By Ray Shasho
Eight years ago, slide guitar virtuoso Roy Rogers began
an amazing musical collaboration and momentous friendship with The Doors
legendary keyboardist Ray Manzarek. After Manzarek’s untimely death in May of
2013, Rogers felt awkward at first about releasing Twisted Tales their final studio album together.
Rogers stated … “I just decided to release it,
music is made to be heard, there’s no agenda, it’s good music, fun music, and a
great testament to our collaboration.”
Twisted Tales was released on June 18th 2013 and
dedicated to the memory of Ray Manzarek. The unlikely musical duo of Manzarek
and Rogers substantiated the concept “opposites attract,” and in this case… beget
innovative, eclectic, and obscure musical magic. Although Rogers is perceived
for slide guitar and delta blues, Twisted
Tales is a completely new adventure.
The lyrical content is primarily penned by
songwriter/poets Jim Carroll and Michael McClure. Some of the tracks on the
album are reminiscent to a concept album. There are minor hints of Zappa,
Burdon, and The Doors intermingled with diverse melody. Noteworthy tracks
include … “Just like Sherlock Holmes” and “Eagle in a Whirlpool” highlighting the
slide virtuosity of Roy Rogers and keyboard mastery of Ray Manazarek ... “Street
of Crocodiles” An obscure, fun and interesting ditty! My favorite track… “Black Wine/Spank Me with a
Rose” …An incredible mix of musical artistry and … “Numbers” The final track on
the album may conceivably be Manzarek’s swan song while echoing the music of
The Doors.
I gave Twisted Tales the final studio release by Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers (4) STARS.
Roy Rogers and Ray Manzarek also released … Ballads Before the Rain (2008) and Translucent Blues (2011).
ROY ROGERS: In 1976, Rogers and David Burgin formed
an acoustic duo. They recorded the album Rogers
and Burgin: A Foot in the Door and performed on the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest movie soundtrack.
In 1980, Rogers formed his own band Roy Rogers &
The Delta Rhythm Kings. The band quickly
became universally recognized.
Upon returning from Europe, Rogers was asked to join
John Lee Hooker’s Coast to Coast Blues Band. Rogers toured and performed with
the legendary blues performer for four years, establishing a strong personal
and professional relationship with Hooker. Roy Rogers went on to produce four
historic recordings for John Lee Hooker … The
Healer, Mr. Lucky, Boom Boom and Chill Out. Some of the tracks included co-producing credits with Ry
Cooder and Van Morrison.
In 1985, Rogers released his critically-acclaimed
solo debut album entitled Chops not Chaps
and was nominated for the W.C. Handy Award. Rogers continued a string of
successful releases with the album Slidewinder
(1988) which featured guest
performances by John Lee Hooker and Allen Toussaint and Blues on the Range (1989).
Roy Rogers incredible talents were also featured on
the soundtrack for the film The Hot Spot
(1990) which he recorded with Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker and Taj Mahal.
In 1991, Rogers collaborated with harmonica virtuoso
and vocalist Norton Buffalo to record the highly acclaimed R&B album. The duo followed with Travellin’ Tracks in 1992.
Subsequent
studio albums by Roy Rogers … Side of Hand (1993), Slide
Zone (1994), Rhythm and Groove (1996),
Pleasure & Pain (1998), Everybody’s Angel (1999), Slideways (2002), Roots of Our Nature with Norton Buffalo (2002), Split Decision (2009).
Over the years, Roy Rogers has collaborated with
some of the greatest musicians in the world including … Carlos Santana, Bonnie
Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Steve Miller, Sammy Hagar and most recently Ray
Manzarek.
Roy Rogers scored eight Grammy nominations as a
performer and producer.
Rogers remains one of the elite slide guitar players
in the world.
I had the unique pleasure of chatting with Roy
Rogers recently about the release of Twisted Tales, his most recent and final collaboration with The Doors legendary
keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
Here’s my interview with legendary slide guitarist,
singer, songwriter and producer …ROY ROGERS.
Ray
Shasho: How are you doing Roy?
