The artist Ray Manzarek called “the secret weapon” of The Doors
Inevitably, when you’re in a band like The Doors, with a frontman as otherworldly as Jim Morrison, an audience’s attention is going to be largely pinned to the wild antics and enigmatic performance of that rock and roll god, rather than on the surrounding collection of incredibly skilled musicians who form the backbone of the material.
From the very beginning of The Doors’ drug-fueled jaunt to the upper echelon of American counterculture, the curled locks and exuberant personality of Morrison were always the prevailing draw. In many ways, after all, the Florida-born songwriter was the archetypal rock frontman, capable of putting on a spectacular show but always backed up with genuinely profound songwriting talents and a certain mysterious darkness to his existence, which cannot help but cause intrigue.
What’s more, Morrison tended to head up the band’s songwriting efforts, too, culminating in some of the greatest and most experimental offerings of the 1960s, even if they were delivered in a haze of acid trips and perpetual hangovers. Ultimately, though, the focus being placed entirely upon Morrison does a great disservice to the rest of The Doors; Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore were each, in their own way, utterly essential to the transformative sound of the band.
With a deep appreciation for jazz and R&B experimentation, Densmore and Manzarek were particularly essential to the ambitious sounds being strived for by The Doors throughout their golden period during the late 1960s. It is often forgotten just how expansive the band’s sound was, drawing upon everything from avant-garde expressionism to down-and-dirty funk and everything in between, with a core part of those influences coming directly from Manzarek.
Nevertheless, the legendary keyboardist has always been quick to point out that The Doors were unwaveringly entrenched in collaboration, rather than being built solely around the stylings of Jim Morrison. For instance, Manzarek has always been quick to promote the songwriting power of his bandmate Robby Krieger, which is an aspect of The Doors which far too often goes underrated.
“Robby was a different sort of lyric writer,” the keyboardist told Best Classic Bands, before his tragic passing back in 2013. “He might be the secret weapon of The Doors. Seemingly, Krieger was everything you could have possibly hoped for from a guitarist.”
“We get this great guitar player who plays bottleneck, and all of a sudden, he comes in and plays ‘Light My Fire’, the first song he ever co-wrote with Jim,” Manzarek recalled.
‘Light My Fire’ being one of The Doors’ ultimate defining tracks should give you some indication of just how essential Krieger was for the band. Either as a songwriter, guitarist or, in a select few cases, a vocalist, his contributions to the sound of The Doors are utterly unavoidable, and his fingerstyle playing method always set the group apart from their counterculture contemporaries.
So, even if the attention tends to be pinned upon the shirtless Jim Morrison when it comes to discussing The Doors, they simply wouldn’t have been the same band without their genius of a guitarist.
