Ray Manzarek - Blog Posts

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I think ray manzarek and 60s roger waters should fuse together to create the ultimate hot nerd

Jim Morrison, Dorothy Manzarek, Ray's mother Helen Manzarek, and Thor (Jim Manzarek's dog). Palos Verdes, California, 1965. 📷From the archive of Ray Manzarek

March 1967: Clay Cole's Diskotek WPIX-TV New York City

During their stint at Ondine in March 1967, The Doors would appear on a local New York television show called Clay Cole’s Discotek where they lip synced a performance of Break On Through. This one hour teenage dance program with various performers is shown on Saturdays at 6:00pm on WPIX Channel 11. The Doors return for their second appearance on June 24 where they most likely perform Light My Fire. Linda Eastman who would marry a Beatle was present and took some interesting photos.

Linda McCartney Remembers Jim Morrison

“I first photographed The Doors at a small New York club, close to the 59th Street Bridge, called Ondine’s, which was a favorite place for out of town bands to come and play residencies. It was the winter of 1966 and I was down there with some friends to see a Los Angeles band that Elektra Records had recently signed. I had my camera with me and started taking pictures of them as they played. No one in New York had heard of The Doors. They had never performed outside of Los Angeles and hadn’t released any records. Because they were unknown and the club was so intimate I had the unique opportunity of being able to get up really close as they played. It wasn’t Jim Morrison’s looks that struck me first about him. It was the poetry of his songs and the way he would get completely lost in the music. He had this habit of cupping his hand behind his ear so the he could hear his vocals the way the traditional folk singers did. I thought the whole band was great; Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore were all very creative musicans. They returned to Ondine’s in March 1967 by which time their debut album The Doors and their first single “Break On Through” had been released, and they were getting national attention. In May they played their last residency in New York – three weeks at Steve Paul’s Scene Club.

"First New York opening in a while. The Doors - Fresh from Los Angeles with an underground album of the hour - return. This time, they are worshipped, envied, bandied about like the Real Thing. The word is out or 'in' - 'The Doors will floor you'. So not all the pretty people in New York were present at opening night, but enough to keep a few publicity agencies busy. The four musicians mounted their instruments. The organist lit a stick of incense. Vocalist and writer Jim Morrison closed his eyes to all that Arnel elegance, and the Doors opened up. Morrison twitched and pouted and a cluster of girls gathered to watch every nuance in his lips. Humiliating your audience is an old game in rock 'n' roll, but Morrison pitches spastic love with an insolence you can't ignore. His material - almost all original - is literate, concise, and terrifying. The Doors have the habit of improvising, so a song about being strange which I heard for the first time at Ondine may be a completely different composition by now. Whatever the words, you will discern a deep streak of violent - sometimes Oedipal - sexuality. And since sex is what hard rock is all about, the Doors are a stunning success. You should brave all the go-go gymnastics, bring a select circle of friends for buffer, and make it up to Ondine to find out what the literature of pop is all about. The Doors are mean; and their skin is green." (Richard Goldstein, "Pop Eye," Village Voice, Mar. 25, 1967)

🔻March, 1967, photo shoot inside Ondine NYC, New York, photo by Thomas Monaster.

The Doors perform at the KTLA SHEBANG show, which took place on February 25, 1967. The Doors are filmed lip synching to a playback of their debut single 'Break On Through'. Band looks very collegiate and the unusual set up places.  Densmore at centre stage on drums between Morrison (stage left) and Manzarek. Krieger stands behind them directly in front of some garden furnishings. The host is Casey Kasem.

“It was our first time doing a TV show and we really had no idea what we were doing. When the director started telling us what to do, we just looked at each other and said, ‘I guess that’s how it is’. We learned later that wasn’t the case, but it was a great initial experience.”(Ray Manzarek)

“This is one of our first TV performances. We were clearly nervous. I mean, Jim won’t even look at the camera or anything. I’m somehow positioned in the front. I’m the ‘lead drummer’. Ridiculous!” (John Densmore)

“We had no say what-so-ever. There was a director telling us exactly what to do, and we did it. We just felt lucky to be there. Shebang was a local TV show, so it wasn’t as big as Dick Clark, but it was great to be on there.”(Robby Krieger)

On February 22, 1967, The Doors' performed at the Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills, California George Washington's Birthday Bash. This event takes place as a fundraiser & awareness concert for teenagers and the public following the Sunset Strip riots. The doors played first.  🔻February 22, 1967, Woodland Hills, California, photo by Jean Trindl

Bobby Klein : "I was the first official photographer of the Doors, and this shot was taken early on. It was 1967 and we were heading to Venice Beach to take some publicity shots but got hungry, so Jim recommended stopping off at Lucky U Cafe, his favourite place in Los Angeles to grab breakfast. It was a tiny Mexican restaurant owned by a Chinese man, pretty much just a counter with no tables. Jim ordered a beer and a menudo – a beef and chilli soup – to line his stomach. It wasn’t uncommon to see him sink six beers in an hour. I’ve always enjoyed shooting people when they’re eating because it creates an intimacy. So I got behind the counter and started snapping away. Jim was beautiful. He looked like Michelangelo’s David. He was checking me out: “Who the hell is this guy?” He didn’t suffer fools, and this was early on in our relationship. There’s an intensity in his eyes: he was totally serious about being seen as a credible poet."

