Rain as portrayed by The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Doors

Rain has been on my mind a lot this winter. 

As of last fall, California had experienced a four-year drought which left us in a very precarious position, so the relatively heavy rainfall these past few months has been welcome. 

Sometimes, as I stand in my living room gazing out the window while the rain patters against glass, or plod through Oakland with an umbrella in hand, my thoughts veer from the here and now to certain rain-related songs. 

Rain has been explored by everyone from the Eurythmics to Buddy Guy to Milli Vanilli, but four cuts by rock royalty stand out for me.

First up is the Beatles gem "Rain," from 1966. Lyrically, the song isn't much, but musically, "Rain" is a perfect encapsulation of the mid-years Beatles pop formula. Clocking in at a lean 3:04, the song features many Fab Four specialties, including ringing guitars, a bouncy bass line, liquid harmonies, and psychedelic-era backward vocals.

Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song" from 1973 is a more muted track that shows Zeppelin's soft side. The band best known for heavy guitar riffs and bone-crushing drums here melds acoustic guitar, brush-stick percussion, and Mellotron—a synthesizer which produces the string sounds—to compliment Robert Plant's lyrics about the vicissitudes of a challenging (and ultimately rewarding) long-term romantic relationship.

Seattle native Jimi Hendrix was no stranger to rain, and it comes out in brilliant color below, in a video which fuses two separate tracks from 1968's "Electric Ladyland": "Rainy Day, Dream Away" and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming." In these songs, rain encourages the listener to lay back and groove as the music follows suit, starting out with saxophone flutters, meandering guitar lines, and organ voicings that variously intertwine, play point-counterpoint, or lurch off in their own directions, over a lazy four-four drumbeat. 

"Still Raining, Still Dreaming" comes in at 3:10 with a talking wah-wah guitar that speaks a language only Hendrix could evoke. By 3:57, the song is in deep jam mode, gutbucket drums driving the beat as unison guitars pan back and forth across left and right speakers and the organ comps in the background, eventually building to a heavenly crescendo. Not long before the two songs bridge, Hendrix says he is "leaning on my windowsill, digging everything," and we are right there with him.  

       

When the Doors first presented "Riders on the Storm" to long-time producer Paul Rothchild, in 1970, he dismissed the song as cocktail jazz. Fortunately for us, the Doors ignored Rothchild's poor judgment. Highlights include a jazzy opening which features heavy rainfall with an ominous bass line, a boss organ solo at 2:46, and the ethereal, cascading kisses of the Fender Rhodes keyboard throughout. This masterpiece of mood and space was the last track recorded by Jim Morrison, a fitting swan song that projects the otherworldly aura of rain like few tunes before or since.

         

                                                     

The underappreciated ingenuity of Robby Krieger

Seventy years ago today, the universe yielded up Robby Krieger, later to become the lone introvert in the Doors. Sharing space and time with outsized personalities such as the Lizard King, one of the most captivating lead singers ever, the hyper-talented and ever-voluble Ray Manzarek (who spent the second half of his life proselytizing about the Doors’ sizable legacy in a non-stop hepcat patter), and John Densmore—the activist and stubborn conscience of the band who unilaterally blocked the sale of "Light My Fire" to Cadillac for a $15,000,000 payday—the soft-spoken guitarist tended to be overshadowed and undersung. But Krieger's contributions were essential to the Doors’ unique sound, what Manzarek referred to as a "four-sided diamond." 

When the Doors were gathering tracks for their debut album, they were short of original material, so the band members parted for a few days to write songs. Upon his return, Robbie offered up the arrangement that would become “Light My Fire,” the mega-hit which launched the band.

Teenyboppers heard the three-minute single, but album track listeners were treated to a seven-minute version with a heady instrumental jam which features two extended solos. Following Ray Manzarek’s mesmerizing solo was a tall order, but Krieger keeps things interesting when he comes in at 3:18. Unlike most of the rock players of his day, he didn’t follow the blues power template of Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, and forebears such as B.B. King; his solo is all clean channel finesse—colorful flamenco flutters and hammer-on pull-offs perfectly fitted to the huge pocket created by Densmore and Manzarek.

The last song on The Doors’ second album, “Strange Days,” is the epic “When the Music’s Over.” In one of the most powerful introductions committed to acetate, Ray Manzarek opens by vamping on the main theme, and is soon joined by Densmore, the two of them building tension that is released with Jim Morrison's blood-curdling shriek and Krieger’s big mystical wash of feedback. As Manzarek’s hypnotic organ and Morrison’s apocalyptic lyrics take center stage, Krieger stays in the background, doubling Manzarek or darting out quick little blues fills, until he plays what he later called his favorite solo, at 2:54.

Once, when asked what he was thinking about while he took solos in concert (with no expression on his face), Krieger said “my goldfish,” and it shows here. Unlike the muscular, virtuosic leads of contemporaries such as Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, Krieger’s solo is not a demonstration of chops or a climbing route to a crescendo but a mood reflecting his interest in the modal approach of Indian music. It is a perfect acid rock solo: oblique and multi-layered, a miasma of shapes and colors swimming around freely in your ears simultaneously in both the left and right channels.

