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My Musical Journey with The Ventures (Part 1)
By: arnoldvb Date: July 5, 2012, 11:18 am
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My Musical Journey with The Ventures
From my earliest childhood memories, I know that music
(especially instrumental music) has always been a big part of my
life. I remember that, as a little boy of 4 or 5 years, my
father had 78-rpm records that I liked to listen to. One of
these was a sort of recorded fairytale in which a boy who was
learning to play the piano is sucked into a world inside the
piano and has an adventure there, something like Alice going
down the rabbit hole or into the mirror. I wish I could
remember the melody or the name of the song that was so central
to that story. I often wonder if it was something I would like
today.
I also remember that, around that same time, my father had a
record with the song “Ebb Tide,” which I wanted to hear over and
over again. It began and ended with the sound of crashing waves
and seagulls calling, and the melody was hauntingly beautiful,
even for this little boy. In later years, I searched high and
low to try to find that exact version of “Ebb Tide” but I never
did find it. I think “Ebb Tide” was the true beginning of my
love for instrumental music.
[Note: I just looked up “Ebb Tide” on wikipedia and saw that it
was written in 1953 by lyricist Carl Sigman and composer Robert
Maxwell, and that one of the best-known versions was by Frank
Chacksfield & His Orchestra. I then went to amazon.com and
found Chacksfield’s version, which sounds like my childhood
mystery version of the song. I’ll be ordering that CD tonight!]
Another early musical idol of mine, again thanks to my dad’s
78-rpm records, was Glenn Miller. The sound of the instruments
playing off one another in intricate patterns just captured my
imagination and my senses. My father also had records with
other big band orchestras from the 1940s, but the Glenn Miller
Orchestra was my favorite. My passion for Glenn Miller grew
even more when, sometime later, I saw “The Glenn Miller Story,”
a 1954 movie adaptation of his life which starred James Stewart
as Glenn Miller and June Allison as his wife. (It airs
frequently on Turner Classic Movies.) I was heartbroken to
learn that Glenn Miller died when his military transport plane
disappeared over the English Channel in 1944. “Moonlight
Serenade” still remains one of my all-time favorite songs from
any era. Thanks to modern technology and the internet, the
music of Glenn Miller lives on and just last year I found a
10-CD boxed set on amazon.com that included 200 classic Glenn
Miller tracks, at a cost of only $30. Most of those tracks are
now part of my iPod playlist.
As stereo began to grow in popularity during the early
1960s, my father replaced his old 78-rpm record player with a
33⅓- rpm stereo console and started collecting stereo
albums, many of them by more recent instrumental artists, such
as Enoch Light’s “Persuasive Percussion” series on the Command
Records label and themed boxed sets from the Longines
Symphonette Society (which I was able to salvage from my parents
home after a 1989 hurricane -- more on that later). Again, I
was fascinated by the interplay of the musical instruments, now
with the added novelty of having them bounce around from left to
right in stereo.
My father had an auto repair shop on the island of St.
Thomas, where we lived, and I would hang out there doing odd
jobs on Saturday mornings. Always playing in the background was
our only radio station at the time, WSTA, and on Saturday
mornings they counted down the week’s Top 40 Hits. This was
probably my introduction to pop music. I liked most of it and
got into the habit of using my small weekly allowance to buy
45-rpm singles with some of the songs that I liked best. Of
course, that included Elvis Presley, but also Bill Haley, Paul
Anka, Frankie Avalon, Petula Clark, The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean,
The Temptations, The Supremes, and The Beatles, among many
others. But in 1964, while riding with my father in his car on
a waterfront road on St. Thomas called Veterans Drive, I heard
an instrumental rock and roll song on the radio that would
change my life forever.
It started with what sounded like a rocket blasting off and
then an organ, electric guitars, and drums kicked in with a
sound that took my breath away. That song was “Telstar,” named
after the world’s first commercial communications satellite.
“Telstar” was a big 1962 hit by the British band The Tornadoes,
but the version that I heard on the radio was the much richer
and more powerful version by an American band called The
Ventures. I knew I had to get a copy of that record and,
luckily, I soon found the album “The Ventures Play Telstar and
The Lonely Bull” listed in a magazine advertisement for the
Columbia Record Club. Now I had a new way to spend my weekly
allowance!
When my copy of “The Ventures Play Telstar and The Lonely
Bull” arrived, it was an instant love affair for me and the
music of this exciting instrumental band. I had to have more!
I started looking in magazine ads, local record stores (only two
at the time), and the Columbia Record Club’s monthly catalogs
for other albums by The Ventures. I soon found out that The
Ventures had been recording since 1960, and I had a lot of
catching up to do. Eventually, I was able to get all of the
albums by The Ventures before the “Telstar” album, and I
continued to order newer albums from the Columbia Record Club as
they were released. I clearly remember that one album, “The
Ventures Play the Batman Theme,” arrived in the mail the same
day that the island was preparing for the arrival of a
hurricane. I wanted to rush to listen to my new treasure, but I
first had to help my dad board up the house for the approaching
storm.
