Ray Manzarek
Occupation
Actor
A Week In News: Ray Manzarek Dies, Taylor Swift's Disgusted Reaction And Brad Pitt Talks Drugs
By Michael West in Lifestyle / Showbiz on 22 May 2013
In a positively packed week for news, The Doors' keyboard pioneer Ray Manzarek sadly passed away, while George Michael cheated death by falling out of a speeding car. Justin Bieber was once again in the headlines for various discrepancies.
End of the Night: Tributes were paid this week to Ray Manzarek, pioneering keyboardist with The Doors who died in Germany aged 74. He formed the band with lead singer Jim Morrison after a chance meeting in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, and the pair went on to create some of the finest rock music in history.
Yukkk! Taylor Swift inadvertently created internet gold this week after making a serious "Yukkkk!" face when her pal Selena Gomez embraced with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber backstage at the Billboard Music Awards 2013. The whole thing was caught on camera - and it's hilarious.
Continue reading: A Week In News: Ray Manzarek Dies, Taylor Swift's Disgusted Reaction And Brad Pitt Talks Drugs
RIP Ray Manzarek: Doors Man's Influence Cannot Be Quantified
By Contributor in Music / Festivals on 21 May 2013
Organ player had been fighting cancer.
“Tonight, Monday May 20th, The Whisky A Go Go, The Roxy, The Viper Room and The House Of Blues on The Sunset Strip will all dim their lights at 9:31PM PDT in honor of Ray Manzarek. Ray sadly passed away last night in Germany at 9:31PM” so reads a message on the official Facebook page of The Doors. It comes, of course, in the wake of the sad death of the band’s co-founder and keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer, aged 74.
Manzarek’s influence cannot be underestimated; forming The Doors in the mid 60’s with the iconic Jim Morrison, the keyboardist and organ player revolutionised the psych rock sound with his Fender Rhodes piano playing the part of the bass notes instead of the band having a bass player. The sound came to be copied – right until this day – by psych band from around the world, while The Doors themselves became one of the most influential bands in the world in general, thanks to their mix of old school rock & roll, blues and trippier tendencies that took in a whole range of genres. Manzarek’s best known moment on a Doors recording will undoubtedly be the winding organ riff on six minute epic ‘Light My Fire’, but he worked with several others and on his own to various effect, including trying to help save the career of a then-ailing Iggy Pop in the mid 1970’s, as well as producing for Liverpool-based post-punk group Echo & The Bunnymen in the early 1980’s.
It will be records like The Doors and Morrison Hotel that Manzarek will be remembered for, though, for performances at The Whisky A Go Go during that group’s early career, and for his dazzling organ playing that added a finesse to Morrison’s animalistic howls.
Continue reading: RIP Ray Manzarek: Doors Man's Influence Cannot Be Quantified
Ray Manzarek Passes Away Following Hidden Battle With Cancer
By Joe Wilde in Lifestyle / Showbiz on 21 May 2013
The iconic keyboardist has passed away in Germany
Ray Manzarek, the keyboard player and co-founded of The Doors with Jim Morrison, passed away at a clinic in Germany Monday (May 20), according to a post on the band's Facebook page. He was 74-year-old.
Manzarek death was caused by bile duct cancer, which the music legend had kept quiet from the public in the build up to his untimely demise. Ray was a founding member of the legendary rock group that formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, effectively ending with the death of iconic frontman Jim Morrison in 1971. The band did perform and release music again in various other guises after, with a variety of differing frontmen. He is portrayed by Kyle MacLachlan in the Oliver Stone biopic of the band.
Continue reading: Ray Manzarek Passes Away Following Hidden Battle With Cancer
Mayor Of The Sunset Strip Review
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Like most viewers of his documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip, director George Hickenlooper (The Man From Elysian Fields), doesn't seem initially all that impressed with little Rodney Bingenheimer. A small, black-clad moppet with a Monkees haircut, Rodney may be this legendary DJ for Los Angeles alt-rock powerhouse KROQ, but how cool could he be? Then there's that scene early on when Rodney's taking us through his house, showing his walls of framed photographs and letters, some quite impressive, when he gets to Elvis's driver's license. You can hear Hickenlooper stop short and ask, "What? How did you get that?" Rodney says off-handedly, "Oh, he gave it to me," as though talking about somebody loaning him a dollar, before tottering away on his little matchstick legs.
To look at the life of Rodney is to look at a near-complete history of several decades of music. A shy kid from a broken home, Rodney left Mountain View, California, for Hollywood in the early 1960s and never really left. Quickly making himself at home on the Sunset Strip scene, Rodney surrounded himself with every kind of celebrity, especially from the music industry. One interviewee after another comments on his Andy Warhol-like blank demeanor that allows the famous and talented to see reflections of themselves. But there is also an eternally childlike innocence to him that was quickly picked up on: Cher, who practically adopted Rodney for a time with Sonny, talks about how you could just tell that Rodney never wanted anything from you, just to be there and absorb the glittery experience was enough. There's a sense of a kid trying to make up for his own fractured past with a famous family, and also just looking for someone to take care of him.
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