The Doors: Remembering Ray Manzarek
On what would have been Ray Manzarek’s 81st birthday (2/12/20) I saw Break on Through: A Celebration of Ray Manzarek and discovered one of the best films about The Doors.
Break on Through is a mixture of interviews with surviving Doors members Robby Krieger, John Densmore and a Ben Fong-Torres interview with Manzarek, and live performances with such diverse musicians as Taylor Hawkins, John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X (Manzarek produced four of their albums), Warren Haynes, Stephen Perkins, representing groups like the Foo Fighters, The Stone Temple Pilots and Jane’s Addiction. There’s even appearances by Manzarek’s brother Jim Manczarek who was in The Doors predecessor group Rick and the Ravens, as well as Manzarek’s son Pablo. A lot of these groups have a history with Manzarek, and Krieger having played with them through the 2000’s. The majority of the performances were filmed at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles in 2013.
The interviews with Densmore and Krieger are some of the most candid interviews they’ve done in a while. Krieger and Densmore are lifelong friends having known each other since high school, first played together in the band The Psychedelic Rangers, and it was Densmore who brought Krieger into The Doors. The two found themselves on opposite sides when Densmore filed a lawsuit against Manzarek and Krieger over The Doors of the 21st century fiasco, there are a couple of moments they address the estrangement, and both are very poignantly honest about it.
The performance sections of the film are uniformly strong, with an exception or two (I’m loath to note which I felt were weak because in intervening internet conversations the group(s) I felt were weak were noted by others as being a stand out performance, so I don’t want to jaundice your viewing.) A standout performance everyone can agree on is Emily Armstrong of the group Dead Sara doing a cover of Back Door Man that would give Jim Morrison chills.
Break on Through: A Celebration of Ray Manzarek played in theaters for one night only, and at the theater I attended there were only about 15–20 others hopefully The Doors will soon release “Celebration” on DVD -Blu Ray.
