Tributes paid to Doors’ co-founder Manzarek

Ray Manzarek, co-founder of legendary 1960s group The Doors and creator of their signature organ sound, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 74.

Manzarek formed the group — whose hits included Light My Fire and LA Woman — with Jim Morrison in 1965 after the two met by chance in Venice Beach, California.

He died on Monday, surrounded by his wife Dorothy and brothers Rick and James in Rosenheim, Germany after “a lengthy battle with bile duct cancer”, a statement on The Doors’ Facebook page said.

“I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek,” said The Doors’ guitarist Robby Krieger.

“I’m just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him.”

The Doors were one of the biggest acts of the 1960s, selling over 100m albums.

Morrison impressed Manzarek — who moved from Chicago to Los Angeles to study film — with an early version of Moonlight Drive during their chance meeting on Venice Beach.

Manzarak was responsible for the band’s trademark sound, including the rolling organ on songs such as Light My Fire.

He was “really the driving force behind [the band] to make it all happen”, former manager Bill Siddons said.

Morrison’s death in 1971 aged 27 effectively ended the band’s iconic phase, although the group continued to perform and release music with various line-ups.

Manzarek wrote a best- selling book about his life, Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, in 1998. He was played by Kyle McLachlan in the 1991 Oliver Stone biopic The Doors.

Slash, former guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, was among the first to pay tribute, posting on his Twitter account: “RIP Ray Manzarek words cannot express.”

Morrison’s death in a bathtub in his Paris apartment stunned fans. There was never an autopsy, giving rise to multiple conspiracy theories, as Morrison’s remains were buried in Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery.

Morrison moved to Paris after the 1971 release of LA Woman and lived in the Marais district with partner Pamela Coulson. It was she who found him dead, with a heart attack officially cited as the cause.

The Doors have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where flowers now rest in Manzarek’s memory.