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Ray Manzarek died, a colleague announced a couple of days ago as I walked past his desk.

I gave him a quizzical look.

Ray Manzarek, he said. The keyboardist for the Doors.

Ah. Of course.

Ray Manzarek. The name may not light up the average brain as fast as the name Jim Morrison does, but without Manzarek, a native of Chicagos South Side who co-founded one of the great rock bands of all time, Morrisons name might not be legend, either.

When I heard that Manzarek had died, my mind immediately broke into the opening organ riff to Light My Fire.

I flashed back to the searing June night when I first heard it, on a transistor radio, outside the Phoenix house of a couple of boys slightly older and vastly worldlier. I was still too young to know just what kind of fire was being lit in that song, but I was pretty sure my parents wouldnt want me near it.

I went home that night and softly picked out the notes on the piano, with the sense I was doing something illicit.

And now the guy who had indelibly imprinted those notes into my brain, into millions of brains, was gone.

Another stroke of the musical clock in the countdown of our lives.

See the article here:
Death of musical heroes a reminder of our mortality