If The Doors and the Blues shared one most common quality, it would be Mystique. A certain inexpressible vacuum that commands homage and withdraws attraction; yet, though millennia of the witty, wealthy and wise have fiercely demanded submission of this most seductive of qualities, Mystique as held her own; ever timeless, always beyond intentional grasp.
The mystique of The Doors is far greater than the Oedipal allusions and elusive poetry of their famed front man, who lived to age twenty-seven, but has been roaming the End for over forty years now. To the wild, excited ear, it was the whimsical-but-haunted keyboard ethereal of Ray Manzarek, buffeted by the uncommon navigation of guitarist Robbie Krieger and the unheralded drive of drummer John Densmore that equally invoked the strange, alluring confusion that many found irresistible. Manzarek, however, was the glue- imposing Chopin and Satie and Spann over hypnotic bass creeps that turned the mid and late sixties sideways.
Turning popular music sideways on its ear never seemed to be John Lee Hooker’s concern, yet his wholly individual concept of the “blues” did just that. Permeating the soul of rock and roll through bands like The Doors and Canned Heat, Hooker personified American blues as much as Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters, yet stood removed from their sounds as a distinct voice, lusting in his own desires, marching to his own drummer.
Such was the fierce individualism that a young Roy Rogers found himself enveloped by as he went to work for Hooker in the latter part of the bluesman’s storied career. A musicologist of the highest order, Rogers blossomed into an artist capable of summoning the ghosts of legends long gone when he chose to evoke certain styles, yet was dedicated to developing his own unique voice on the guitar, becoming a master of the slide guitar in the era between Duane’s departure and the height of the Haynes/Trucks reign.
It is this shared quality of the Unique that perhaps not only draws these men together, but also then draws something beautiful further out of the pairing. As evidenced by their second album Translucent Blues, they continue to find new ways to consider the blues; as a sieve through which other music can be acclimated; as a pilot whose guidance can be trusted; and as a warmly-lit home, to venture forth from and return lovingly back to.
After spending portions of the last year on the road in duo and full-band settings, Manzarek and Rogers recently played Wanee 2012 as part of a southeast run. Follow their trek at www.manzarek-rogersband.com, where you can also sample Translucent Blues and pick up a copy.
BF: You both have distinguished careers and histories, but not necessarily intertwined. How did this union come about?
Ray Manzarek: Our good, close friend, and man that books gigs for both of us individually, Steve Gordon, said “Hey, why don’t you guys get together and see how you would play”, ‘cause Roy’s a bluesman and I’m from the southside of Chicago.
We played in California, up in the wine country, the Raven Theater in Heelsburg, a very lovely, very hip city, and we hit it off, it worked well, it sounded good, and so we said let’s do it again. Then we played another one, and another one, and here we are, evolved into a CD.
BF: How long ago was that first gig?
RM: Five years.
Roy Rogers: It was almost serendipity. I didn’t know Ray from before, and he didn’t know me. It was one of those situations where, like Ray said, it kind of “clicked”, so if something clicks, we’re both of the mind to see where it goes, and this is where’s it’s taken us.
RM: And Roy’s smart!
BF: He is a musicologist- he should be smart.
RR: I’m just trying to keep up with him.
RM: We’re both smart, and we could actually talk about things! I think that’s why we’re still together. If we’re going to ride in a car from here to there…
BF: Some marriages don’t last five years.
RM: You’re right- some marriages don’t last five years
RR: We could talk intelligently, and respectfully disagree and still be friends. What a concept! [laughs]
BF: Were either of you familiar with each other’s music previous to working together?
RM: Well, I knew he was a bluesman, and played slide guitar.
BF: Roy, you had obviously at least heard of the Doors.
RR: Obviously. I knew of Ray and the Doors. I am always up for trying new things, collaborations, especially with people that from a different ilk, but I knew Ray’s background somewhat, but I didn’t know him personally. It’s always fun to pursue something where you don’t know where it’s going to go. I think that’s intriguing from any standpoint, wherever you’re coming from musically. You know, “Where can this go?”, and if it doesn’t work out, fine, it was a nice try.
