CAST
RAY MANZAREK
Ray Manzarek was a founding member and keyboardist of The Doors. He is known for being the "architect" of their sound. He was raised in Chicago and was classically trained as a pianist.
Ray attended the UCLA Film School in the early 1960's where he met Jim Morrison. According to Ray, after graduation, he saw Morrison on Venice Beach who proceeded to read him the lyrics of Moonlight Drive. Ray knew right away that he and Jim should form a rock and roll band. He met drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger at a Transcendental Meditation lecture. And thus, The Doors were formed and were to become one of the greatest and most influential rock 'n' roll bands ever until Morrison's untimely death in 1971.
After the Doors officially broke up in 1973, Manzarek played in several groups, including Nite City. Manzarek also recorded a rock adaptation of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with Philip Glass, produced Echo and the Bunnymen and Los Angeles band X, and played with Iggy Pop and backed San Francisco poet Michael McClure's poetry readings.
Ray is also the author of two novels, The Poet in Exile and Snake Moon. His memoirs, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, was published in 1998.
He is widely regarded as being one of the most influential keyboardists in rock and roll history
ROY ROGERS
A northern California-based blues guitarist, Roy Rogers works firmly out of a Delta blues acoustic style. A member of John Lee Hooker's '80s Coast to Coast Band, Rogers produced and played on Hooker's Grammy-winning comeback album, The Healer, and its follow-up, Mr. Lucky. Rogers played with various bands until forming his own, the Delta Rhythm Kings in 1980. In 1986, he released his debut album, Chops Not Chaps, on Blind Pig Records. The record was successful with blues audiences and was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award.
Roy Rogers is considered one of the most impressive guitarists in the music industry. In addition to working with Manzarek, Rogers has also worked with harmonica player Norton Buffalo, Van Halen's Samy Hagar, Bonnie Rait, Shana Morrison and Carlos Santana. In 1987, he released his second solo album, Slidewinder, which was followed two years later by Blues on the Range.
Roger's collaboration with Manzarek began In 2008 with the album Ballads Before The Rain. It would prove to be a successful and creatively rewarding pairing which the duo repeated again on Translucent Blues. The album reached number one on the Americana Roots chart and prompted a third collaboration Twisted Tales.
Rogers' 12th solo album, Into the Wild Blue, was released in the summer of 2015. He continues touring with his band, The Delta Rhythm Kings.
MICHAEL MCCLURE
Michael McClure is an American poet, essayist and playwright. He went to San Francisco as a young man, and got drawn into the emerging Beat vortex of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.
He was one of the five poets including Alan Ginsberg, who read at the famous Six Gallery reading in 1955 that began "The Beat Generation. He writes poetry infused with the awareness of nature.
His controversial and ground-breaking play, The Beard, challenged the boundaries of censorship in the arts during the 1960's. He also wrote Josephine: The Mouse Singer.
In the summer of 1967, he was a major participant at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park. During this period, he wrote the original words on which Janis Joplin's song "Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz" was based. A friend and mentor to Jim Morrison, McClure had a major influence on the Doors' frontman.
In the early 90's he began performing live poetry set to music by Ray Manzarek. Their work was commemorated in the documentary, THE THIRD MIND, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel.