10/08/2024
When I was just learning to play guitar, my brother Patrick was in a band who called themselves The Castles. Why the Castles? Because my dad was in the US Corps of Engineers and their logo was a castle, so he brought home a decal that the boys placed on the kick drum.
During that time Patrick taught me how to play rhythm so that he could play lead. Of course, he taught me House of the Rising Sun and a few other tunes, but primarily, he taught me rock guitar standards that were covers by the band The Ventures.
I learned H***y Tonk, Night Train, Walk Don't Run, Pipeline and so many more. For work out the other day, I thought I would listen to a couple of classic Ventures albums, 1960s Walk, Don't Run and the 1963 Ventures Play Telstar, The Lonely Bull and other hits.
The Ventures came together in 1958 and consisted of Don Wilson playing rhythm guitar, Bob Bogle lead guitar and bass, George Babbit on drums. Over the years, the personnel changed withy Nokie playing exclusively lead and Bob playing bass.
The single, Walk Don't Run launched the band into the stratosphere and the album contains a bunch of great tunes that feature guitar, bass and drums and nothing else. There are the tunes Morgan, Raunchy, the jazz standard Caravan, Sleep Walk and the others mentioned above.
On Telstar, the title track leads the way along with other standards including Calcutta, Never On Sunday, Tequila, Red River Rock, Apache, Green Onions and the novelty tune Percolator as well as others. For Telstar, the budget had increased and the band now included an organ, horns and even a bouzouki provided by un-named studio musicians.
The guitar work is pre-surf guitar surf guitar and mostly covers of other tunes, but always done in a very creative and interesting style, from the arrangements of some of the jazz tunes like Let There Be Drums. Their skill set was far ahead of their rock contemporaries and influenced countless rock guitar masters including the Beach Boys Carl Wilson.
All of the original four members are gone, but popped in and out of the band for nearly five decades and the band continues to tour and are especially popular abroad. Give them a listen and you will see that rock music wasn't all three chord Monty in the early 60s.