BF: The album is called Translucent Blues, which is interesting in that the Blues are the “transparent” sieve that an extraordinary amount of diverse influences are filtered through. However, five years into your parternship, why make a blues record?
RM: This is “contemporary” blues, this is “21st century blues”. A contemporary adaptation of the basic foundation of the 12-bar blues, but an expansion on that, musically. Lyrically, we’re working with poets. Roy’s written a couple of the songs, otherwise we’re playing with poets. We have the late, great Jim Carroll, who wrote The Basketball Diaries, he’s written some lyrics for us. We have Michael McClure, a beat poet that I’ve worked with over these years, and friend of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, the elder statesmen of “beatnickery”- he’s written some words for us.
We’ve got a couple of lines, actually from Warren Zevon, that kicked off a whole bunch of ideas for some other people to write words to. We’ve also got Jazz Poet out of LA, a guy I’ve known since before the Doors, a bass player, Michael C. Ford. Scott Richardson, out of Detroit, who played in Detroit in the 60’s with the Scott Richardson Case, and well-known Midwestern stuff, and then came out to California and got totally psychelisized, and we’ve got some lyrics by him, too.
So we’re combining poetry with a contemporary adaptation of 21st century blues- a contemporary adaption; to me 21st century blues.
RR: I think it was important to us, when we were putting together the material- there’s a certain sound to this record. [You] don’t exactly know what sound you’re going for, but in the course of playing and putting a record together, hopefully you’ll create a sound that is unique.
BF: The voice emerges…
RR: Yeah, you don’t know how it’s going to end up- it depends on the material and how it comes together, bouncing ideas like Ray has done for his whole career, and me too. We just bounce stuff off each other, and hopefully, at the end of the day, you have a sound that represents you, that nobody else gets. We don’t want to recreate a sound, we’re just trying to go for it- “what can we do with this?”. I think we’ve accomplished that to a large degree. It will depend on if people pick up on it or not.
BF: Playing together, did you find yourselves playing differently than you do with different people?
RM: Well I did- I certainly found myself playing differently with Roy and creating a new sound- the “Ray/Roy sound”, and it’s ineffable. There’s no words to describe it, unfortunately [laughs]. Words can do a lot, but they cannot describe music. It can be soft, it can be loud, it can be melancholy, and so we touch on everything, at once joyous, it’s sad, there’s some melancholy stuff in there, there’s some joyous stuff in there- there’s all sorts of moods that we approach and capture. But I definitely play differently with Roy than I would play with somebody else ten years ago, and I couldn’t even begin to tell you what that is. It’s a feeling- “blues with a feeling”...
RR: Same for me. If you’re communicating with somebody musically- for example, in my band I’ve never had a keyboard before. And Ray’s got a style he’s known for, of course- his influence is widespread, but we bounce off ideas and I think we both played differently. You pick up on things inherently that you don’t even know about, and I think that’s what Ray is saying- and that’s the way music should work. Especially in a roots thing like the blues, like Ray just said, you’re going for a feeling and where is that taking you. [It’s] something you can’t describe in an encyclopedic way just exactly how that happens, nor should you. I hope it’s always a mystery! [laughs] I hope it’s always an elusive animal…
RM: Well, the blues is mysterious. It’s a mysterious artform.
RR: No doubt.
RM: It’s mysterious American music. [Poetically reciting “The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)]: “Comes out of the Virginia swamps, cool and slow with a back beat narrow and hard to master… Some call it heavenly in its brilliance; others, mean and rueful of the American Dream…”
RR: [Laughing] Well, that about covers the gamut!
BF: You both, outside of the music, have invested much of yourselves into advancing your own “cultures”. Ray’s work has always tried to advance the causes of filmmakers and poets that influenced him and his work, and Roy, you’ve been a musicologist and noted blues historian for years. Was that a driving theme with this album, or was it more important to perhaps forget all that and just try to make something “new”?
RM: Both. It’s both drawing on all the influences I’ve had, and constructs a new and different shaped pyramid. A pyramid that is a different shape entirely- I don’t know what the heck you’d call it, other than it’s “translucent”. So I’m using all my antecedents to create this new form of blues music. That’s what I’ve got to say.
