Photo: The Ventures in 1957 (promo) | The Ventures were an American instrumental rock band, formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington, by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle. The band, a quartet for most of its existence, helped to popularize the electric guitar in the United States and across the world during the 1960s. While their popularity in the United States waned in the 1970s, the group remained especially revered in Japan, where they tour regularly to this day. The classic lineup of the band consisted of Wilson (rhythm guitar), Bogle (initially lead guitar, switched to bass), Nokie Edwards (initially bass, switched to lead guitar), and Mel Taylor (drums).
Their first wide-release single, “Walk, Don’t Run”, brought international fame to the group, and is often cited as one of the top songs ever recorded for guitar. In the 1960s and early 1970s, 38 of the band’s albums charted in the US, ranking them as the 6th best album chart performer during the 1960s, and the band had 14 singles in the Billboard Hot 100. With over 100 million records sold, the Ventures are the best-selling instrumental band of all time.
The Ventures have had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. The band was among the first to employ and popularize fuzz and flanging guitar effects, concept albums, and twelve-string guitars in rock music. Their instrumental virtuosity, innovation, and unique sound influenced many musicians and bands, earning the group the moniker “The Band that Launched a Thousand Bands”. Their recording of “Walk, Don’t Run” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its lasting impact, and in 2008 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Formation and rise to fame
Don Wilson and Bob Bogle first met in 1958, when Bogle was looking to buy a car from a used car dealership in Seattle owned by Wilson’s father. Finding a common interest in guitars, the two decided to play together, while Wilson joined Bogle performing masonry work. They bought two used guitars in a pawn shop for about $10 each. Initially calling themselves the Versatones, the duo played small clubs, beer bars, and private parties throughout the Pacific Northwest. Wilson played rhythm guitar, Bogle lead. When they went to register the band name, they found that it was already taken. Disappointed, they cast about for an appropriate name. Wilson’s mother suggested the name “The Ventures”, upon which they eventually agreed in 1959.
After watching Nokie Edwards play at a nightclub, they recruited him as bass player. Bogle owned a Chet Atkins LP, Hi-Fi in Focus, on which he heard the song “Walk, Don’t Run”. Soon, the group was in a recording studio playing the new song, with Bogle on lead, Wilson on rhythm, Edwards on bass, and Skip Moore on drums. They pressed a number of 45s, which they distributed to several record companies. Later, Skip Moore opted out of the group to work at his family’s gas station. When “Walk, Don’t Run” was recorded, he also opted out of the royalties from the recording, taking $25 for the session instead. He later sued to collect royalties but failed because of his prior opt-out. “Walk, Don’t Run” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
Needing a permanent drummer for the group after George T. Babbitt, Jr. dropped out because he was not old enough to play night clubs and bars, they hired Howie Johnson and, in the midst of a fast-paced touring schedule, recorded an album to capitalize on the success of the single. (Babbitt went on to become a 4-star general in the United States Air Force (USAF) and on March 1, 1998, he played live in uniform on drums with the band.) The lineup of Bogle, Wilson, Edwards and Johnson remained intact until 1962. The group found early success with a string of singles, but quickly became leaders in the album market. The Ventures were among the pioneers of concept albums (starting with 1961’s The Colorful Ventures) where each song on several of their albums was chosen to fit a specific theme. Some of the Ventures’ most popular albums at the time were a series of records of dance music. In the early 1960s “golden age of hi-fi”, with the novelty of stereo still in its experimental stages, the Ventures found their characteristic style of recording each instrument in either the extreme left or right channel, with little (if any) cross-over, enhancing the stereo effect to its fullest limits.
In 1961, Edwards, a talented guitarist in his own right, suggested that Bogle’s lead guitar abilities were being stretched, and that they were in essence wasting Edwards’ talents by keeping him on bass. Bogle agreed, and rapidly learned the bass parts to all their tunes, allowing Edwards to take lead guitar full-time, although he had played lead previously on several tracks on their first studio sessions/albums. This move would prove vital in modernizing the band’s sound, ensuring success in an ever-changing market well into the late 1960s.
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Read more of the bio here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ventures
Photo: Trade ad for The Ventures’s album “Super Psychedelics”. To better adapt it to his respective Wikipedia article, the ad was cropped and cleaned in a graphics editing program.
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
More tragic losses of musicians. We are going to miss them so much. If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
January 2022
26: Ludmila Ferber, 56, Brazilian Christian singer-songwriter and writer; Janet Mead, 83, Australian Roman Catholic nun and singer (“The Lord’s Prayer”), cancer.
25: Hardev Dilgir, 82, Indian lyricist (“Tere Tille Ton”), heart attack; Andy Ross, 66, British music executive.
24: Osvaldo Peredo, 91, Argentine tango singer.
23: Beegie Adair, 84, American jazz pianist.
22: Aki Rahimovski, 66, Croatian-Macedonian singer (Parni Valjak); Kirti Shiledar, 69, Indian classical singer; Don Wilson, 88, American Hall of Fame guitarist (The Ventures).
21: Piero Parodi, 86, Italian folk singer and musician; Terry Tolkin, 62, American music journalist and music executive (Elektra Records, Touch and Go Records, No.6 Records).
20: Emil Mangelsdorff, 96, German jazz musician; Meat Loaf, 74, American singer (“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”, “I’d Do Anything for Love”) and actor (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), complications from COVID-19; Juro Metšk, 67, German composer; Tom Smith, 65, American musician (To Live and Shave in L.A., Peach of Immortality), colon cancer; Elza Soares, 91, Brazilian singer; Karolos Trikolidis, 74, Austrian conductor.
19: Nigel Rogers, 86, English tenor; Rafael Rojas, 59, Mexican operatic tenor.
18: Dick Halligan, 78, American musician (Blood, Sweat & Tears) and film composer (Go Tell the Spartans, Fear City), Grammy winner (1970); Paavo Heininen, 84, Finnish composer and pianist; Badal Roy, 77, American tabla player, percussionist and recording artist, COVID-19;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2021
Don Wilson, Co-Founder of The Ventures, Dies // Other Notable Musicians Deaths
