Keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, Ray Manzarek, has died of cancer aged 74. He had been battling bile duct cancer for many years.

 

The news was broken yesterday evening on The Doors' official Facebook page, where it said that Manzarek passed away at 12:31pm yesterday (Monday) at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany. Manzarek was surrounded by his brothers Rick and James and his wife Dorothy when he passed.

Manzarek's bandmate Robby Krieger paid his respects in a statement, saying: "I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today. I'm just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him."

The Doors were formed in the mid-1960's after a chance meeting between singer Jim Morrison and then film studies student Manzarek in Venice Beach, Los Angeles. The band split after Morrison's death in 1971, but Manzarek released a number of solo albums and wrote several books.

The Doors have sold more than 100 million albums across the globe and Manzarek has come to be recognised as one of the most prominent keyboardists of the last fifty years.