RR: It’s always the sum of the parts. Wherever you’re coming from, wherever you’re at, it’s always a cumulative thing, whether you like it or not. You can’t help but present the influences that have come up to this point in time for anybody. That’s how it goes together.
We worked a fair amount of time just “woodshedding”, as we would say, just playing and bouncing stuff. Either things develop- some ideas you pick up on, and some you don’t, and that’s always a great way to fly, because that’s where creativity come out and it’s an open situation where you’re not defining “oh, this is how you play this”. [It’s more] “This is the idea I have, let’s see what happens”. That’s always a great way to collaborate.
This record, in particular, for both of us, is a true collaboration, because in large part, if I may be so bold, we inspired each other, hearing what the other guy was playing. We had a ball in the studio, by the way, just went in really prepared and had fun.
RM: Absolutely
RR: A lot of times you don’t have a lot of fun!
RM: You have to leave the studio open to some improvisation- there was obviously improvisation. The structures of the songs remain the same, but the improvisation within that unusual structure that each song had- we were free to improvise. That keeps it fresh- you’ve got to improvise. That’s the nature of modern American music, or should be. You should be improvising- certainly what the Doors did, and what the blues guys did. You’ve got your basic formula, your basic riffs per song, but within that, you improvise.
Jazz is the same thing. Jazz is a more intellectual outgrowth of the blues. John Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things”- there are certain things he plays every time he plays the song, but he completely varies what the bulk of the song is going to be, and that’s what these were. How I play chords would vary. How I would structure- that’s the great thing about being a keyboard player. You plan an A minor- and you can play an A minor seventh, an A minor ninth, you can invert that A minor, you can put that C up on the top- you can do some many different things, and that’s what I do. I had a great time. Making the record was a great time. We recorded it in Studio E, it’s called, in Sausalito, California, right on the ocean, right on San Francisco Bay. Man- it was like being a hippie again, I’m telling you [laughs].
RR: [On the record} there’s some great keyboard textures. I remember Ray doing some of his overdubs, he was just having fun doing that. Doing overdubs, after the basics were recorded, to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s the “flexibility”, and I hope people pick up on it. It’s really fresh sounding to me.
RM: And it’s always fun, even if you’re doing “dark”, “evil”... [laughs]. And they’re on there; it’s dark- there’s a definite darkness in there.
BF: There’s one tune towards the end, very melodic and melancholy- “As You…”
RM: “As You Leave”. That’s a 1964 French Existensial movie [all laugh]. That’s music for Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt.
RR: I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr. Manzarek.
RM: It’s meant to be, man. That’s a movie with Bridget Bardot acting- actually acting. If you haven’t seen that movie, see it. That’s what I play when I’m playing through it. That’s what the whole piece is, “As You Leave”- it’s a heartbreak in Paris in 1964.
BF: One of the reasons the pairing of you two so interesting is that there are many parallels that naturally arise between you both, one of which is “reinvention”. Through your careers and in many different ways, why has the idea of reinvention, of yourselves and your influences, been so necessary to your music?
RM: It just keeps happening! I guess it’s reinvention, or… you’re always pushing the boundaries. I don’t know that I reinvent myself- I just push the boundaries, to attempt to do something I haven’t done before. Or… I’m under the control of ten little maniacs [dangling his fingers] at the end of my arms. And you never know where they’re going to go or what they’re going to do- it’s amazing! You sit down at the keyboards, in a way, you almost go into a hypnotic trance, in which other powers seem to come through you. Or these digits take a life onto themselves, and start to play little patterns that they’ve never played before. And I’ve played patterns with Roy that I’ve never played before. I don’t know where the hell they come from. But you just turn it loose, turn these guys loose- “Alright Mr. Right Hand- go! Mr. Left Hand- play a nice line!” and off they go. When something happens that hasn’t happened before, I try to remember- “Oh, I’ve got to keep that ‘mistake’ in this song” and off I go.
Photo by Domenic A Izzi, Jr.
BF: Is that what keeps it fresh for you after all these years?
