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While the approach that The Doors took to sliding into the rock and roll canon was seemingly far removed from the origins of the genre, the fact that the members all grew up surrounded by this exciting new chapter in music would still have had a profound impact on them as performers.
It was evident from the sound they presented on their self-titled debut album that they were far more influenced by the culture of the time, with the psychedelic elements being placed front and centre on their records, and the guitar almost playing a secondary role in the overall makeup when compared to the prominence of Ray Manzarek’s organ playing.
In addition to this, Jim Morrison’s morbid poetry was far from being on the same playing field as his predecessors, often more influenced by the beat poets of the generation instead. The ways in which he allowed his abstract visions to come to life around the rest of the band’s meandering and often meditative compositions were unique for their time and haven’t really been successfully emulated by many others since, and these are some of the elements that made them an entirely new kind of rock outfit for the time.
As well as stunning listeners with a sequence of incredible studio albums, they were also famed for having a chaotic live show, largely down to Morrison’s unpredictability as a frontman. His experimentation with drugs almost certainly contributed to his explosive style, but regardless of his state of mind, he was always capable of bringing entertainment with him, no matter how volatile its presentation may have been
However, while the rest of the band were more reserved in nature, there was still this underlying influence from the most electrifying performers of the previous generation that they’d all grown up watching, with some of their biggest influences still being the rock and roll icons who had dominated in their childhoods.
In a 2006 interview with The Austin Chronicle, Manzarek proclaimed that there was one performer in particular who matched the livewire tendencies of Morrison, but who was backed by an equally proficient and entertaining band that he felt was perhaps the most influential on his own approach to creating music in the future.
“Little Richard’s band, I think he was probably my favorite,” Manzarek confessed. “He was just… that band playing ‘Lucille’, God almighty. Deep baritone saxophone underneath. You could just feel that thing. That was very influential on me.”
While he went on to note how Richard was a pianist like himself, he also mentioned two other notable piano players in rock and roll who had a profound effect on him, naming Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino as being of equal importance, with Richard’s band being a cut above his contemporaries.
However, while there’s not necessarily many parallels between The Doors and Little Richard, when you boil it down to the most essential features, the fact that he was one of the most unabashedly unique performers from the golden age of rock and roll makes it hard not to look up and admire what he had to offer.
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