heard these songs so many times but found something more to appreciate, listening with an understandably keyboard-focused ear.

Manzarek was a classically-trained blues and jazz fan a few years older than most of the kids doing the psych thing back then. He was responsible for giving the bass life most of the time, using his left hand on the keys. I love his whorehouse/barrelhouse sound on Morrison Hotel and LA Woman so much. I can't remember exactly which song it was I was listening to but I stopped walking in the middle of the street because it was so gorgeously baroque, fiddly, intricate and yet not at all 'too much'.

I asked a couple of people which Doors song they thought I should use for this post. I know that my view of them is skewed away from 'usual' and that I couldn't find enough objectivity to pick the best tune. The answer back was immediate and obvious:

The funny thing is, I've never loved this song, but without it I probably wouldn't be a fan. It's one of their songs that actually gets heard thanks to ongoing radio rotation. Like my similarly-beloved Thin Lizzy, the Doors have a huge back catalogue which "civilians" simply don't get to hear. That's a darned shame, because there's stuff there which is better than the famous stuff.

I remember Tony Hadley & Bobby Davro, of all people, doing this on the Intros round on Never Mind the Buzzcocks around the time I bought a Greatest Hits. Somehow that moment couldn't ruin the song for me. (Sidenote: This is one of the funniest episodes of NMTB)

Music has the incredible power to evoke feelings you didn't even know you had, to put you into a time and place you've never been. With that Fender Rhodes intro, Manzarek pulls one into a dark, rain soaked night. He's the doorman (pun intended) who leads one into the room where Morrison is waiting to seduce one into whatever Dionysian horror-delight is planned this time. As examples of Manzarekian brilliance go, this is one of the best, though there are plenty more. If it's been accused of being cocktail lounge music (it has), then it's at least cocktail lounge music with a seriously bleak edge to it: There's a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad... Into this world we're born, into this world we're thrown...

While I was writing, this article came up on my Google Alert for The Doors/Jim Morrison: The Doors Musical genius who made the organ safe for rock and roll .It's a good read but as in my dissertation, I'd argue that the word 'safe' doesn't belong in the same ten mile-radius as the Doors.

Most of Ray's obits make plentiful mention of his love of the Doors. As irritating as it can be to listen to him yet again pushing the Myth of Morrison, I will never deny that he loved his old band. That he was largely willing to make out that it was All About Jim speaks to either a humility or canny understanding of what the media want, or both. He knew, man, that the Doors' initial pull was that beautiful boy, his hard brown chest and Antinousian curls. He also knew that the true magic was the four points of the Doors diamond: Jim, Ray, Robby and John. All of them.

In his book, Riders on the Storm (natch), Manzarek paints himself as Apollo to Jim's Dionysus. He was right, of course, but the important thing to me is that you need both of them. Dionysus alone doesn't get anything done. Dionysus alone gets you drunk and wasted and you sit strung out in the darkness until you fade away. Dionysus left to his own devices dies at 27 in a breathtaking waste of life, talent and potential (I am bitter, yes).

On the other hand, Apollo doesn't have the same emotionally seductive power as Dionysus. He doesn't have the pull, the power, the overpowering charisma. Ray was an Economics student! He was not a typical rock star (great hippie though). He was brilliant and hugely talented but as his required attempts at filling in for Jimbo attest, he wasn't a frontman.

Without Krieger's odd but inspired guitar-work, oftentimes echoing or countering the keys, and without Densmore's eclectic drumming, the Doors would've been just Another LA Band at a time when practically everyone in LA was in a band.

The Doors needed all four points of the diamond. That's the truth of it.

That's why Other Voices is only OK. That's why when I saw "The Doors for the 21st Century" at Wembley Arena it felt like an extended Stars in their Eyes for Ian Astbury. I've rarely been more profoundly angry... but when Astbury left the stage and it was just Manzarek-Krieger there was magic because they are supremely good musicians. "Light My Fire" is not even close to being a favourite of mine but hearing Ray play it live was a moment to stick with me always. Hearing Krieger's explorations around "Spanish Caravan" was a transcendental moment to rate with seeing Plant do "That's The Way" as the sun went down behind him at Somerset House.

One last thing: were it not for Ray's tireless efforts to keep the Spirit of Jim alive through the last forty years, I have a terrible feeling that he would've been forgotten. At once over- and under-rated, the Doors have been a group subject to the whims of music fashion, by turns deeply cool and deeply uncool. It was because of the oft-irritating Danny Sugerman and Ray Manzarek that the band was not forgotten.

If I have my Morrison issues, it's because Manzarek made sure he did not go quiet into the dark night. Morrison's place in the pantheon is assured because Ray kept on about it. I agree with Densmore - not least the crap around adverts and the 'Doors for the 21st Century' stuff. Manzarek's maintenance of the myths around Jim bothers me today as it did last week before Ray died... but I must acknowledge that the myth-building is what shored up their legacy.

If not for Ray's devotion, Morrison might've been even more of a punchline than he is now. So dear, dear Father Ray, thanks for your preaching. Thanks mostly though, for the music. Shine your Apollonian light into the dark corners, Manzarek. And give my regards to Jim...

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Ray Manzarek: keyboard maestro and custodian of the Doors legacy
Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and founding member of the Doors, dies at 74.

C 2013.

100 Awesome Musical Things

Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band

Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners
Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye