Right up to his death in 2013 keyboardist, writer, explorer Ray Manzarek was a one-man hype man for The Doors, the band he formed in 1965 with Robby Krieger, Jim Morrison and John Densmore – as legend has it, sparked by meeting Morrison on Venice Beach in Los Angeles.

While Morrison died in 1971, The Doors continued for two more years, reformed in part 30 years later and, more controversially, then went out on the road with a new vocalist and no Densmore.

On record, there was no stopping the band as regular repackaging of their legacy invigorated a fan base that had taken home more than 100 million albums since 1967. As well as box sets, reissues and remasters there’s now a package of The Doors’ singles, available here, to remind everyone of the pop smarts alongside the blues, art and jazz parts of one of the most important American bands of the 1960s.

On stage though, the question of legacy was not as incontrovertible. In 2005 as this “half Doors” made what turned out to be the final tour of Australia, Manzarek confronted those questions again.

It’s all about how you look at things, he argued.

Ray Manzarek is in no doubt. About anything really.

It’s all obvious to the 66-year-old keyboard player who has spent half his life playing in or keeping the flame alive for the Doors.

Among life’s certainties are the following.

The Doors, who formed in Los Angeles in 1965, were among the greatest bands of all time.

The now long dead but still lionised (not least by Manzarek) singer Jim Morrison was a poet of the first order.

Touring, with one other original member, Robby Krieger, as the Doors Of The 21st Century is a fine and noble thing to do.

Religion is so yesterday; time for something new and he’s got the answer.

So, if you’ve got some doubts well, that it’s your problem.

“The music itself has become iconic whereas when we were first playing it was brand new so no one knew what to expect from the music or what mantle it would place on its own shoulders,” Manzarek says.

“Now I know and the audience knows that it’s these iconic songs and to play them is kind of an act of worship rather than an act of spontaneity it was at the beginning. It’s ours but it also belongs to the ether, it belongs to the energy, it’s attained an Olympian status. Our stuff along with the Beatles, the Stones.”

Atop lofty Mount Olympus (rock’n’roll division) woe betide any of those naysayers who quibble over some tricky issues.

Such as that with Morrison mostly unavailable (Manzarek reckons on a good night he can feel big Jim’s presence on stage still) and Densmore out of action (and along with Morrison’s estate preventing his former bandmates from using the name The Doors) the remaining duo have drafted in former Cult singer and wearer of a good pair of leather pants Ian Astbury as vocalist.

It’s all good that there is this act of worship on both sides of the stage but there are people who have been listening to the music for 37 years who feel, rightly or wrongly that they own this music too and some of them have been quite vocal in saying this is not the Doors and this kind of tour is besmirching the good name of “their” band.

“Quite frankly live we play the shit out of the songs. We are really good and we can play those songs like you ain’t never heard those songs played live before,” Manzarek says.

“For us to be besmirching an iconic image that some ageing hippies have in their heads I say ha ha. As Stanley Kowalski said in A Streetcar Named Desire, ha ha.

“We made the music. Who do they think played the organ part on Light My Fire? Who do they think wrote Light My Fire? That’s yours truly, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger. We are going to Australia to play for you the songs we wrote with Jim Morrison in the 1960s.

“Would you like to hear the other fellows who took acid with Jim Morrison on the beach at Venice and wrote the music and played the music? Come. If you don’t want to hear them play, stay home. Play with your CDs, play with yourself.”

And just in case you haven’t got the message, Manzarek offers himself as our link to the golden years of the late ‘60s.

“We’re going to bring you a little bit of that magic, to reignite a passion. To reignite some kind of a fire. To say to you there is another way of being instead of the conservative peoples of the Book, the three big book people. We’re offering you another religion, a religion of the future. This is what’s left of the dream of the ‘60s.”

Right on. Man. 

-BZ