Doors fans first heard it in Spanish Caravan, on the group?s third album, Waiting for the Sun: Robby Krieger, on acoustic guitar, was unleashing his inner flamenco freak on a generation of rock fans.
Krieger was 22 when the chart-topping album was released in 1968, but playing flamenco was no novelty or sideline: the style had grabbed him almost as soon as he picked up his first guitar at the age of 14 or 15, he said during a recent telephone interview to promote a series of Montreal appearances this week.
?I grew up in a house where we had a piano, and that never really did much for me,? he said. ?I liked to plunk around on it, but my dad had a couple of flamenco records, and that just really drew me in, the sound of the instrument. I love Mexican music and stuff from Spain or Moorish stuff. Maybe in my last lifetime I might have been a Gypsy.?
But that outburst might be the only time the style surfaced in Krieger?s playing with the Doors. ?I always wanted to get it in there, but it didn?t really fit that much,? he said. ?Spanish Caravan was my attempt to bring some flamenco into rock ?n? roll. As far as I know, that?s the only time anybody?s ever done that. But my stuff was more influenced by Indian music, which I also loved.?
Krieger pointed out that you can hear Indian scales in his solos on The End and Light My Fire, courtesy of his devotion to Ravi Shankar. ?I used to listen to (Indian music) almost daily in the early days of the Doors, and before,? he said. Krieger said he and drummer John Densmore both took lessons at the Los Angeles branch of Shankar?s Kinnara School of Music during the Doors era.
But there was also more than raga scales going on in Light My Fire, Krieger said. ?We loved jazz, too. In Light My Fire, during the solos, we were playing what Coltrane played ? the same chords ? on My Favorite Things. And then I played Indian scales on top of that,? he said.
Rock ?n? roll had also been added to the Doors? palette by the time those epochal tracks were recorded, and some of the credit goes to a Chuck Berry concert Krieger had seen at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The 1965 show also featured Big Mama Thornton and the Chambers Brothers, he said.
?(Berry) was really on that night. I just was mesmerized,? Krieger said. ?Up until then, I thought rock ?n? roll was corny. The Beatles had come out and, to me, they weren?t really doing anything great. I liked the Rolling Stones? first album. But that performance (by Berry) just really opened my eyes to what rock ?n? roll could be.?
The next day, Krieger said, he went out and bought a Gibson SG, which he found similar in appearance to the model Berry played.
In those heady days of bands soaking up influences like sponges, blues were yet another element being thrown into the mix by loud and aggressive rock ensembles. Among the most influential was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which had emerged a couple of years before the Doors. Butterfield and his brilliant guitarist Mike Bloomfield were also among the game-changers in Krieger?s life.
He discovered the band when he was attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, he said.
?I?d already been into blues for quite a while, but I had never heard anything like Butterfield, where they took blues to a new level: it was almost rock ?n? roll, but it was like blues, too ? on steroids. I just loved how Bloomfield took blues licks and made them more electric. And Butterfield himself was great. He took harmonica playing to a new level. I would listen to them every day, all the time, on various drugs,? Krieger said, chuckling.
Coincidentally, Paul Rothchild, who produced the Butterfield band?s seminal early albums, ended up helming most of the Doors? recordings. Rothchild was in the control room when Krieger recorded his one and only solo vocal in the group?s Jim Morrison-led years: the nasal, spoken-sung square-dance bridge in Runnin? Blue.
?I sang it for the guys when I wrote it,? Krieger said. ?And Jim said, ?Hey, man, you sound good singing that. You should sing it.? It was kind of a joke, but I said, ?Well, I?ll try it.? I thought I sounded like Bob Dylan singing that. I didn?t try to do it. It just kind of came out that way.?
The track, like much of the Doors? catalogue, sounds like nothing of its time. The most common trappings of psychedelia ? lysergic lyrics, hallucinogenic jams and ragged production ? are almost entirely absent from the band?s oeuvre.
That?s no coincidence, Krieger said.
?Jim always used to say, ?When you?re writing something, try to be universal and don?t get pigeonholed into something that?s going on right now. Try to do stuff that will mean something to somebody 10 years from now,? ? Krieger said. ?And for some reason, people still like to discover the Doors ? or think they discovered it. Every generation seems to dig it. We?re very lucky in that way.?
In the last decade, Krieger has regularly revisited the group?s catalogue, mostly with former Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek. The two still tour together.
And at Metropolis on Dec. 4 and 5, Krieger will be a guest at the Battle of the Bands fundraiser for the Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Centre, lending his incomparable chops to amateur groups playing Doors favourites.
Krieger said he still enjoys playing Doors hits, although he no longer endorses a quotation once attributed to him: that rock ?n? roll offers almost the same musical freedom the commercially moribund jazz form once did.
?I think rock has gotten stale,? Krieger said, ?maybe due to the advent of computers. We?re now at the point where anybody can make music on a computer. And there are just too many people doing it and not enough people really meaning it. I?m hoping it?ll change.?
So Krieger continues to stay connected to his beloved jazz. He will play two intimate shows Dec. 6 at Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill, with his group Robby Krieger?s Jazz Kitchen. The band features sax player Larry Klimas, a War alumnus, and three ex-members of Frank Zappa?s band: bassist Arthur Barrow, keyboard player Tommy Mars and drummer Chad Wackerman.
Krieger?s 2010 album Singularity, a mixture of composed themes and improvised jazz, snagged a 2011 Grammy nomination. And tracks like Let It Slide feature his unmistakable snaky slide work, which is as welcome as the return of a dear friend.
When he looks back on the decades of recordings and live appearances under his belt, Krieger said, he?s most satisfied in having written songs like Touch Me, Light My Fire and Love Me Two Times. But that incomparable sound on his instrument has pride of place, too.
?When people can recognize your playing if they hear it on the radio and say, ?Hey, I know who that is!? you?ve done something great. So many guys sound the same,? Krieger said. ?They say if your mother can recognize you on the radio, then you?ve done well.?
Robby Krieger will be the special guest at the 10th annual Battle of the Bands event, Dec. 4 and 5 at 5 p.m. at Metropolis, 59 Ste. Catherine St. E. General admission tickets, in the balcony, cost $72, or $25 for people under 30. Corporate, benefactor and patron packages are also available. All proceeds go to the Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Centre. To purchase tickets online or for more details, visit www.donaldbermanmaimonides.net.
Robby Krieger?s Jazz Kitchen performs Dec. 6 at 7 and 9:45 p.m. at Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill, 1254 Mackay St. Tickets cost $40. Call 514-931-6808 to reserve.
bperusse@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @bernieperusse
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