No One Here ...

Sorry to read that local music guy Ray Manzarek has passed from this mortal coil, & by dying. The first resulting Doors memory we've spotted of any interest is this, about local gigs at high schools. This one occurred at Birmingham High, which had a stadium at Victory & Balboa.

Hey, whatever happened to The Merry-Go-Round?

(No more idle questions, M.B.: It's the Internet. The mere typing of a word, name or phrase tells all.)

The Merry-Go-Round were a Los Angeles based pop band, best known for the singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes and featuring Joel Larson on drums, Gary Kato on lead guitar, and Bill Rinehart* on bass. The band released only one album, The Merry-Go-Round.

Oh, right, Emitt Rhodes. Got big & left the group, didn't he?

Back to the subject, Chris Morris reminisces.

I have to admit that I didn’t completely understand the Doors until after I moved to Los Angeles in 1977. I’d missed the band’s hometown salad days by a decade, and never saw them live. ... I appreciated ... Manzarek’s wheeling, exhilarating organ work, but the “poetry” was a stretch for me, even as a self-inflated teenager.

Also from Morris's tumblr:

Long, long ago.

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