Lead guitarist and cofounder of 60’s super group The Ventures gone.
Bob Bogle whose incendiary fretwork on such super hits as Walk Don’t Run and Hawaii Five O influenced millions of rockers passed Sunday in Vancouver at age 75.
Don Wilson, who co-founded the Ventures with Bogle in the 1950s said the cause was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma which Boyle battled for the past 12 years.
Bogle and Wilson learned to play guitar while working as construction workers in Tacoma during the 1950s, forming the Ventures in 58.
"A year and a half later, we had a number two hit called ‘Walk — Don’t Run," Wilson said after hearing the distinctive ditty on a Chet Atkins LP.
Hit after hit followed including "Wipe Out", "Telstar", "Perfida", "DiamondHead", "The Theme from Hawaii Five-O", "Batman" and many other singles while 38 Ventures albums cracked the Billboard Top 200 charts.
In Japan, they were adored – total Ventures-mania in the land of the rising sun!
At the induction ceremony for The Ventures into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty said, "It’s enough to say, the Ventures are the most popular instrumental band of all time."
And the finest.
