Rest in Peace... Ray Manzarek...

Ray Manzarek has passed through the doors of perception to join his Doors co-founder, Jim Morrison in the infinite. Manzarek passed away today following a battle with bile duct cancer at the age of 74. From The Doors to his solo work, he leaves behind a oeuvre of music which sounds unlike anything else ever committed to tape.

Whether it is the iconic "Light My Fire," the aptly named "Strange Days" or even the sinister carnival atmosphere of "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)", it is Manzarek's keyboard playing that sets the music of The Doors so far apart from its contemporaries. Take a listen to his solo, isolated by a YouTube user, from a performance of "Light My Fire" in Boston in 1970 to hear the genius in his playing.



With over four decades of heavy rotation air play of the music of The Doors, it would be hard to find anyone who hasn't heard at least one song by the Los Angeles quartet. Rather than focusing further on the familiar, I want you to experience and enjoy a pair of lesser known songs featuring Ray Manzarek.

Singer Jim Morrison joined the great gig in the sky on July 3, 1971, but the remaining members of The Doors decided to solider on, releasing two albums as a trio. The first one, entitled Other Voices, was recorded during the summer of Morrison's untimely passing and released in October of that year, features both Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger sharing vocal duties. Take a listen to the track "Ship With Sails" where Manzarek sounds eerily like Morrison at times yet truly holds his own in the vocal position.



Props to fellow writer and Doors fan, Mark Smotroff of Audiophilereview.com and BigPictureBigSound.com for the inspiration to include this long forgotten Doors song here. Moving forward into the 21st century, we find an amazing piece of music, from a collaboration between Manzarek and mononymously named Polish composer/trumpeter, Bal. The album they crafted together is called Atonal Head and features this stellar instrumental where both artists shine brilliantly.



I'm going to let Jim Morrison close this one out, as something he said in an interview on April 14th, 1970 about The Doors song, "The End", is incredibly poignant.

"Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate….That doesn't make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend…"

"Can you picture what will be... So limitless and free..."

"This is the end... My only friend, the end... It hurts to set you free..."

Rest in Peace, Ray Manzarek...



Lyrics from "The End" written by Jim Morrison. Used here under Fair Use doctrine.

Photo credit: Ray Manzarek at the Bospop festival, Weert, The Netherlands, 2010-07-11. Photo by Simone van den Boom, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.