The Doors in a 1966 Elektra Records publicity photo; Manzarek is in shades third from left

Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist who brought both a light jazz touch and some seriously heavy piano-pounding to one of the most influential American bands of the late '60s and early '70s, passed away earlier Monday, according to CBS News. He was 74.

By most accounts, including the one in Oliver Stone's 1991 biopic The Doors (though Manzarek was no fan of the movie, to say the least), it was Manzarek who was most responsible for the band's formation, convincing his fellow former UCLA student Jim Morrison to channel his poet/shaman/lizard-king talents into rock and roll.

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Photo by Marco Torres

Stevie Wonder at the 2011 ACL Music Festival

My dad and Stevie Wonder have a love/hate relationship. He's a year older than the soul singer, so it's rather weird hearing him talk about Stevie as if they were brothers, despite the fact that they have never met. Ever. But that's how it is with my family: we have beefs and issues with people we may have never met, all because of what they've either done musically and publicly.

Wonder is a great, a legend whose music stands not only the test of time but who continues to work awards shows as if he were promoting a brand-new album. (He also turned 63 Monday.) From tribute shows to things that look like barbecue cookouts with the production budget of the VMAs, Stevie and his dreadlocks are there, behind the piano singing one of his classics.

Which brings me to this past Sunday, Mother's Day. My mom, who by and large enjoys more soul music at night than any woman alive, probably would have otherwise gone to Corpus Christi to see her cousins and hang out with her sister, who is her best friend by eons and eons and easily the most understandable person in my immediate family.

"What did you get your mom for Mother's Day?" he asked.

"Nothing," I told him.

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Horseshoe on Facebook

Scott Daniels, right, with Horseshoe's Ken Jones

UPDATED (Monday, 10 a.m.): Corrects Daniels' moving to Austin, and adds information on the burial service and memorial.

UPDATE 2: Comments from Daniels' girlfriend, Candyce Prince have been added.

Scott Daniels, longtime Houstonian and guitarist for Carolyn Wonderland and Horseshoe, has passed. Like many rock and rollers, Daniels had long suffered with the demons of addiction and alcohol.

According to longtime friend and Horseshoe drummer/producer Eddie Hawkins, Daniels passed away around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, and was actually scheduled to check into rehab Monday for three weeks. Daniels was 43.

However, Daniels' girlfriend Candyce Prince says the guitarist had been seeking treatment in a local outpatient program for the past three to four weeks and, despite what Hawkins told us, was not headed to any inpatient facility. She discovered Daniels' body about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, she added.

"I miss him," she told Rocks Off Monday afternoon. "I love him. He had an immense talent. He was getting back on his feet -- everybody was getting a happy vibe from him."

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Ed. Note: Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, a founding member of the band, passed away Thursday in Southern California due to liver failure, according to Rolling Stone. Hanneman, 49, had contracted the flesh-eating disease necrotizing fasciitis, which doctors believed was the result of a spider bite, and stepped away from Slayer in early 2011. In late September 2010, he was part of the Jagermeister tour that stopped by Verizon Wireless Theater (now Bayou Music Center) with Megadeth and Anthrax. Former Rocks Off staffer Craig Hlavaty brought us this report.

Photos by Groovehouse

Slayer live is a force of sound, probably the closest you can get to true calamity without being outright noise. Like a freight train, there are no stops. If you get hit or run over, that's the breaks.

But, Good Lord, does it have a groove to it. We are probably only one of seven people in the world who think Slayer has a head-nodding, hip-shake to their music. A band stamping on human ear drums forever. And of course we had to be on the barricade.

The band began their set with "Hate Worldwide" and the title track from from last year's World Painted Blood. A man behind us screamed every single lyric in our ear, while a father and his 11-year-old son threw up metal horns and headbanged.

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Most of the music world is still a little stunned this morning after Chris Kelly, one-half of '90s rap duo Kris Kross, was found dead at his Atlanta-area home Wednesday. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the 34-year-old Kelly was found unresponsive and taken to the Atlanta Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Fulton County police Cpl. Kay Lester told the paper that Kelly's death was being investigated as a drug overdose.

