Ray Manzarek Keyboardist for The Doors Dies at 74

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Published on Tuesday, May 21 2013 14:31

Written by Bluebird

Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist and founding member of The Doors has died at 74 years old. He passed away Monday at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family. (Monday, May 20, 2013, 12:31 PM PT). Many sources reported that he struggled with bile duct cancer.

Manzarek was from Chicago and founded The Doors after meeting Jim Morrison in Venice Beach, California. Morrison was a poet then, and the creativity between his lyrics and Manzarek's keys were unmatched. The Doors, with their hip, psychedelic, rock groove, changed the landscape of recorded music and live shows for the rest of rock and progressive music history. Concerts were controversially like parties and sit-ins, where fans often had communal experiences with the words and music.   

The Doors sold more than 100-million albums worldwide, and received 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. alone. "L.A.Woman," "Break On Through to the Other Side," "The End," "Hello, I Love You," and "Light My Fire" were just a few of their most popular songs. 

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The Spin Doctors: If The River Was Whiskey

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Published on Tuesday, May 21 2013 11:58

Written by Bluebird

A Blues Album.

Released: April 30, 2013

Label: Ruf Records.

The Spin Doctors started out as a bar band, a bunch of twenty something jammers with nothing for money, but a wealth of songs in their heads. Forever keeping the party alive, they mixed rhythms of creative funk, classic rock and edgy pop. While many bar bands were cranking out covers, early Spin Doc performances were filled with original music that took risks.

In the 1990's, with the debut of their smash hit album, Pocket Full of Kryptonite, the Spin Docs were all over the radio.The impact of their songs carved out a self-defined sound. No one sat around analyzing a Spin Doctor song, you just danced, strutted and belted it out. "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Two Princes" were the stand outs, selling millions of records and climbing the Billboard charts. They proliferated MTV, which created world wide success. And these songs will continue to define music genres of creative, artist original radio in our time.

The core Spin Doc fans know that, as a jam band, some of their lesser known songs were packed with dig-gable blues nuggets. If you explore deep into the Spin Doctors' catalog, you'll hear their more obscure songs have blues influenced roots. Guitarist Erik Schenkman wails on "Refrigerator Car" and there are many a solo on even their lesser known albums that feature some great blues jams from the whole band. The (2005) Nice Talking To Me album, turned out to be a return to the blues rock that got the Spin Docs started in the first place, but with more muscle to approach an equal footing to Kryptonite. The Spin Doctors are telling us now, that If The River Was Whiskey is the album they've always wanted to create.

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