Roy
Rogers: “I’m doing alright, a little bit of hot weather here
out west but it’s cooling down. It’s been kind of hot here! I’m here in
Northern California; I live up near a big lake between California and Nevada by
Lake Tahoe. So I’m up in the Tahoe National Forest. I’m a bay area guy, grew up
in the bay area and raised our family out in the San Francisco Bay area. But we
moved up here about five years ago and I love living in the mountains man.”
“You’re in the Tampa Bay area, when I think about
Tampa, I think of Skipper’s Smokehouse. I used to play there a lot.”
Ray
Shasho: You’re sort of in-between gigs right now?
Roy
Rogers: “I’m actually doing some local gigs and then I head back over to
Scandinavia again in October. I
don’t tour as much as I used to, it’s more of a young man’s game anyway. If
there’s a festival, I’ll fly out and maybe work at some smaller venues like Ray
and I did. We’d go out and he didn’t want to hit it for long periods of time
like a lot of people. As long as you can have that pivot date like a festival,
book around that and fly back home, and don’t stay out on the road for a long
period of time.”
Ray
Shasho: I think there are a lot of countries that continue to support the
blues.
Roy
Rogers: “It’s true. Our
culture, our music especially is so strong and that’s our biggest export in
a lot of ways, what that means and where it comes from and people really get
that … the whole thing of where jazz comes from and all the multifaceted things
of that and the blues and rock and roll and into pop music. It’s so strong and
a worldwide phenomenon. It’s really amazing when you think of it in those
terms.”
Ray
Shasho: Without the birth of the blues, there may have never been jazz, rock,
pop or even country music?
Roy
Rogers: “I always point out to people, Jimmie Rogers the
so-called father of country music, when you listen to Jimmie Rogers stuff of
the 20’s, you can totally get where he got that from and listening to the field
hollers and plantation folks. You know as well as I do, the delineation of
music was to sell it. Music was always cross-pollinated and people were either
ignorant and didn’t know how that cross- pollination worked, the musicians
certainly felt that way. It didn’t matter if you were Elvin Chamblin or Charlie
Christian you could still play and appreciate the riffs.”
Ray
Shasho:
Twisted
Tales,
your latest and final
album with Doors legend Ray Manzarek is a riveting piece of music that features
an eclectic mix and some very obscure tracks. I heard a lot of musical styles
in the album including …Frank Zappa, Eric Burdon and The Doors.
Roy
Rogers: “It’s
very eclectic. Interesting analogies there, it’s probably all that in there
somewhere. We had a lot of fun. Obviously I wrote some of the songs but
especially the songs that Ray had, he was sitting on these lyrics of some
friends of his which was sort of an extension of the first record Translucent Blues but much more eclectic
musically as you were saying. We just knew it was going to take it that way
because the lyrics almost demanded it. It gave it a skew that made it
interesting to arrange it. That was the great thing about collaboration because
we both wanted to make different records. Every time you make a record you can
extend ideas that you have from previous stuff.
But it’s a new record and a brand new day … what side of the bed did you
get out of today? We both felt that way and were both into pushing the envelope
and that was part of the reason why we got along so well. Because we really
became very good friends over the past seven or eight years and it was about
that.”
“We started literally as a duet playing more of an
extension of his solo thing and telling stories about The Doors and that sort
of a thing. That was fun and we established our relationship doing that. But we
both knew eventually that the band was going to push it in a way it needed to
be pushed. The new album was fun to make. Even when I was producing John Lee
Hooker stuff long ago and you had people in the studio, I firmly believe that it’s
not that you can’t make good records with a lot of angst and what are we doing
in the studio, but I could never make a record and take a year to make a
record. You make a statement and go in unprepared and you let it flow and that
translates to the record. I like records like that.”
Ray
Shasho: I chatted with Billy Cobham recently and he said the Spectrum album was recorded amazingly fast.
I think you’re right; many of the classic albums and tracks were recorded
quickly and without a lot of preparation.
