NEW YORK, NY.- Don Wilson, co-founder of the instrumental rock group the Ventures, whose twanging, hard-driving sound, propelled by his dynamic rhythm guitar, led to hits like “Walk — Don’t Run” and helped shape the surf music of the early 1960s as well as influencing generations of guitarists, died Saturday at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. He was 88.
His daughter Staci Layne Wilson confirmed the death.
Don Wilson and Bob Bogle formed the group that became the Ventures in the late 1950s and had been having modest success performing in the Seattle area when, with Nokie Edwards on bass and Skip Moore playing drums, they recorded “Walk — Don’t Run” in March 1960. It was their version of a song by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith that had previously been recorded by Chet Atkins.
They had already released one 45 rpm record; they formed their own label, Blue Horizon, with the help of Wilson’s mother, to do it. But that first record didn’t generate interest, and neither did “Walk — Don’t Run,” until they played it for Pat O’Day, who had the afternoon show on the Seattle radio station KJR. He smelled a hit.
The station always played an instrumental leading into its newscast at the top of the hour, but without introducing it, O’Day said in an interview for “Sonic Boom! The History of Northwest Rock, From ‘Louie, Louie’ to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’” a 2009 book by Peter Blecha. “So we put it on every hour as that filler there,” he said, “and of course you know what happened after that.”
What happened was, callers flooded the station wanting to know what that catchy record was. One of the callers was from Dolton Records, which had earlier turned the fledgling group away. Dolton signed the Ventures, and soon the record had reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It stayed on that chart for months and became one of the most recognizable songs of the era.
The group went on to have a number of other successful singles, most notably its version of the theme from the television series “Hawaii Five-0,” which made the Top 10 in 1969. The lineup shuffled a bit — Bogle, who died in 2009, switched to bass; Edwards, who died in 2018, was the better player and became lead guitarist; and Mel Taylor, who died in 1996, settled in as drummer. Wilson pounded out his rhythm accompaniments for 55 years, turning over the job to Ian Spalding, son of another current member, Bob Spalding, during a show in Tokyo in 2015.
In 2019 the Grammy Museum mounted an exhibition in honor of the group, calling the Ventures “the most influential, best-selling instrumental band in rock and roll history.” The group, the exhibition said, has recorded more than 250 albums, including a series of instructional records aimed at novice guitar players.
Leon Taylor, Mel’s son, is the Ventures’ current drummer and had a close-up view of Wilson’s impact.
“Don has been a part of my life since I was a little kid,” he said by email. “Don was a unique talent that influenced thousands of guitar players all over the world.”
Blecha, too, cited the group’s influence on would-be guitar players, as well as its chutzpah in putting out its first records on its own label when no one else would, something rare for the time.
“But beyond all that,” he said by email of Wilson in particular, “you just gotta admire a musician who carved out such a lucrative and impactful career playing mainly rhythm guitar. Guys who have accomplished that comprise a rather short list.”
Donald Lee Wilson was born on Feb. 10, 1933, in Tacoma. His father, Woodrow, was a car salesman, and his mother, Josie, became a record producer and was key to the band’s early success.
“When I was younger I wanted to learn how to play the trombone,” Don Wilson said in an interview for “The Ventures: Stars on Guitars,” a 2019 documentary directed by his daughter Staci. “I thought the trombone had such a mellow sound. It was Tommy Dorsey that I really liked.”
He played trombone in an Army band, where a bandmate taught him some chords on the guitar, adding to the few he had already been shown by his mother. After mustering out, he was working at his father’s used-car lot in Seattle when Bogle came in, looking to buy a car. They started talking and hit it off.
Bogle got Wilson a job working with him as a bricklayer. They soon realized that, with all the rain in the Pacific Northwest, they had a lot of down time, since many of their jobs were outside. And both of them had rudimentary guitar skills.
“We bought two guitars in a pawnshop in Tacoma, Washington, and we probably paid 10 or 15 dollars apiece for them,” Wilson said in the film.
The group was just the two of them at first, Bogle playing lead and Wilson playing rhythm. That, of necessity, led them to develop a unique sound, underpinned by Wilson’s driving approach.
“In the early days Don had to play very rhythmic and strong because they didn’t have a drummer,” Bob Spalding, who first played with the group in 1981 and joined for good after Bogle’s death, said by email. “Later, when they became a quartet with a drummer, his style never changed, and that unique rhythm guitar drive became a prominent characteristic of the band’s music.”
In addition to their success in the United States (where their other hits included “Walk — Don’t Run, ’64,” a remake of their own hit that also made Billboard’s Top 10), the Ventures became wildly popular in Japan — so much so, Wilson said, that numerous bands there took to imitating them. That led to an uncomfortable surprise when the band made its second trip there, its first as headliners, in 1965.
“We had an opening group,” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1984, “and they played all of our songs before we went on.”
At his death, Wilson lived in Covington, Washington. In addition to his daughter Staci, his survivors include three other children, Jill Fairbanks, Tim Wilson and Cyd Wilson; and two grandchildren.
In 2008 John Fogerty inducted the Ventures into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In his induction remarks, he marveled that the group had recorded more than 250 albums.
“Good Lord, think about that,” Fogerty said. “Nowadays, some of us would be happy to sell 250 albums.”
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
