Reopening The Doors

Fans of The Doors have had much to celebrate in recent years. In 2006, the release of the band's six Elektra albums in deluxe DVD/CD editions added surround-sound dimensions barely imagined in the age of vinyl. In 2009, Rhino Records provided a long-awaited documentation of The Doors' historic stage act with a six-CD set titled Live in New York. And this year, the theatrical release of the Johnny Depp-narrated documentary When You're Strange has been rekindling interest in this seminal '60s band and the mysterious death of lead singer Jim Morrison in 1971.

But there have been mixed feelings the past few years about the decision by the group's original keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, and guitarist, Robbie Krieger, to tour Morrison-era material with a succession of lead singers, including Ian Ashbury of the Cult and Brett Scallions, formerly of Fuel.

The good news for Doors fans this summer is that Manzarek and Krieger have found a vocalist closer to the edge live audiences expect from a 21st-century version of The Doors. Among those excited about Zagreb-born, Virginia-raised baritone Miljenko Matijevic (formerly of Steelheart) is Manzarek.

"Mily, as we call him, is dark, brooding and dangerous," Manzarek tells The Prague Post in a phone interview. "He just locks right into it."

The Doors were originally, as Manzarek reminds, "a keyboard player who was classically trained, and played jazz and blues growing up on the south side of Chicago; a guitar player who played and studied flamenco; a jazz marching-band drummer [John Densmore] and a Southern Gothic American poet." That unlikely combination produced a string of hits from 1967 to 1971, including what is arguably the anthem for 1967's Summer of Love, "Light My Fire."

The band's heavier material on studio albums like Strange Days and Waiting for the Sun was fortified by the spooky bass lines of Doug Lubahn, from the legendary psychedelic band Clear Light. Likewise in 1971, Elvis Presley's Tiger Man-era bassist Jerry Scheff propelled The Doors' most potent blues cut, "L.A. Woman." The current road show also has a bassist, Phil Chen, whose creds include work with Desmond Dekker and Jerry Lee Lewis. Chen also helped drive Mingus-influenced jazz/rock with his bass work on Jeff Beck's monumental 1974 album Blow by Blow. Along with Ty "the Monster" Dennis on drums, that gives Manzarek and Krieger's latest reincarnation good potential for playing tight, sweltering rock 'n' roll.

Asked about the band's original influences, Manzarek lists "the Nathaniel West novels The Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts, the Josef von Sternberg films The Blue Angel and Shanghai Express, and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. But we take all that somberness and Freudian darkness and infuse it with some California light."

Songs 11 minutes and longer proved a challenge for radio airplay, and onstage it wasn't unusual for the band to burst into 20 minutes of spontaneous jamming and poetry. That hasn't changed, according to Manzarek. "With all our jazz influences, you have to have space to improvise. That's what keeps it fresh and alive," he says. "You play the song as it's composed - the 'head,' as they call it in jazz - and then your solos are free to go anywhere. It's always new."

Prague's Congress Center is far from ideal for The Doors' music, especially earthy songs like "Soul Kitchen," "Maggie M'Gill" and "Roadhouse Blues." But for Manzarek, who is as inspired by Bartók as he is by jazz and blues, the poetry of performing in Prague is not lost.

"My grandparents came from Warsaw, and now I'm going to Prague to play for Slavic people and bring my Slavic sense of rock 'n' roll," he says. "I'm really looking forward to it."

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at
features@praguepost.com