RM: It’s always fresh, music is always fresh. Even when you play the same thing, like “Light My Fire”. “Light My Fire” has to go [scats the keyboard intro]- the introduction to “Light My Fire” has got to be the introduction to “Light My Fire”. It’s like Miles Davis playing “Milestones”- it’s got to be ‘what it is’, but after that, it’s gone. And as far as the collaboration, and the two of us working off those principles- artistic comparison with Godard’s Contempt- I think of us as the Braque and Picasso of music, doing “cubist blues”. Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso were cubists- they invented cubism. We didn’t invent anything here, but we have modified the blues in a cubist sort of way. So- Braque and Picasso of the blues! [laughs]
RR: Pretty high company!
RM: You know- just in comparison
RR: Ray said it very succinctly. I wouldn’t call it ‘reinvention’ either, it’s being open. [Talking to Ray] You’re always open for pursuing something new, and I consider the same for me. I’m more associated with the blues, producing John Lee Hooker and so forth, but I like to take it ‘outside’ also. You don’t know where that’s going to go.
RM: Working with John Lee Hooker- there’s a man who never stayed within the 12-bar blues format. He could, and there may be times he did, but most of the times he did not. So, Roy’s been outside the blues- within the basic framework of the blues, yet outside the blues for a long, long time now.
RR: I did a session one time with John Lee Hooker and Miles Davis, [The] Hot Spot. I tell you- Miles was in there with John; Taj Mahal and I are backing up John Lee, and Miles comes in and riffs- he had smiles on his face the whole time. Why? Because it’s the same thing- it’s what we’re talking about. It’s like a stretch. It’s not like you have to take any sort of substitution chord- you’re just playing your heart and soul and it comes down to the same kind of thing. I’m not comparing our music to that music- it’s how you approach your music- it’s inherent with those cats. It’s inherent, they just automatically do it. Maybe we have more of a thought process about how we’re going to approach this, but once we’re in there playing it, as Ray was stating, you’re not thinking about it at all. You don’t want to think about it, you just want to play it, and that’s what we tried to get here [holding up a copy of the album]. That’s what we tried to go for- that’s what I always try to go for- I don’t want to have to think about it when I’m playing. Otherwise, that thought process can get in the way of what actually comes out. Like Ray says with his fingers, he doesn’t know where they going to go- well, that’s a good thing in my book. It’s always a good thing, otherwise, [the] music is too pat and you don’t progress at all. You’re playing the same thing over and over, like a lot of folks do, and you’re, like, treading water. You’re not swimming anywhere.
BF: I can honestly say I’ve never heard the term “cubist blues” before, and it’s obvious that a lot of thought and reflection was put into this project, which seems indicative of perhaps the biggest problem in modern music- it’s no longer for thinking artists who want to evolve; it’s a matter of marketing, it’s a matter of “what will sell”, even though it’s not selling anymore.
RM: Isn’t that the truth!
RR: That’s the understatement of the year! [all laughing]
RM: It’s a bit ironic- you’re not selling, so you try to make something that’s even more commercial ! You know, the musicians have to be supported- you have to support your local musicians. You’ve got to buy some art from a musician, so that the musician can pay the rent, buy some food, have a little transportation, put some clothes on his back, and then have lots of free time to imagine, and lots of free time to create, and lots of free time to imagine what the world could be, and to bring us messages from the outside, from beyond ordinary reality, and to enter that state of ‘non-ordinary reality’ that a musician should occupy. All artists should bring back messages from that other place, that other side. You’ve to pay the musician to do that, so I feel sorry for today’s young people who are trying to make a living. Being an artist, it’s…
RR: Double tough. It’s double tough. I’m of the same opinion. Technology has downplayed the importance, unfortunately, of music in peoples’ lives because they just take it that it’s there and should be. I don’t agree that you shouldn’t pay for music at all. You have to support the art- if something’s important, there’s a price to it. It has a price. Not just something buy, but something that has worth. If you buy something, that means it has a worth to you. When I think of the value of, as a kid, going out and buying an LP, and now it’s… I don’t think people realize that by not purchasing the music, they’re actually hurting the creative art.
RM: That whole thing about ‘music should be free’- music should be free. A song costs a dollar… but music is free… but a song is going to cost you a buck [all laughing].
BF: It’s interesting to consider- do you think a band like the Velvet Underground or the Doors could come along today in the rock world?
RM: Oh, absolutely man, absolutely. Of course.
