That Great Venture in the Sky

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Bob Bogle, founding guitarist-turned-bass-player for the Ventures, died June 14. He was 75 and had been fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But before that, he and his band released more albums than Bob Dylan and Neil Young combined. Their popularity in the States peaked in the 1960s and early ’70s, but they remained hugely popular in Japan, where their records outsold the Beatles’ two-to-one. And the Ventures didn’t have a singer, which makes them the most popular instrumental band ever, ahead, even, of the legendary Booker T. & the MGs. (Not that those dudes weren’t wicked popular, too, it’s just that they didn’t make, put out and sell so many goddam records. The Ventures sold more than 110 million. For comparison’s sake, Michael Jackson sold 108 million copies of Thriller. In total he’s sold somewhere around 300 million records. At the time Thriller was released, he was making $2 on every copy. That’s a lot of money to lose on chimps and nose jobs.) Back to the Ventures. They pre-dated the advent of surf music, but then kind of came to epitomize it. “Walk—Don’t Run” is probably their most famous tune. That’s Bob Bogle on lead guitar, recorded before he switched to bass. Look it up and give it a listen. And tip your 40 in honor of Bob.

One more thing: In the late 1950s, when Bob bought his first “real” guitar, a Fender Strat, it came with six half-hour lessons. Those were the only lessons Bob ever took. In 2008, he and the rest of the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which also inducted Jackson “The Guy with Three Fans: Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen and Jann Wenner” Browne, but that’s another story).