It always interests me how history is re-interpreted by each new generation. For example, a month ago in Russia Vladimir Putin began rattlings that Joseph Stalin was a great leader and wanted to resurrect his memory. What that means is to reinvent the man and ignore him as Hitlers’ bunkmate for the greatest genocide expert of the 20thCentury. In music it’s even sadder because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has ignored groundbreaking acts in favor of the latest flavor.
Case in point, The Dave Clark 5 and The Ventures just received their inductions this year, an honor that should have been bestowed on them fifteen years ago - or at least around the same time as The Kinks or The Who. This is especially true for The Ventures who, except for Duane Eddie, defined instrumental guitar music and provided a soundtrack for the early 1960’s.
Every band we knew, including us, played the Ventures. We wore the records out trying to capture the sound and even cranked up our amps in the church hall to get the echo right. Pipeline was a right of passage. It was also a good guitar study because a novice learned repetition on different strings and then you had to go up to the B - which was tough. Walk Don’t Run took a lot of practice but it was so satisfying when you finally got it. And I can never forget the long glissandos - sliding notes - in Apache. In fact a who’s who of guitar players learned to play listing to Ventures LP’s: George Harrison, Joe Walsh, Stephen Stills, Roger Glover, Jeff Baxter.
The best thing about The Ventures is that you didn’t have to sing. That is what made their music sell internationally. In Japan they out-sold The Beatles 2 - 1. Whatever was hot at the time the Ventures recreated it on disk. Space, the “Secret Agent” craze, television themes, etc. But their biggest hit was television’s Hawaii 5-0, arguably one of the most popular TV themes of all time.
For pre-Beatles influences of modern music The Ventures take the top prize.