BF: Let me ask you this. Do you think it’s possible for a band like that today to get traction the way it happened in the mid-to-late 60’s?
RM: Well, you know, the 60’s were psychedelic. I don’t know that you’d call the times today psychedelic. I don’t know how much opening of the doors of perception [the name of the 1954 Aldous Huxley book which took its name from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, from which the Doors also took their name] goes on with people these days. I don’t know how many young people have ingested certain hallucinogenic psychedelic substances. I would venture to guess precious few. I think it’s a “boozing” time- it’s a time of great booze consumption.
BF: Which is actually kind of what your generation came out of, yes?
RM: Oh god, yes! In the 50’s, there was nothing in the 50’s. There was booze, [which] never much appealed to me.
BF: It was also a post-war time.
RM: Yep, yep. But you know, the Beatniks were there, smoking reefer. And the jazz musicians were smoking reefer, so there was an intrigue to that. But there was no intrigue to the fact that jazz musicians used heroin, post-World War II heroin [users]. [It was like] “Forget it man- no white powder! No heroin, what are you doing- heroin?” I guess they were just waiting for LSD to come along.
RR: But in a larger context, in reference to the 60’s as opposed to an era [now] with a band like [The Doors} coming up, it would be very difficult to come up, because of the club scene and the record business, as we know it, is no longer. In that context, it would be next to impossible. Not impossible, but very improbable for a band like The Doors or the Velvet Underground… you’d have to come up a different way. The music biz, performance-wise, touring-wise, it’s done still, I suppose…
RM: New bands are always coming up.
RR: They’re always coming up, but it’s a different manner.
RM: Kings of Leon all of a sudden came out of wherever the hell- where are they from?
BF: Tennessee.
RM: Yes, Tennessee guys, that’s right. And they’re like the biggest band around- they came out of nothing.
BF: True, but it wasn’t an over-night thing. I remember buying their first record [ Holy Roller Novocaine ] in the early 2000’s. Where as, like with The Doors, you were let go by The London Fog, walked down the street, and were hired on by the Whiskey a Go Go as the house band. You were on Columbia, got out of the contract, and then went on to have tremendous success with Elektra.
RM: It will never happen again. It was a different time. Now… somebody has to figure out how to work the system today. What do you do? Well, you play a lot of live gigs. Geez… the Chemical Brothers just scored a whole movie [ Hanna ]. It’s like, “Shit, I want to go see the movie!” I don’t care what the movie is- I just want to hear the Chemical Brothers on some big theater screen, you know?
So, electronica-the guys who are doing electronica. Not a lot of girls doing electronica, but certainly, women can twist the knobs and make patches just as readily and just as well as guys can. [It’s] my new favorite form of music- when people say “what do you listen to today, Ray?”, I say I listen to electronica. I listen to all the stuff that those people can do. I just wish it wasn’t so dominated by four-on-the-floor pulsation for dancing, because there’s so many other things you can do with electronica. You don’t have to maintain a steady 4-4-4 beat- you can do anything. So I want to hear Latin stuff with electronica. I want to hear Japanese simulations and Japanese kotos [the 13-string national instrument of Japan] and the shakuhachi [Japanese bamboo flute]. I want to hear Chinese music, electronically done. I want to hear guys from China- girls from China- playing basic Chinese music, filtered through electronics, with a whole rhythmic beat going on. That’s the future- that’s what’s going to be happening.
RR: That should be organic- the beat. I couldn’t agree more about the beat. I’ll say it like this- I don’t like the beat dictated by a machine. It should be people playing the beat. The beat is the human- it keeps the organic quality, whether it’s electronic or whatever kind of music you’re talking about. It’s got to have that organic quality and for some- maybe it’s just because of my roots and the blues- but it’s like a foot tap. Most of the main records, whether it’s jazz, or rock and roll, or blues, they’re all a physical drummer. I don’t like machines, as far as dictating the beat like Ray’s saying. They might have their usage in music- I’m not saying that, but for my money, you’ve got to have that organic thing that ties your, as Miles Davis would say, one foot in the mud. You’ve got to have one foot that’s in the mud, and you do that with the rhythm.
