As told to Harvey Kubernik c 2013
“Ray Manzarek was a rock ‘n’ roll scholar. Ray
Manzarek was Goodbye Mr. Chips as a young man and he
never grew old. Ray Manzarek was from Chicago. So he
understood Studs Lonigan and he understood Chess
Records and he probably understood Riley Hampton.
Google him folks. Ray Manzarek understood Vee-Jay
Records. He must have understood Calvin Carter. He
knew who Jerry Butler was. Just as important, Ray
Manzarek knew where Europe was, he knew where Asia
was and he knew where he fitted into the solar
system. Ray Manzarek from the very beginning to the
very end was an immaculate attired gentleman. He had
his own sound, his own worldview and his own
perception of what was surreal, real and unreal. We
always got along well. We never recorded together.
But we would speak sometimes in the shadows about
the sunlight that we weren’t missing. Ray Manzarek
will be missed. Somewhere in heaven Ray is playing
music and the band has already improved their sounds
since he joined.
“I first saw the Doors when they were an opening
act and unsigned band at Ciro’s on Sunset. There was
a heckler in the audience who ridiculed the three
musician Doors as they loaded their own instruments
on stage and amps, and wanted to pick a fight with
them. And he was doing a theatrical heckler imrov,
and then jumped up to show them that he as an
audience member could be a better singer than their
missing singer who was probably hiding in the
dressing room or outside in the street out of fear.
And then Jim Morrison did ‘Break On Through.’ That
was the first song. The place went wild. Because no
one had ever seen them before.
“Ray’s organ was a music box to a volcano. John
Densmore was a jazz drummer. You also had a jazz
keyboardist and a jazz guitarist all playing the
blues with a great poet and actor fronting it.
“It was tremendous. It was theater. Jim could sing
in pitch, he had the image and the poetry. He
understood theater. Manzarek supplied a pulse, and
Robby the guitarist is never given credit what he
brought to the table in 1967.
“The Doors were not a rock ‘n’ roll band but
gave you a rock ‘n’ roll feeling. And the only band
that did that was the original King Crimson. ‘Cause
they weren’t a rock ‘n’ roll band, either. But when
you heard ‘Court of the Crimson King,’ and Pink
Floyd ’67, they were the only bands who had some
Wagner with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude.
“Earlier in 1965 I recorded a song ‘The Trip’ in
one take in the middle of El Monte with a group of
pickup musicians. There was a Farfisa organ on the
record. My original version was released on Corby
Records, which is a defunct label out of Oregon who
put it out. It was later covered by Godfrey on the C
Jam label. I put one of the 500 copies that were
manufactured into the hands of Jesse, the manager,
owner, bartender of the London Fog who thought it
was a good song and put it into into the jukebox.
When the Doors showed up a year later they used it
as their ‘break song.’ Jesse would play it and it
would be the signal for them to take their break
from the bandstand. And if you hear a song for
multiple weeks or months it will get into your
subconscious and it will influence you.
“(Author and music biographer) Albert Goldman many
years ago came to interview me when he was
researching a book on Jim Morrison. Once of the
things he mentioned to me, knowing I casually knew
some of the band members, been on stage with them a
couple of times, was that he obtained the BMI or
ASCAP logged reports on ‘The Trip’ and the frequent
airplays it received in 1965-1967 on the jukebox at
The London Fog. He was a good researcher. Some
people have cited that ‘The Trip’ might have had
some influence on the Doors’ ‘Soul Kitchen.’
“I saw the Doors everywhere. I introduced them at
the Devonshire Downs Music Festival in Northridge in
1967. Astounding. They had magic. “In 1969 I
was the MC of the Toronto Pop Festival at Varsity
Stadium. The Doors followed John Lennon and the
Plastic Ono Band. I introduced the Doors on stage.
I said, ‘Get ready for the Doors, who are coming on
next.’ “I had drunk some beer and on the
original pressing of the live album you can hear
someone saying, ‘Kim! You’re always on the wrong
mike. Kim!’ And I fell off the stage into the pit.
Then I jumped back on stage. The Doors had to follow
this and this was the first and only time you had
John Lennon and Jim Morrison in the same bill. I
don’t think they met or posed for photos.
“The Doors started doing their thing. Around the
third song of the set, out comes Chuck Berry, who
saw the (D.A. Pennebaker-directed) movie cameras,
went up to approach Jim Morrison on stage and Jim
Morrison stopped on stage and said, ‘You don’t let
young musicians jam with you when they’ve offered.
Shame on you. You should jam with young musicians.
So now we’re gonna continue our set. Get off our
stage, Chuck.’ The place went wild. Then the show
continued. The best artist that night was Tony Joe
White playing ‘Polk Salad Annie.’ He had Booker T.
and the MG’s behind him. That moment of Tony Joe
White doing ‘Polk Salad Annie’ was like Elvis
Presley.
“Ray and I both embraced and worked with punk rock
musicians while many of our contemporaries them
didn’t. He produced X and I worked with the Germs. I
financed the live Germs album from the Whisky a Go
Go and Ralph Peer published the music. Ray and I
were living in the future the whole time.
“As a DJ on Little Steven’s Underground Garage
channel on the SiriusXM satellite radio I play a lot
of Doors. Because they are timeless. I’m a rock ‘n’
roll soldier and a radio actor on Little Steven’s
channel. It’s the dream radio gig we all wanted in
high school. Where we could sit there and play music
and influence our class mates and our buddies and
the girls that we knew and have the power of putting
needle to vinyl or the modern equivalent and
changing someone’s life with a series of musical
combustion by creative sequencing. We put it all
together from yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
(thanks, Harvey)
June 13, 2013