[Postcard2] RIP Bob Bogle

[Brad Bechtel]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2009342986_bogleobit16.html

Bob Bogle, Ventures' guitarist, dead at age 75
By Ernest A. Jasmin

Bob Bogle — co-founder of legendary Tacoma garage-rock band, the  
Ventures, and the architect behind the distinctive guitar sound of  
early hits "Walk, Don't Run" and "Perfidia" — has died.

Mr. Bogle, a resident of Vancouver, Wash., was 75 when he died on  
Sunday. He suffered from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and had been too frail  
to play with the Ventures in his waning years. But he lived long  
enough to see his band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in  
March 2008.

Mr. Bogle became ill over the weekend and was taken to a hospital  
where he died, according to Ventures co-founder Don Wilson, Mr.  
Bogle's friend and musical collaborator for more than five decades.

"Even though you know it's gonna happen, when it does, it's like a  
bomb dropping on you," said Wilson, who lives in Sammamish.

"Boy, I tell you, he's the brother I never had," he said. "And he is  
much more than any brother could be. He and I were partners for, like,  
52 years. And to tell you the honest truth, we had never, ever had an  
argument in all that time — never."

Friends, peers and admirers recalled the lack of ego that accompanied  
Mr. Bogle's virtuosity.

"He was a very creative, talented person," said Buck Ormsby of the  
Fabulous Wailers, the Tacoma band that paved the way for the Ventures  
with their 1959 hit "Tall Cool One."

"He looked like he was so relaxed in everything he did," Ormsby said.  
"... And he was a great guy, just one of the nicest guys you'll ever  
want to meet."

Seattle radio disc jockey Mark Christopher spearheaded a campaign to  
get the long-overlooked Ventures into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame  
when he was with Seattle oldies station KBSG-FM.

"It was just a privilege to meet him and just an honor to know that he  
did get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw that before his  
time," Christopher said. "That was a biggie for me. I just wanted to  
make sure the guys, because they were getting older, at least got to  
see something like that before their time came."

Wilson recalled selling cars in Seattle in the late '50s, when Mr.  
Bogle walked into his dealership one day. Wilson was struggling to  
make commission. And when he learned that Mr. Bogle worked  
construction, Wilson asked if he could get him a job.

"That's why we started working together," Wilson said. "And then we  
found out that we each knew a few chords on the guitar, you know, and  
we had a lot of free time on our hands. But neither of us owned a  
guitar."

The two men bought a pair of guitars and a chord book at a downtown  
Tacoma pawnshop in 1958, aspiring only to find easier work headlining  
local nightclubs. But fate had so much more in store for them.

The Ventures scored their first hit with a remake of a Chet Atkins  
song called "Walk, Don't Run" in 1960. It would become one of the most  
influential songs in rock history, sparking a remarkable run that saw  
the Ventures chart with 38 albums between 1960 and 1972 en route to  
more than 100 million records sold.

"That song started a whole new movement in Rock 'n' Roll. The sound of  
it became 'surf music' and the audacity of it empowered guitarists  
everywhere," said Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, as he  
inducted the Ventures into the rock hall of fame last year. "Every  
guitar player on this planet knows what I'm talking about."

While Nokie Edwards eventually took over as lead guitarist for the  
ventures, Wilson recalled how Mr. Bogle laid the foundation for the  
Ventures' innovative sound.

"If you listen to 'Walk, Don't Run' and 'Perfidia,' the lead guitar is  
just totally unique," Wilson said. "He used that vibrato bar — they  
call it a whammy bar — and he used it like nobody else.

"Nobody had heard anything like it. That was why 'Walk, Don't Run' was  
such a monster hit. I run across so many people, guitar players —  
famous ones — and they say the first song I learned was 'Walk, Don't  
Run'."

Funeral arrangements are pending. Wilson expected services to be held  
on Thursday or Friday.