Roy
Rogers: “Yea, look at Miles Davis Kind of Blue. Very seldom, even in the Hooker days … we didn’t
always get it on the first take, but if we tried it two or three times and
didn’t get it, we would put it to rest and tried it on another day. This thing
about having to be perfect or trying to go for perfection … I don’t buy that at
all. You just want to make a statement and have fun with it. That’s what I like
about this record a lot, obviously very eclectic material but it covers a lot
of ground and there’s a lot of depth in there that people can either find or
not find.”
Ray
Shasho: I really enjoyed the album. It sort of reminded me of a concept album
at times. The music camaraderie between you and Ray became even more apparent
on the track “Black Wine/Spank Me with a Rose.”
Roy
Rogers: “Black Wine” was a first take for Ray’s vocals. We
were doing “Black Wine” and obviously it’s a long tune, we even edited it, I
think it’s six and half minutes or something. Ray was doing the vocal live as
we were playing it, not going in and doing the vocal again. So he was doing his
thing and playing and that’s the vocal we used. He was so ecstatic because it’s
unusual to do the vocal live as you’re cutting the track; it’s not always done
and getting it right. He was ecstatic after that and that’s when he did that
thing at the end of the record. He was so happy that he went into this ad-lib
thing. That’s why it’s such a glorious train wreck. I said Ray; we have to end
the record with that. It was a perfect way to end the record and became a very
precious moment in light of his demise.”
Ray
Shasho: The album was a pleasant surprise. Fans of Roy Rogers may have thought
the album would spotlight a majority of blues tracks.
Roy
Rogers: “I don’t really consider myself a real traditional
blues artist and never have. I’ve always wanted to stretch it. Even though I have
covered my fair share of Robert Johnson stuff, I always feel that certainly in
the blues, I respected enough where you have to make it your own and have to
work with it. I don’t care if it’s in a Captain Beefheart kind of way or the
traditional blues. The whole thing about the collaboration with Ray is … he was
a Southside of Chicago kid and I didn’t know that when I first met him. He said
I remember when music shifted from “How Much is That Doggie in The Window” to
“Hoochie Coochie Man” (All laughing). I said, well that was about ten years
before I was around, because Ray was eleven years older than I was. But I don’t
really consider myself real traditional although I’m obviously known for that
slide guitar kind of thing.”
Ray
Shasho: When was the last time you saw your musical partner Ray Manzarek?
Roy
Rogers: “The
last time I saw Ray, we were discussing the artwork for the album. He was
leaving for Germany to go to this place to kind of detox and he had gotten a
bad diagnosis but was certainly going to take it one day at a time. Then he’d
come back and who knows maybe play a few shows, well he never made it back
obviously. It’s just ironic because it was very important for the both of us to
get the record out. So I’m just happy to get it out, I sort of held it for a
bit and was vacillating between how should I do this, it was awkward. So I just
decided to release it, music is made to be heard. There’s no agenda, its good
music, its fun music and a great testament to our collaboration.”
Ray
Shasho: When did you and Ray Manzarek first meet?
Roy
Rogers: “We met about eight years ago here in the bay area.
He used to do solo shows. Sometimes he did shows with Michael McClure, they
would do the poetry and then he would backup Michael. Ray would sometimes do solo
shows and he would do mainly Q&A’s and answer questions about The Doors and
Jim Morrison. Then he’d go into… this is how I played the intro to “Light My
Fire” and that sort of thing. It was kind of a one on one with Ray. The guy
that was booking him as a solo artist was the same agent that booked my band. He
said you know Ray is doing a solo show why don’t you go sit in with him. So I
called him up and Ray heard of me, so I took my little amp and sat in with him
and it was just one of those situations man … instant simpatico.”
Ray
Shasho: Did you ever think one day that you’d be collaborating with The Doors
legendary keyboardist?
