ABOUT
Retrovention is a CELEBRATION of the music and legacy of The Doors. Their attention to musical detail and authenticity is a shared passion for each member of the group.
It has been relayed to the band on several occasions that if "you close your eyes, you are there." They have made it their mission to deliver a show that promises all of the sights and sounds of a Doors show while honoring the legacy of the greatest rock band in HISTORY!!!!
Retrovention is:
Jim Heil "Jim Morrison"-Vocals
Brian Cunningham "Robby Krieger"-Guitar
Troy Bausch "Ray Manzarek"-Keyboards
Dave Janes "Jerry Scheff"-Bass
Dave Robinson "John Densmore"-Drums
WHAT'S WITH THE BASS PLAYER?
Everyone knows that the legend of The Doors comes complete with the fact that The Doors performed without a bass player. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek's left hand took up the mantle holding down the low end on a Rhodes keyboard bass.
This was more out of necessity than design. The original incarnation of the group, Rick and the Ravens included Patty Sullivan on bass. Eventually, Patty was relieved of her duties as things "just didn't work out." They soon discovered that a bass player would disrupt the already palpable psychedelic chemistry that had developed between them. Perhaps they couldn't find the right fit. They hit the sunset strip as a quartet and the rest is history.
Or is it?
Many people do not know that The Doors used several bass players in the studio at the behest of producer Paul Rothchild, to fill out the low end since the Rhodes didn't really have the punch that he wanted. These bass players were tasked with playing the bass lines exactly as Manzarek performed them. The first being session musician Larry Knechta who would go uncredited in The Doors self-titled debut LP in 1967.
Several bassists would go on to work with The Doors as "ghost bassist" such as
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Doug Lubahn
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Harvey Brooks
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Ray Neopolitan
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Lonnie Mack (Roadhouse Blues and Maggie McGill)
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Jerry Scheff
This is where fate would intervene. The Doors offered Jerry Scheff a full-time gig as their bassist, with the intent to take him on the road after the release of LA Woman. The looming legal issues plaguing the band would prompt Morrison to head for Paris with on-again-off-again wife Pam to lay low after finishing overdub tracks for Riders on The Storm.
In Myth and Reality: The Spoken Word History, Manzarek recounts the last time he spoke to Jim and a supposed phone call Jim made to drummer John Densmore. According to Manzarek Jim called John and said "Man as soon as I get back we got to go on the road. I want to play these songs live" referring to the tracks from the now released LA Woman album. He continued, "We never got to play those songs live" and Densmore added, "We could take a bass player with us".
Jim said "yeah we could take that guy that played with us, that Gary Scheff guy". Manzarek noted that call took place in June, Jim would pass away a little less than a month later on July 3rd 1971.
Jims untimely passing would deprive the world of one of its most iconic and polarizing front men and herald the end of The Doors as we knew it. His death would also lay waste to Jerry Scheff's short-lived stint as the 5th Door, and we would never know what The Doors would have looked and sounded like as a quintet
Until now.
PATTY SULLIVAN
JERRY SCHEFF AND ELVIS
"THE GYPSY'S HAD NO HOMES. THE DOORS HAD NO BASS. BUT DONT LET THAT SCARE YOU MY FRIEND, LET THAT LIBERATE YOU"
-THE KIDS IN THE HALL
"WE COULD TAKE A BASS PLAYER WITH US". JIM SAID "YEAH WE COULD TAKE THAT GUY THAT PLAYED WITH US. THAT JERRY SCHEFF GUY"
-RAY MANZAREK
