Doors guitarist Robby Krieger may have written most of The Doors hits ("Light My Fire", "Love Her Madly", "Love Me Two Times", "Touch Me" etc.) but he's really an unassuming and down-to-earth cool guy. When you witness a rock and roll songwriter mega-god dropping names like John Coltrane, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, John McLaughlin, Larry Carlton, Charlie Byrd, Pat Metheny and Jim Hall you ought to soak it up and write about the experience for eternity, and beyond that too.

I'm the Director of Photography for a documentary in which the working title is "Jazz Guitar" whose target audience includes rock fans. So when we went to Los Angeles to shoot I had to suggest we try to interview Robby Krieger. Every other guitarist we've interviewed has been strictly a jazz musician but I read many Doors books and knew Robby and Doors drummer John Densmore were heavily into jazz before they decided to start a rock and roll band with Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. We got in touch with The Doors' publicist through Kerry at The Doors Collectors Magazine and Robby must have been intrigued because he himself called us back right away. Figuring he might be tired of answering questions about the old days with Jim we respectfully assured him that we were curious about how jazz influenced him. Of course we hoped that he would naturally link the Doors and jazz in some way. He invited us over to his house overlooking the hills of Los Angeles and there we were -- at rock star Robby Krieger's door. We tried to stay cool. The door opened and there stood the Man himself dressed in a black "Fender Nashville" t-shirt. He looked less like a rock star and more like someone's cool uncle but we already had a problem to report: one of our crew had stepped in a dog pile. Robby casually offered up his garden hose, which did a splendid job, and he then led us through his house and up to his studio. That put us all at ease.

There is nothing quite like meeting the person who was responsible for creating the music that most speaks to your soul. The Doors have been my favorite band for half my life and I knew I'd remember this day for the rest of it. We started the interview, as we have throughout the film, asking him to state his name, where he was from and what guitar he played so he said, "Robby Krieger, Los Angeles California, Gibson SG guitar". But I forgot to tell him that this idea was actually inspired by the Doors! We ask every person we interview for this film to do this because I love the now famous black & white film footage, (which was re-enacted for the movie "The Doors") where someone asked all four Doors members as they got off the plane on their first concert tour of Europe to "state your name, age and profession." - oh well. The interview started and he knew right away what we were getting at and made a link between jazz and The Doors in the same sentence for a perfect sound bite: "the Doors - we were all pretty much into jazz." Thank you Robby! I'll save the meat of the interview for the film but here's a nugget -- a genuinely bold statement burst out of my guitar hero that assured I'd be hired by this Director for the rest of his life: "It's kind of a shame - ya know - it's our national Heritage (jazz), it should be taught in school -- more people in Japan know about our jazz players than they do in the U.S."

After the interview was over, I had to take the opportunity to tell him that I was inspired by a funny thing the Doors used to do when they were at a snobby party where they didn't care for the people, they would make fun of them by saying, "Let me say this about THAT!" Robby enlightened me to the fact that, "Oh yeah, that was a Nixon thing (quote) -- actually some guy imitating Nixon!" As I packed up my camera and lights we chatted about Johnny Cash's last album "The Man Comes Around" but, actually - we didn't just chat about it. We discussed it as if it was one of the best, most soulful and emotional albums ever made. Then he told us a story off camera that I think is unbiased proof that he's a modest down-to-earth guy -- now don't forget that we are talking about a member of the most popular band in America during the most fertile time in the history of pop music... possibly half the creative force behind one of the most influential music groups of all time..... and the man who penned the lyrics to one of the most broadcasted songs ever - 'Light my Fire' for pete's sake! For some reason, we got on the subject of baseball and he told us a story of how he went to a Dodger game and it happened to be 'celebrity day' where a bunch of famous people were at that game. Robby talked as if he was happy to be amongst celebrities... as if he wasn't one!

To see Robby Krieger in a trailer for the "Jazz Guitar" documentary please go to www.archtopproductions.com and type in the password "django."

Please feel free to contact Director David Korn with any comments, questions or to explore opportunities in supporting completion of the film.