The music of The Ventures also inspired me to try to play a
musical instrument and, at Christmas in 1965, I received a
simple drum set consisting of a snare drum and a set of cymbals.
My parents probably soon regretted giving me that gift, because
I would lock myself in my room and beat the heck out of that
drum, trying to keep in time with whatever Ventures record I had
playing. But, although I could keep time with the basic beat of
each song, I quickly realized that I really wasn’t cut out to be
a drummer.
The following Christmas, I got my first guitar, an
inexpensive model from the Sears Roebuck catalog. I really
don’t remember the make, but it had a beautiful glossy sunburst
finish and came with a small amplifier. Luckily for me, around
that same time, The Ventures started releasing a series of “Play
Guitar with The Ventures” albums that included a booklet with
diagrams showing where to place your fingers in order to play
some of the band’s favorite songs. The accompanying record
played each part (lead, rhythm, and bass) for each song, first
at half speed, then at full speed, and then in a karaoke version
with each part missing. Using these instructional albums, I
soon learned to play such instrumental rock and roll songs as
Walk Don’t Run, Tequila, Memphis, Wipe Out, Pipeline, Let’s Go,
Diamond Head, Secret Agent Man, and several others.
By this time, I was in high school and I convinced three of
my closest classmate friends on the idea of forming a band. We
called ourselves “The Screamin’ Eagles” and started to get
together to practice. Unfortunately, we graduated and went our
separate ways before we ever had a chance to become good enough
to play in front of an audience, and our musical careers came to
an end. I still picked up the guitar every once in a while to
practice, but I was going to college and was soon buried in the
books and the studying.
Backtracking a bit, in 1958, Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, two
construction workers in the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington
state who shared an interest in playing guitar, met and soon
became good friends. With the help of Don’s mother, Josie
Wilson, they formed a band, originally choosing the name “The
Versatones.” But that name was already taken by another musical
group, so Josie suggested “The Ventures” because they were
“venturing” into a new career. By 1960, The Ventures had their
first hit single climbing the Billboard Top Hits charts. By the
mid-1960s, The Ventures had started using a new make of guitar
by a company called Mosrite Guitars. These guitars had a very
distinctive shape and a raw, overdriven sound that lent itself
to the popular music of the time. Even today, owning a vintage
Mosrite guitar is the dream of every Ventures fan. The Ventures
later stopped using the Mosrite guitars and went back to the
tried and true Fender guitars, with other assorted makes thrown
in every once in a while. Don’s son now sells a line of guitars
fashioned in the style of the Mosrite, but bearing the Wilson
Brothers name.
Although they released 45-rpm singles throughout their early
career and had 14 singles on the Billboard Top Hits charts,
including the #2 hit “Walk Don’t Run” in 1960 and the #4 hit
“Hawaii Five-0” in 1969, The Ventures really came to be known
for their albums. These albums usually had a theme and included
instrumental cover versions of popular songs of the day plus
original compositions by the band members that fit the theme.
This proved to be a very popular concept, and The Ventures
eventually had 37 albums on the Billboard Top Albums charts
during the decade of the 1960s. Three of these albums, “The
Ventures Play Telstar and The Lonely Bull” in 1963, “Golden
Greats” in 1967, and “Hawaii Five-0” in 1969, earned Gold Record
status. Thanks to these accomplishments and worldwide sales of
more than 100,000 albums, The Ventures achieved the distinction
of being the most popular and successful instrumental band in
rock and roll history.
By the early 1970s, The Ventures’ music had mellowed a bit
from the hard rocking, overdriven guitar sound of the Mosrite
guitars, but they were still producing wonderful music that kept
pace with the changing trends in popular music. But the record
labels with which The Ventures had begun their career, Dolton
Records and its parent company Liberty Records, were eventually
bought out by Universal Artists, which seemingly did not promote
The Ventures as prominently as had Dolton and Liberty. It
became harder and harder to find The Ventures’ new recordings,
and the last one that I bought was a 1973 double album called
“Only Hits.”
I was now out of college, working full-time in a new job,
and dating my eventual wife, Helena (who I embarrassingly tried
to serenade with an acoustic guitar). I lost touch with The
Ventures and believed that they must have broken up, because I
just wasn’t seeing any new albums by them in the music stores or
in magazine ads. Little by little, my musical interests went in
other directions, but always to bands that included a strong
guitar line -- Santana, Steppenwolf, Led Zeppelin, Iron
Butterfly, Three Dog Night, Fleetwood Mac, and many others. At
one time, I was on a business trip to Washington, DC and, during
a lunch break, stopped into a downtown record store to see what
was on the racks. Over the store’s PA system was playing an
other-wordly guitar instrumental piece that included a section
of Ravel’s “Bolero” like I had never heard it before. The song
was called “The Bomber” and the band playing it was The James
Gang (with lead guitarist Joe Walsh). I’ve never regretted
purchasing that album, “The James Gang Rides Again,” on the
spot. I later had the opportunity to see The James Gang and
Santana performing live, in separate concerts.