Roy
Rogers: “I used to always kid Ray …I was a blues aficionado
from ‘day one’ so I wasn’t a big fan of The Doors. All I wanted to do was to see Muddy Waters and
Howlin’ Wolf. So I used to laugh and say, Ray, it’s so ironic because I wasn’t
a big fan of you guys, obviously I knew you guys and he’d say … “Well to hell
with you Rogers!” (All laughing) He’d
say …“Okay we’re going to play “Love Me Two Times,” are you sure you want to
play this one Rogers?” (Laughing)”
“Our friendship really started from a duet and we
travelled actually a lot. We did a couple of tours in the Midwest and one back
east, and this was as a duet and before the band. We also cut a fairly obscure
record as a duet called Ballads Before
the Rain … no vocals, no blues, and completely instrumental, mainly
acoustic guitar and piano. That was really the gelling of the friendship.”
Ray
Shasho: What were your future plans with Ray?
Roy
Rogers: “He’d always do the stuff with Robby Krieger and
continued to do so and toured with him, so this was a parallel universe if you
will. We were definitely planning on promoting the record and our next meeting
was going to be … Now what songs are going to translate live? Some songs
translate better than others when performed live. So that was going to be our
next meeting. So we were greatly looking forward to touring it, but he had a
pretty good run of it didn’t he.”
Ray
Shasho: Did Ray know he was sick or was it unexpected?
Roy
Rogers: “Totally unexpected.
We did a last tour in Hawaii in February, four dates on four different islands
and he had a great time. He did say he was getting a little tired but that’s
all. I said Ray we’re all tired after the tour and he said, “Yea, well I think
I’m gonna go to the doctor when I get home.” So one day he goes to the doctor
and within two or three weeks he got a diagnosis that nobody wants to hear. He
wasn’t sick for a long period of time because he was really diagnosed in the
first part of March and was gone by the middle of May.”
“He was a very deep cat. I called him a renaissance
man. He wrote books, he was obviously in a film, interested in a lot of
different music. We didn’t always talk about music; we had very similar
political leanings and both liked to read a lot of good books and he was a very
well-read. He was just a very interesting guy. At the memorial they had for
him, that echoed to just about everyone who got up and spoke. They said the
same thing, from the earliest days to the present; he was that same kind of
guy. He was the steadying influence type of guy.”
Ray
Shasho: When you worked with John Lee Hooker it was much like how Johnny Winter
helped Muddy Waters?
Roy
Rogers: “When I had Johnny in the studio with “Hook,” there
was the analogy for both of us. Of
course all those great records he
produced for Muddy. It was very similar. Johnny was very close in friendship
with Muddy from what I’ve read and the same for me and Hooker. We had a very
close friendship. I had toured with John and was in a lot of situations with
him on the road as well as in the studio. When you can make music like that
with geniuses in their own right, guys like Muddy and guys like “Hook” they can
dig as deep as you can go when they feel like it. Not many people can even
think about doing that. To see those guys dig down on stage, if they feel like
it, and they’re in the mood, it’s a done deal and they own it. It’s just a
great thing to behold and how that can move people so dramatically.”
“I just took my kids to see The Rolling Stones and
they’ve never seen them before. Of course I’d been a fan of The Stones for a
long time and saw them when they first came out. My kids loved them. Here are
these guys in their late 60’s and early 70’s, and whether you like them or not,
they still know how to rock. They had a bare bones show and not all the bells
and whistles that they had before. It was a juggernaut man and it still amazes
me, and the audience can rise and fervor, almost like a revival meeting (All
laughing).”
Ray
Shasho: I’ve been patiently waiting to ask you this question, have you ever met
the Cowboy Roy Rogers?
Roy
Rogers: “Are you kidding me … three times! Here’s my
favorite Roy Rogers story. I was nominated for a Grammy the same year as Roy
Rogers the Cowboy. He was nominated with Clint Black in a different category
for a song he did. I was nominated for a song I did with Norton Buffalo who I
did some records with, for a song I wrote called “Song for Jessica” when my
daughter was born. So you got two Roy Rogers. They still held the Grammy's in
New York at Radio City Music Hall at that time. Roy and I were staying at the
same hotel and they completely screwed up the phone calls. So we both go there and
his son Dusty was with him and I get to meet him. I’ve got this great picture
hanging on the wall with me smiling with this sh*t eating grin on my face and
Roy has his arm around me. Its Roy and Roy both wearing our medallion things
when you’re nominated, everybody’s a winner type of thing. Neither one of us
won the Grammy. So I had a great conversation with Roy.”