One of the gems on the Doors’ third album, "Waiting for the Sun," is “Spanish Caravan.” Borrowing from the classical piece "Asturias," this song showcases yet another side of Robbie’s guitar voicings—fleet, nylon-stringed, flamenco finger picking.

The Doors’ final album, “L.A. Woman,” had several blues tracks. Manzarek, a Chicago native, had always had a foot in the blues. Years of cigarettes and heavy drinking had deepened Morrison’s voice, transforming his persona from that of a slinky and mystical shaman to a full-throated, whiskey-besotted bluesman. And the simplicity of blues arrangements appealed to the group after the departure of their long-time producer, Paul Rothchild, early in the sessions.

“Been Down So Long,” based on a '60s cult novel, is simple and stark. Driven by a pulsing bass line and bone-dry four-four drums, Manzarek's absence gives added emphasis to Krieger's tasty blues fills. While he didn’t possess the lightning-quick slide skills of Johnny Winter or the prowess of Duane Allman, Robbie was handy with the bottleneck, as evidenced by the eye-popping, Delta-influenced solos at 1:34 and 3:08. 

“Crawling King Snake” was an ancient standard previously recorded by blues giants John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf. The Doors’ version is appropriately gritty, stripped-down, and true to the original spirit of the song. Robbie’s solo at 1:48, a model in dirty blues, is filled with jagged flurries of notes that cut like shards of glass.

Just three months after “L.A. Woman” hit record store shelves, Jim Morrison was found dead in a Paris bathtub. The surviving Doors recorded two more albums with Ray Manzarek on vocals, but the magic was gone. In the decades since, Krieger has made guest appearances, collaborated with John Densmore and Ray Manzarek, and released solo albums, but ultimately, the recordings that shine brightest are his rich and versatile stylings for the original lineup of the Doors, the four-sided diamond.

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Other Truth and Beauty guitar hero essays:

         Click here for "The Second Coming:  Stevie Ray Vaughan," 
a first-hand account of Vaughan's final concert

here for "The heaviest New Year's Eve guitar jam ever: Hendrix

does 'Machine Gun'"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #8: Freddie King's 'San-Ho-Zay'"

                       
  here for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"
                  

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa"

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock" 

here for "Great Guitar Solos, #5:  Alvin Lee"

 here for "Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My My'"

and here for "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar - The Six-String Wizardry of Frank Zappa, Part II"

Ray Manzarek (1939-2013)

I originally listened to the Doors in an attempt to impress my first crush, but ended up getting hooked. Decades later they're still one of my favorite bands, primarily because of Ray Manzarek's inventive Fender Rhodes organ voice, which set them apart from the mass of pop-oriented and guitar-centric R & B/acid rock acts of the time. 

Manzarek had serious chops rooted in classical, jazz, and the blues he heard growing up in Chicago. The Doors had no bassist for most of their career, so Manzarek played both the bass lines and the keyboard parts that defined the band's vibe. And when Jim Morrison was out of commission, Manzarek handled vocals too. In just about any other band (i.e. a band without a one-in-a-million charismatic front man), Manzarek would have been the natural leader. 

Ray Manzarek is best known for "Light My Fire" from the Doors' debut album, in particular the instantly recognizable melody line that opens the song and the mesmerizing two-minute solo which starts at 1:14. Here he explains how this timeless tune originated in Bach, Coltrane, Latin music, and "Hey Joe."

The keyboard work on "When the Music's Over" (off the Doors' second album, "Strange Days") packs a serious wallop, as can be seen in the live version below, from Copenhagen, 1968. The introduction is sublime. Manzarek begins on keys, adds bass, builds the tension for Jim Morrison's cathartic howl from hell, then slaps down big, bright chords as the full force of the whole band comes in. Throughout the rest of this epic number, Manzarek conjures a hypnotic bass line and the dark organ sound that glues everything together.  
   

The original incarnation of the Doors didn't last long, about six years from formation to Jim Morrison's death, but they went out on a high note with "L.A. Woman," released in 1971. Among the many great cuts was "Riders on the Storm," a song that had extensive FM radio airplay despite its seven-minute length. Manzarek graces the opening with resonant notes that fall softly, in perfect sync with the rain. He brings this delicate tone to the solo, which starts quietly at 2:41 and escalates into a blues fury. Manzarek closes the song by trading watery chord fragments with guitarist Robbie Krieger as the storm rages in the background.

  

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Few bands last five years, let alone forty-five. At 100,000,000 albums sold and counting, the Doors - and Ray Manzarek's distinctive keyboard stylings - promise to be around for a while. 

Wherever Ray is, I am forever indebted to him for the countless hours of bliss he gave me. If there is a heaven, Ray Manzarek is sure to be first chair, filling the clouds with celestial sounds.