RM: Humans beings can do it too, you know. A machine goes ‘dut-dut-dut-dut’, 1-2-3-4-over-and-over but human beings can do it too. [When} you’ve got an actual person, a living entity, a vibratory universe playing a beat- hell, you want to play four-on-the-floor, man, fine- but let’s let the person do it. Whoa, that really communicates it… and ... it works if you’re on ecstasy, you know [all laughing]... it’s two in the morning, the lights are flashing…
RR: It’s all about the experience!
RM: Yeah, you know, go ahead and dance to the machine, I mean God bless. But I would highly advise, that after that’s over with, go out and love one another. Go out and love each other- can you do that for me? Can you do one thing for ole Uncle Ray here? Can you love each other?
BF: It’s 1967 all over again.
RM: Hey, I’m telling ya, man, let’s have it in the 21st Century, please.
BF: John Lee Hooker is a sure common ground between you two. The Doors explored the organic, droning sound that was a unique part of Hooker’s work, but to you both, what did he mean? He doesn’t get name dropped like Muddy and Wolf, yet he had a tremendous range of influence on American music.
RR: He was a force. First of all, his voice- [the legends] all had a unique voice. When you talk about communicating, John Lee had one of the greatest vocal… he could emit such emotions through his vocals. It was trance like stuff. You get back to a John Lee Hooker, and he did it differently every time, as we sort of alluded to earlier. He did it one time, and if we did it a second time, it would be like completely different version. That’s the way that approach was. [To say] “Oh, that was a great lick, do that again”- no, no, you’d never say that to John Lee Hooker. He just did the song how he did it, and that’s the joy of his presence, and that comes through his music. The emotion that comes through his music… It’s so influential, not only on vocalists, like Van Morrison comes to mind obviously, but just an untold number. You’d be surprised, or maybe not, at the number of country singers who John Lee Hooker was their favorite blues vocalist.
Music is about a feeling, and John always said that in his interviews too. And boy, if anybody approached his music with the ultimate amount of feeling, it was John Lee Hooker. And you can’t measure that amount of influence, you just can’t. It’s too far and wide.
RM: I heard “Boogie Chillun” on the radio when I was probably, hell I don’t know, 12, 13, 14 years old. Killed me, man, killed me. And I loved the story- {starts reciting the lyrics, and then turns to Roy] what was it that the mom says?
RR: You got to that man boogie-woogie.
RM: That’s what the dad said. Let that boy boogie-woogie, it’s in him, and it’s got to come out. And I identified with that song. And that guitar part is great; as they say, an ‘ostinato’, staying on the same chord. Howlin’ Wolf did that too. It’s fabulous, man. There’s no chord changes, so it’s not a 1-4-5 blues. It’s not a 12-bar blues. But if ain’t the blues, then I don’t know what it is. Of course it’s the blues, because it contains the blue note. The bluuuue note- ‘BAM!’, bending that note. It’s like an African-American version of playing the sitar of Indian music. It’s that bending note, it’s those quarter tones that are hidden in the guitar strings. Can’t do that on a keyboard, man. I cannot do that on a keyboard- although you have the bend wheel, the modulation wheel on the synthesizers.
RR: You’ve to compete with those in-between notes on the slide, man.
RM: That’s why the keyboard and the guitar go so well together. One can do what the other can’t do.
BF: It was either in your biography or Densmore’s where it was described the first time Jim Morrison heard Robbie Krieger played slide-
RM: It’s not fucking Densmore’s [all laughing]. You read it somewhere. One of the Doors said…
BF: But the story goes that Jim freaked out and wanted it on every song.
RM: Morrison heard it, and just loved it.
BF: And now you’re playing with a slide master.
RM: I’m doing it again!
RR: He can’t get away from us.
RM: I can’t get away from those slide guys, man. It’s like playing with Ravi Shankar- those bent notes, ooh, give me a shiver. And Morrison, it gave him such a shiver, he elevated. He actually, at that point, elevated about 3 or 4 inches off the ground. I pulled him back down, ‘cause he was headed towards the ceiling. I said “No, no, no, don’t reveal that part of yourself to these guys, ‘cause we don’t know if these are the guys. A year from now, you can go ahead and elevate if you want to.”
RR: [It’s cause] you’re playing between the lines, man, between the lines.