Sparking an unlikely fashion trend by wearing their hats, jerseys and jeans backwards -- everything but their footwear -- Kris Kross gave an injection of pop energy and fun to a rap world then dominated by streetwise gangsta culture when their album Totally Krossed Out appeared in March 1992. Both Kelly, who rapped under the name "Mac Daddy," and his partner Chris "Daddy Mac" Smith, were 13 years old at the time.

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Rockdoc via Wikipedia

Today Ray Parker Jr. turns 55 years old, and many happy returns to the man. Likely the only thing most of us know about him is that he penned the ever-catchy theme to Ghostbusters... though Huey Lewis claims Parker just ripped off "I Want a New Drug" with the tune. You can certainly hear the similarities, and the two parties settled out of court on the matter.

Parker isn't just a one-trick pony, though. He's had a very nice career penning Top 10 hits, playing with legends like Stevie Wonder and The Spinners, and just all-around living the good life of a working musician who knows his way around a good line.

So for those of you that may only associate him with paranormal '80s comedies (Or to a lesser extent a pretty silly cartoon) I thought I'd introduce some of his other work. Happy birthday, Mr. Parker. You bring good things to life.

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UPDATE (April 27, 11:25 a.m.): Charles Mingus was not trained as the New York Philharmonic's principal bassist, but was trained by the orchestra's Herman Reinschagen.

True story: once, we were entertaining some people at home and my rat terrier, Mingus, got loose and began mingling with the guests. Because he's an insufferable attention-seeker and since people are nice and tend not to be threatened by terriers, a woman petted him and asked what his name was.

I told her and she said, "Oh, yeah, like the kid from Boy Meets World. Is there another one somewhere named Topanga?"

The woman was asked to leave my home immediately.

Okay, that last bit isn't true. But I did have to momentarily shelve my jazz snobbery and explain that 1) the fictional TV nerd's name was actually Minkus; and 2) my dog was named in honor of one of jazz's geniuses, Charles Mingus.

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Photo by Jim Dyson

Richie Havens, the gentle-giant bearded folksinger who became a fiery voice of protest in the 1960s and christened the 1969 Woodstock Festival with a three-hour set that was later highlighted in the 1970 movie Woodstock, passed away earlier today. He was 72 and died of a sudden heart attack at his home, according to an email from PR agency LiveLoud.

"While his family greatly appreciates that Richie's many fans are also mourning this loss, they do ask for privacy during this difficult time," the statement said.

A native of Brooklyn, known for his finger-picking style and open tunings, Havens became part of the same Greenwich Village folk-music scene that included Bob Dylan and eventually changed the course of rock history, if not the entire '60s, supplying a social conscience to music that had previously been about dancing, surfing and chasing girls.

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Photo by Craig Hlavaty

On this day in 1965, what was then called the Harris County Domed Stadium opened to the public. These days the Astrodome sits mournfully overlooking the empty lot that was Six Flags Astroworld, a testament to the fact that no one can think of what to do with an enormous structure that has outlived its original purpose.

Still, for me and millions of others the Dome remains a place of power and memory.

I saw my first concert there as part of the rodeo celebrations, and shared many great concerts later. Though I didn't attend, it warmed my heart to watch Wrestlemania XVII filmed live from the Astrodome. My heart went out to the older stars as they were forced to walk the enormous path to the ring in the Gimmick Battle Royal. My best friend in high school and I were avid baseball fans that would take advantage of discount seats at every opportunity.

The Astrodome has also been mentioned more than once in the world of pop music. Today's playlist is dedicated to the old girl, with hopes that one day in the future there will be some way for her to contribute to the lives of Houstonians once again.

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When I had a heart attack in October 2011, an event brought on mostly by my unfortunate lifestyle decisions, my brain was deprived of oxygen for about 15 minutes. All I wanted to do when I came to, several days later, was read.

I couldn't. In the hospital, friends and family members brought me numerous books, issues of Rolling Stone, plus copies of The New York Times and even the Houston Chronicle. (Yes, the Press too.)

Art Attack:

Pop Rocks: Roger Ebert Has Died

The words swam around on the page. I knew what they meant individually, most of them, but following them one after another all the way to the end of a sentence, and then another one, I just wasn't up to. Not being able to comprehend what I was reading was more frustrating than not being allowed to use the bathroom under my own power, moreso even than the slowly dawning -- and completely bone-chilling -- realization of not only what had just happened to me, but what had just almost happened to me.

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