Although my musical tastes had broadened since the 1960s, I
still loved and listened to those classic Ventures albums in my
collection. Sometime in the early 1980s, I dubbed my entire
Ventures collection to compact cassette tapes. I also made a
second copy of the tapes to play in my car stereo. Little did I
know that in 1989 almost my entire record collection, including
my prized Ventures albums, would be destroyed by Hurricane Hugo.
Hugo tore through the Virgin Islands in September of that year,
pulling the entire roof off of our home and scattering almost
all of our personal belongings everywhere. I was devastated,
but at least I still had one set of cassette tapes in the car
with a copy of my prized Ventures music.
It wasn’t until 1990 that I had any inkling of something new
being released by The Ventures. It was a compact disc (CD)
called “Walk Don’t Run: The Best of The Ventures” with 25
classic Ventures tunes, sounding crisp and new in this new
electronic medium. After that, I again lost track of the band
and mourned the fact that my musical heroes were no longer in
existence.
Luckily, with the advent of the internet, a few years later
I started to search for information about The Ventures. What
ever happened to them? Were they still together? Had they
recorded any new albums? Eventually, I connected with several
other fans of The Ventures who were asking the same questions.
Then, in 1996, news broke that Mel Taylor, the band’s drummer
for most of their history up to that time, had died of lung
cancer. This news brought out other fans and, in 1997, an
unofficial online fan club called “Underground Fire” (after one
of The Ventures’ 1969 albums) sprang into existence. I’m happy
to say that I was one of the founding members of Underground
Fire and that this unofficial online fan club is still very
alive and very active as of July 2012.
Again, through internet connections and correspondence
between the Underground Fire members, we learned that, in fact,
The Ventures had never broken up. As their popularity in the
United States started to decline in the late 1960s/early 1970s,
they concentrated their recording and live performance efforts
in Japan, where they were musical idols to almost the entire
country. Through the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and continuing today
into the 21st Century, The Ventures have been recording new
music that is being published mainly by Japanese record labels
and performing concert tours of Japan every summer. We fans in
the United States had a LOT of catching up to do!
Thanks to two budget record labels, See for Miles Records in
the United Kingdom and One Way Records in the United States, in
the late 1990s the entire back catalog of The Ventures’ albums
from the 1960s and 1970s became available in CD format, with two
albums on each disc. These were originally available at budget
prices of about $10-$15 each. Also, thanks to online outlets
like amazon.com, ebay.com and several Japanese sources like
cdjapan.co.jp and hmv.co.jp, I was able expand my Ventures
collection with copies of those rare Japan-only albums released
by The Ventures throughout the 1970s and beyond.
Up to this time (late 1990s), although I had been a fan of
The Ventures for almost 35 years, I had never actually seen them
perform -- live or otherwise. They had appeared on Dick Clark’s
American Bandstand and other TV music shows like Shindig in the
early 1960s, but I hadn’t seen those performances. I did catch
a short glimpse of them in a 1985 ABC-TV summer special produced
by Dick Clark, but they basically were on a beach stage
“finger-synching” to recorded versions of a medley of some of
their biggest hits followed by the “Hawaii Five-0” theme. Again
thanks to the internet, I eventually was able to obtain several
concert videos that were produced and released in Japan. The
first of these that I got was “Japan Tour `93,” a 2-hour
performance on stage in Japan. It just blew me away to actually
be seeing and hearing my long-time musical idols performing on
my living room TV. Of course, they played many of their popular
hit songs, but they also had an acoustic set where they put down
the electric guitars and played some wonderful ballads,
including several beautiful Japanese songs. Wonder of wonders,
the two of the band members also each sang two songs, including
“Runaway” and “Pretty Woman.” Late in the performance, the lead
guitarist played a beautiful, soulful instrumental version of
“House of the Rising Sun,” going down into the audience while he
was playing and letting the audience members lovingly touch his
arms as he walked by! The grand finale (as it often is for The
Ventures’ live performances) was an extended version of the old
classic “Caravan” that included a brilliant 10-minute drum solo
by drummer Mel Taylor. This was very poignant because I was
viewing this video a year or two after Mel had died of cancer in
1996. Although it was just a video I was watching at home, it
was produced with such loving care and the performances were so
dynamic that I felt like I had just seen The Ventures on a live
stage.
NOTE: The system says my post is too long, so the rest is in
Part 2.
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