“The best part of the story, honest to God truth …
My wife and I are going to leave, I’ve got a car coming to pick me up and take
us to JFK. I’m out in front of the hotel and the driver comes and looks at me
and says, “Roy Rogers, I’m a big fan of slide guitar, it’s a pleasure to give
you a ride to the airport.” So we’re half way passed the East River on the way
to JFK and the dispatcher comes on and says … “Who the hell do you have in the
car?” The driver says, “I’ve got Roy Rogers.” The dispatcher says, “No, you
don’t!” The conversation between the driver and dispatcher then went like this
… “Wait a minute, is he a musician?”…
“Yea”… “Was he nominated for a Grammy?”…
“Yea”… “Does he have a hat on?”… “Yea” … “Well, is he the cowboy?” … “No man,
he’s the blues musician.”… “Dammit, you’ve got the wrong guy!”
So, I got Roy
Rogers limo to the airport. I got the wrong car, isn’t that great? He probably
never forgave me for that. He was supposed to pick up the other Roy Rogers. I
will probably laugh about that till my dying day (All laughing).”
Ray
Shasho: That’s a great story Roy! How were you treated in grade school with a
name like Roy Rogers?
Roy
Rogers: “Are you kidding me, I wore my cowboy boots about
one day and then I never wore them again (All laughing).”
Ray
Shasho: Roy, here’s a question that I ask everyone that I interview, If you had
a “Field of Dreams” wish, like the movie, to play or collaborate with anyone
from the past or present …who would that be?
Roy
Rogers: “Man, there’s too many to go there, but it would
certainly have to be doing something with either Robert Johnson or up to either
a Captain Beefheart or Keith Richards. Captain Beefheart was a fascinating
character; he influenced a lot of people and not for everybody, but that’s
okay. I think that’s the thing for me. You said collaboration, sure we’d all
like to sell as much music as we can, but you don’t have to try and make music
for everybody, you just want to make good music. Miles said it best; there are
two kinds of music, good and bad. Robert Johnson would have been so
interesting, not just only because he’s a ‘Blues God’ of sorts, but the guy
could have gone electric. It would have been very interesting to see where he
would have gone. That’s how I think of that. His capabilities would have taken
him to a lot of different realms if he was out of his traditional one. So that
would have been interesting for sure. Keith Richards I’ve always liked.”
“If I had better chops it would probably be somebody
like Ben Webster because I dig that kind of stuff completely, it moves me.”
Ray
Shasho: Roy, what are your future plans?
Roy
Rogers: “I’m starting to woodshed now for my next project.
Although there are a lot of different directions that I could go frankly and I
haven’t decided which one. I could make a solo record and if I have the
material do maybe the singer/songwriter thing. I love collaborating and would
like to do possibly a big band record with slide guitar, which has never been
done. My secret desire would be to make another Wall of Sound record. I’m not
talking about a Phil Spector type of Wall of Sound but a new approach to that.”
“It’s going to depend on the material for me
frankly. That was the thing about Twisted
Tales … Ray already had some great lyrics and I already had some stuff, it
was really a back and forth thing about arranging and writing the tunes and
those were in place. We had a lot of those lyrics from Michael McClure and Jim
Carroll, so that helped things.”
“I could also do classic covers. That would really
cover much more of a range of material, not just blues, but maybe even do some
standards that I think would translate for slide guitar.”
Ray
Shasho: Roy,
thank you for being on the call today and more importantly for all the great
music you’ve given us and continue to bring. Come to Florida soon!
Roy
Rogers: “Good talking with you man, I wish you success with
your project and it’s always great to talk shop. Look for me to come to a
festival there, no plans, but maybe sometime next year.”
Purchase Twisted Tales the latest album by Roy Rogers and Ray Manzarek at amazon.com
Roy Rogers official website www.roy-rogers.com
Ray Manzarek official website www.raymanzarek.us
Roy Rogers on Facebook
Roy Rogers on Myspace
Very special thanks to Billy James of Glass Onyon PR
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