Ray Manzarek, 74, Chicago-born keyboardist co-founded The Doors with Jim Morrison

[Matthew Kruk]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/20238645-418/ray-manzarek-74-chicago-born-keyboardist-co-founded-the-doors-with-jim-morrison.html

Ray Manzarek, 74, Chicago-born keyboardist co-founded The Doors with Jim
Morrison
By CHRIS TALBOTT AP Music Writer
May 20, 2013 6:18PM
Updated: May 21, 2013 7:24AM

Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist and founding member of The Doors who had a
dramatic impact on rock 'n' roll, has died. He was 74.

Mr. Manzarek, who was born in Chicago, died Monday at the RoMed Clinic in
Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family, said publicist Heidi
Robinson-Fitzgerald. Robinson-Fitzgerald said his manager, Tom Vitorino,
confirmed Mr. Manzarek died around 2:30 p.m. Chicago time, after being stricken
by bile duct cancer.

Mr. Manzarek grew up on the South Side, attending Everett Elementary School and
St. Rita High School before enrolling at DePaul, where he graduated with an
economics degree.

Mr. Manzarek headed west to UCLA, where he met Jim Morrison at UCLA film school.
The two ran into each other in Venice a few months after graduation, Mr.
Manzarek recounted in a 1967 interview with Billboard.

The two were kindred spirits, as Mr. Manzarek discovered when Morrison read him
the lyrics for a song called "Moonlight Drive."

"I'd never heard lyrics to a rock song like that before," Manzarek said. "We
talked a while before we decided to get a group together and make a million
dollars."

The band would make far more than that. The Doors, which also included guitarist
Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore, have sold more than 100 million albums
and their music has been re-released and repackaged multiple times over the
years, been featured prominently in movies and holds an oft-debated place in
rock history.

The group is best known for hits like "Light My Fire," "L.A. Woman," "Break On
Through to the Other Side" and "The End" and came to symbolize the decadence of
Los Angeles as the counterculture grew in the U.S.

Morrison's 1971 death in Paris brought an effective end to the band. Mr.
Manzarek briefly tried to hold the band together by serving as vocalist, but
eventually the group fell apart. He played in other bands over the years,
produced other acts, became an author and worked on films.

Mr. Manzarek and Krieger reunited to tour as The Doors in recent years.

The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Mr. Manzarek is
among the most notable keyboard players in rock history. His lead-instrument
work with the band at a time when the guitar often dominated added a distinct
end-times flavor that matched Morrison's often out-there imagery and persona.

While Morrison, with his proto-celebrity lifestyle and tragic end, forever will
remain the face of The Doors, one could argue Mr. Manzarek's keyboard work was
every bit as important and helped balance some of the singer's more over-the-top
moments.

His creepy organ line on "Light My Fire" adds a weirdo menace to what outwardly
is a rock 'n' roll pick-up song. And his after-hours, lounge style on "Riders On
the Storm" transforms that song into an epic.

Mr. Manzarek is survived by his wife, Dorothy, his son Pablo and two brothers,
Rick and James.

Contributing: Thomas Conner