Ray Manzarek’s keyboard playing was tattooed in my head long before I ever knew his name. My dad had mix tapes of some classic rock and I would catch a Doors song within the mix. Ray’s playing introduced me to some classic keyboard sounds like the Fender Rhodes and the Wurlitzer electric piano. When a lot of people hear the Doors they probably think only of Jim Morrison, but my ears always gravitated towards the long stretches of improvisation which fused blues and jazz licks that ranged from latin to jazz to blues to rock, that the band played. I listened to Ray for inspiration of how I could learn to improvise over a repeating groove.
And so I have decided to do my own little version of Riders On the Storm. I’ve tried to throw in my own improvisation on this and also throw in some of the classic lines that Ray Manzarek recorded in this song. As most Doors fans know, there was no bass player for the band so Ray played a keyboard bass with his left hand.
I have attempted this for my recording today and I am accessing a bass sound with the keyboard on my left hand through my computer. With my right hand I am playing a different keyboard which is accessing the Fender Rhodes sound though a device called the Nord Electro 2 Module. Hope you like it!