Doors Keyboardist Ray Manzarek to Join George Winston in New York City for September 26th special concert and media interviews on the Album

"I love George's playing. He has captured the essence of the Doors, and added his own unique voice," ... Ray Manzarek

Since first hearing Break On Through (to the Other Side) in 1967, solo pianist George Winston has been deeply inspired by the music of The Doors.

His new album, Night Divides the Day The Music of The Doors features 13 solo piano versions of some of The Doors' best known songs, including "People are Strange," "Love Her Madly," "Spanish Caravan," "Love Me Two Times," "Light My Fire," "Riders on the Storm," "The Crystal Ship," as well as other more obscure Doors compositions.

Windham Hill will release Night Divides the Day The Music of The Doors on October 8. Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek will join Winston in a special performance at Society Hall, at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in New York City, on September 26. Winston and Manzarek will be available for media interviews on September 25 in New York City.

George's favorite instrument to listen to when growing up was the organ, and before he had learned to play, he was always looking for records that featured it. In 1967 when he heard the first Doors album, it changed his life, and it was the major impetus for him to start playing.

"When I heard the first song on side one, "Break on Through (to the Other Side),"to me it was the greatest piece of music I¹d ever heard (unfortunately, it didn't work out for me as a solo piano piece). It is a perfect song - the arrangement, dynamics, lyrics, the great jazz-influenced drumming and percussion by John Densmore, the beautiful guitar lines by Robby Krieger, the incredibly powerful and unique organ instrumental break by Ray Manzarek, with his simultaneously hypnotic bass lines, and those vocals by Jim Morrison. It was deeper to me than anything I¹d ever heard. It was also the first time I had ever really paid attention to the lyrics of a song, and the first time I had been that affected by a whole album, musically and otherwise."

Winston has listened to the Doors for over thirty years and they continue to inspire him to this day. "The Doors were also my main inspiration to record conceptual albums, especially Autumn." This latest album evolved out of the eleven Doors songs that he had arranged as part of the repertoire for the solo R&B piano dances that he is doing more and more of. Most of the music George is now working on is in the R&B style, inspired by the great New Orleans pianists Henry Butler, the late James Booker, the late Professor Longhair, and Dr. John, arranging soul, rock, slow dance songs, and standards into solo piano pieces. "The first volume of dance songs was to be the next album, but the Doors album moved ahead of it."

"The Doors are historically one of the great teams in music, or in any endeavor, for that matter. They were not just a singer with a back-up band. The four musicians wove around each other as equals, and created a synergistic whole, more than the sum of the parts."

Born in 1949, George Winston was raised primarily in Montana. The pronounced seasonal changes he experienced there became the primary inspiration for the music he would later play. When growing up, George preferred instrumental music, counting among his early heroes, Booker T and the MG¹s, Floyd Cramer, The Ventures, jazz organist Jimmy Smith and many other instrumentalists. He began playing organ in the summer of 1967 after graduating high school, and switched to piano in 1971, inspired by the recordings of stride pianist Fats Waller. At this time, George also created his own melodic folk piano style, which he would become best known for, and soon released his first solo piano album, Ballads and Blues 1972. Among his popular Windham Hill / Dancing Cat solo piano recordings are Autumn, December, Winter into Spring, Summer, Forest, Linus & Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Plains, and his 9/11 benefit recording, Remembrance.

Since 1985, George has continued to produce recordings by the great masters of the Hawaiian Slack Key guitar tradition for his label, Dancing Cat Records. Slack Key is the beautiful finger-style guitar tradition unique to the Islands, which began about 1830, preceding the steel guitar by about 60 years.

For information on George Winston, Night Divides the Day and current U.S. tour dates, please visit

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p.s. Since it was recently announced that The Doors would be playing a second date as part of the Harley 100th Anniversary tour on September 27th in Toronto, it looks like this is well-coordinated for Ray to be in NYC on September 26th for this performance, and then swing on up to Toronto for the Harley show the following evening!

Ida