When the subject of The Doors first comes up, Ray Manzarek reacts with a prickly impatience.

"Oh, I forgot for a second, I thought I'd had a whole career," he said sarcastically at the first mention of the band that made him famous in 1967.

Referring to his current tour with Roy Rogers, which hits Sacramento on Friday evening, "This has nothing to do with The Doors," the band he founded in 1966 with drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robby Krieger and the late singer and rock icon, Jim Morrison.

But of course it does.

It's true that Manzarek, who played keyboards in The Doors and since, has recorded a number of albums in the last 40 years, including his own 1983 take on the modern classical standard, Carmina Burana. He's worked with poets Michael McClure and the late Jim Carroll.

But it's also true that we know the name Ray Manzarek because of The Doors. And when it's time to hit the road, Manzarek has regularly returned to the rich lode of material The Doors released between 1967 and 1971. He's done it with former band mates and new singers in different configurations.

But Manzarek continues to keep things interesting. For the last three years, he has been touring with slide guitarist Roy Rogers, doing blues, jazz pieces, exploring Erik Satie's delicate instrumentals and yes, even playing a couple of Doors songs.

But he won't say which ones.

The duo will play the 24th Street Theatre at the Sierra II Center in Curtis Park Friday night.

Now 70 years old and living in Napa with his wife of 43 years, college sweetheart Dorothy Fujikawa, who he describes as "The Doors' secret muse," Manzarek quickly warms to the interview – especially when talking about "them."

Manzarek can't argue with the notion that The Doors still fascinate music fans. And much of the appeal of his and Rogers’ live shows is the chance to listen to him talk about the old days. He even takes questions from the audience during the shows.

He describes The Doors, which he formed with Morrison when the two were film students at UCLA and living in Venice Beach, as "a blues band with literary aspirations," saying that the music "came out of the unconscious."

Manzarek said his and Morrison's exposure to film school had a huge effect on the band's development.

"The cinema influenced us a great deal," he said. "Jim and I actually took a class from Josef von Sternberg, the great German director of Marlena Dietrich in "The Blue Angel"… we were in cinema, and where do you see that? In a darkened room, with a screen, watching a shadow play. It's a world of shadows. That was where we created from."

And that was quite different from the dominant Los Angeles sound of 1966, when The Doors recorded their debut album on Sunset Boulevard.

"Outside of (Frank) Zappa, the scene was folk rock. It was dominated by Dylan goes electric. L.A. was the Beach Boys and the Byrds and the Mamas and the Papas. But we were out of the blues and jazz. We were big-city boys. It was a blues band playing with jazz influences, but it was tempered by the joy and light and freedom of Venice Beach. That's where we come from."

Manzarek grew up on the south side of Chicago, and being a bit older than many of his psychedelic peers – he was a teenager when Elvis appeared – he said he remembers hearing the "new" Muddy Waters single "Hoochie Koochie Man" when it first came out on jukeboxes.

When it came time to record the Doors' debut album, the four band members and producer Paul Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick were very clear on what they wanted, and the clean, rich sound of The Doors, which sounds amazingly good even by today's standards, is the proof.

"The whole point was to have it clean and crisp, bright and full of bottom," he said.
"We wanted rock 'n' roll to sound like (Miles Davis') ‘Kind of Blue’ … clean and hard. And it was four-track!"

While he gives credit to Morrison's remarkable creativity, Manzarek doesn't hesitate to dub guitarist Robby Krieger "The Doors' secret weapon." In addition to "Light My Fire," Krieger wrote "Love Me Two Times," "Love Her Madly," "Roadhouse Blues" and even the top-three hit, "Touch Me."

So what was that last one about?

"That was an intellectual exercise," he said. "Let's see if we can write and produce a big-band song! Let's have a song that's got the basic Doors framework and foundation, but let's put a bunch of horns and strings and jazz on it.That was the exercise. And it sounded so good, it was top-three. And yes, we did get a lot of shit for it."

As for his own role in the band, Manzarek said, "My job was to hold the whole thing together, not let anyone slough off. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep Jim Morrison from going mad."

But that was then; this is now. Manzarek continues to work and record, with his son Pablo as well as Rogers. He and Rogers just finished a new album, which will come out early next year. Meanwhile, he said, going out and playing music is simply what he does, because he loves it.

"You don't tour for money," he said. "You play music for fun. I saw Dave Brubeck recently at the Napa Opera House. He's in his 80s, and he was having a great time! He was playing his ass off! You telling him he should stop touring? No way!"

Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers play the 24th Street Theatre Friday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance at The Beat, Dimple Records and Phono Select, or online at Inticketing.com. Tickets will be $35 at the door.