Timeline: 2000s
Ray releases his first novel, “The Poet in Exile”. The plot of “Poet” examines what might have happened had Jim faked his own death. Ray said he had dreamt of this scenario many times and almost felt compelled to write the book.
On September 3, 2002, Ray and Robby embark on an epic ten-plus year musical journey that would include hundreds of live shows, four lead singers, two drummers, two bass players, and one lawsuit. In the end, Ray and Robby did what they loved to do, and that is play the music of The Doors. In the process they gave new generations of fans the gift of experiencing the music of The Doors in a live setting.
After living in Los Angeles for over forty years, Ray and Dorothy decide to leave the city of angels and move up north to wine country. In Napa, they find an old farm house that they buy and renovate into their dream home.
Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers’ collaboration began in 2004 when the manager they shared suggested they get together. Their first few gigs consisted of Roy coming out as a special guest during Ray’s “Evening of Spoken Word” tour, where they played a few songs together. This evolved over time into the “Manzarek Rogers Band”, full fledged tours, and the release of three CDs of music.
“Love Her Madly” was Ray’s first digital feature film. Ray summarized the film as a “story of love, obsession and murder set on a college campus,” which was loosely based on a story told to Ray by Jim. The film includes cameo appearances by Manzarek and McClure and the DVD includes some great bonus features. A soundtrack was also put out in conjunction with the release of the film.
Ray mentioned in many interviews his interest in Electronica and dabbled in it somewhat with the “Love Her Madly” soundtrack. This release, a collaboration with Polish jazz musician Piotr Bal, would be his only foray into that genre of music.
When news of Ray’s second novel “Snake Moon” was announced, here is how Ray described the book on his website: “Snake Moon is my next journey into novel writing. It is a Civil War ghost story. A tale of the supernatural, forbidden love, and man’s greed and folly set in the South of 1863. The idea came from my interest in things Americana, the world of phantoms, and the possibility of transubstantiation. Could the world of solidity somehow be joined by the world of the shades? And what is it that drives men to risk everything for the feeding of their egos? Rick Valentine is the co-writer. We wrote Snake Moon as a film script and then, after I couldn’t sell it as a Hollywood or indy flick (Cold Mountain had just come out and put a halt to all other Civil War projects – big bucks to make and no return), I decided to turn it into a novel using both my new words and Valentine’s original script. Our friend Rick Schmidlin was to have been the producer of the film, as he was the producer and story creator of Love Her Madly.”
On November 8, 2006, The Doors held a special event on the Sunset Strip to celebrate their 40th anniversary as a band. The festivities included a John Densmore poetry reading at Book Soup, a Robby Krieger “listening party” at the Whisky a Go Go previewing the new “Perception” box set, and Ray Manzarek and Ben Fong Torres at the Cat Club (next door to the Whisky) doing a Q&A along with a Ray solo performance. Copies of a new coffee table book, “The Doors by The Doors” were made available and all three Doors signed copies for fans. The highlight of the evening would be Ray and Robby’s live concert at the Whisky where they ran through a setlist of Doors songs along with a group of special guest musicians. Before the concert, a ceremony was held onstage with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame conferring historic landmark status to the Whisky a Go Go.