January 1967, Lucky U Café, Venice Beach, photo by Bobby Klein

"The biographers seem to have lost Jim's sense of humor. I can't impress upon you enough that it was always there....He was the funniest human being I ever met. Simply that, the funniest human being I ever met." – Fud Ford New York's Central Park, spring 1968. Photo by Paul Ferrara

Jim Morrison, The Doors, "The American Poet", New York, 1966. This is the iconic "American Poet" photograph taken by Brodsky for the band's first album in 1966. Brodsky captured a young Jim Morrison shortly before The Doors became famous.

The first day the band arrived in the studio, Botnick recalls, “they had pretty much the first two albums ready to go. The thought that Paul had was that we were to be invisible – to allow them to capture the magic of The Doors as you went to hear them.” He adds: “They were totally different than anything else I was recording. I was recording the Beach Boys, The Turtles, The Ventures… and The Doors were totally different, it was the beginning of that era of American sixties music.”.   1966.11  First photo session group ©Joel Brodsky

MORE THAN just a good rock group, The Doors represent two things to their millions of followers. Either they project the music-plus-sensuality that is The Doors musical sense combined with Morrison's presence, or they can project the strange drama and rock that comes from Morrison's head.” -Pop Scene Service, April 6, 1968

©  Joel Brodsky, November 1966, New York

By 1966, Guy Webster had established himself as a go-to guy for every record company in Hollywood, so it was hardly a surprise that fall when Jac Holzman of Elektra Records hired him to create the cover for the debut album by a new group Holzman had signed. What was a surprise, at least for Guy, was that when the band showed up at his studio for the shoot, the lead singer greeted him like an old friend. It turned out they had met years before when Guy was taking a philosophy class at UCLA. It was Jim Morrison, much thinner and with much longer hair than when Guy had last seen him in the classroom. The group, of course, was the Doors, and the album cover, dominated by Morrison’s handsome face, would earn Guy his second Grammy nomination.

1966,11.  Beverly Hills, CA. © Guy Webster

Jim Morrison pictured by Oscar Abolafia, August 14, 1967

Jim and Thor (Ray's brother's doberman) hunt abalone with Ray, Dorothy and Ray's mother. At that time, Jim was living in Ray and Dorothy's house, where he was given the master bedroom. Photo courtesy of Ray Manzarek, 1965.

10/24/1966 The Doors give their first performance in New York. Billie Winters— a friend of Jim Morrison and Ondine club owner Brad Pierce, is hosting this concert for The Doors. Apparently, this performance is the first audition in residence in Ondine. After the first performance, Brad Pierce hired The Doors to perform throughout November. The Doors stay at the Henry Hudson Hotel during their stay in New York. The owner of the club, Brad Pierce, takes The Doors shopping during this period in search of new stage clothes. The Doors record their first album in Elektra Studio during the day and perform at night. During this period, Hit Parader editor and photographer Don Paulsen interviewed The Doors for the first official interview. On November 24, The Doors take a day off, they were invited to Paul Rothschild's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

📷1966.11 The Doors on the stage of the Ondine nightclub. Photo by Don Paulsen

When The Doors came together, “a diamond was formed. And it was clear and hard and luminous.” – Ray Manzarek

The Doors by Gene Trindl. During a  public photo  shoot for "Elektra Records", Los Angeles, California, late Summer-early Fall, 1966

"Urge to come to terms with the "Outside", by absorbing, interiorizing it. I won't  come out, you must come in to me. Into my womb-garden where I peer out. Where I can construct a universe within the skull, to rival the real.".  (Jim Morrison, from “The Lords: Notes on Vision”)   

 Photo Session in Frankfurt, Germany, September 14th,1968

That was a great summer. I was hanging out at the film school and I was hanging out with friends in Venice. Ray had a house there, so I’d go and watch them rehearse sometimes because we were still hanging around that summer...A few years later, after we became friends, I told Jim about my first impression of him at that first show, and I said, “I thought you were terrible that night”. I remember he gave me a look that seemed to suggest that he didn’t like the word “terrible” [laughs]...

But then I told him he had improved tremendously and he was like a Frank Sinatra crooner who could also sing rock, and I asked him, “What changed?” He just said, “I just kept practicing and I kept practicing, practicing, practicing”. And obviously he had been doing something to improve. If you listen to their first demo and then their first album, there is such a difference and you can hear it. But they rehearsed a lot and they played a lot, too. I guess you can’t really help but improve if there’s the will and the talent, right?"-Frank Lisciandro

1966.08-09 Ray's Beach House Session ©Bill Harvey

1966.08-09 Ray's Beach House Session ©Bill Harvey  

"In the beginning we were creating our music, ourselves, everynight...starting with a few outlines, maybe a few words for a song. Sometimes we worked out in Venice, looking at the surf. We were together a lot and it was good times for all of us. Acid, sun, friends, the ocean, and poetry and music." - Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison, Fillmore East, 03/22/1968