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This feature is based on my previously-unpublished 2011 interview with the late Doors keyboardist. \u2013 bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI used to play in a band called The Doors<\/strong>.\u201d That deadpan, unprompted statement from Ray Manzarek<\/strong> came about two minutes into our August 2011 phone conversation. I had scheduled an interview with the keyboardist to discuss his involvement in an odd-duck new album project from the enigmatic Sly Stone<\/strong> (that resulting feature is here<\/a>), and since we had a limited amount of time, I had planned to confine my questions to that subject. But Manzarek was \u2013 fortunately for me, as it happens \u2013 quite eager to discuss much more than that.<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d he continued, \u201cwas before your time.\u201d I assured him that, no, it wasn’t, and that I own quite a few Doors LPs.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you a vinyl man?\u201d he asked. I told him that I had in the neighborhood of 5,000 albums. \u201cDon’t move!\u201d he cautioned me. I then told him that I had in fact moved four times<\/em> between summer 2006 and spring 2007, and that my friends had all warned me not to call them for help should I ever move again.<\/p>\n Manzarek preferred the warmth of vinyl, too: \u201cYou know how I can tell the difference,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe organ. The Vox organ on the Doors albums. Let me listen to vinyl of the first album, and then let me listen to digital. Where is that round, rich warmth? It’s not there!\u201d<\/p>\n The first time I finally got a CD player and brought it home,\u201d he continued, \u201cI played some Yo Yo Ma<\/strong> cello, some Bach<\/strong> cello solos. These were actually digital, DDD recordings. And my wife said, ‘Get it off! What is that sound? What is going on? I feel like my nerves are being scratched and rent and torn!’\u201d<\/p>\n An unsympathetic listener to our conversation might have remarked that we sounded like a pair of cranky old guys. I moaned about MP3s: \u201cSomebody decided it would be a great idea to create low fidelity versions of popular music and then share those!\u201d He concurred, comparing the act of listening to an MP3 player to that of being a \u201cteenager with a transistor radio in 1958.\u201d It went on like that for some time; we both laughed a lot, neither of us seeming in a great hurry to discuss that Sly Stone album.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lived in L.A. \u2013 now we’re up in northern California, near Napa \u2013 and back then we used to go to a Japanese stereo store,\u201d Manzarek told me. This was back when \u201cthe Japanese were flush, when they owned Rockefeller Center. [Travelers from Japan] would come visit Los Angeles, and stop in at this stereo shop in Little Tokyo to get their American equipment. We’d drool<\/em> over that place. The equipment was to die for: ‘Gee, if I only had five thousand dollars for a set of speakers!’ The tubes were gleaming; they had everything [turned] on in there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen we’d have some sushi next door. But we never bought anything from the shop,\u201d he chuckled. \u201cBut what a dream factory that high-end stereo shop was.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about his keyboard technique, he joked \u2013 he was in a jovial mood throughout \u2013 that \u201cI’ve got ten maniacs at the end of my hand. They’re irresponsible, and I am not responsible for three-quarters of the things they do. I just put the headphones on and go, ‘All right guys, there it is…play something good!’\u201d<\/p>\n
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